The Next Internet Millionaire: Episode 2 – My Brand is Better than Your Brand

Ok, I have to say right off the bat that this is not my favorite episode. In fact, I feel kind of let down because I think it was boooring. What happened to the contestant interaction scenes?

We get to hear what happened between the contestants while they were doing the challenges, but the producers chose not to show much of the action. There’s a lack of energy (or maybe entertainment) during this whole episode and it comes off as dull, dull, dull. Oh yeah, and shortening the show’s running time didn’t make things more interesting. However, I think this is totally an editing problem.

I will give them two thumbs up for improving the sound quality.

Now, having said that, let’s get on with the show.

After brief commentary from Nico and Laura telling us how relaxed and ready they are, we jump right into the Hacker Safe Challenge. Gee guys, you could give us a little build up to it. Maybe warm us up with the contestants eating breakfast or something.

This week’s immunity challenge has our contestants creating their own blog using tools from a web host called 1&1. Joshua Sloan is the company representative, don’t know his title. He tells us about how great their tools and stuff are. Joshua says they are number one and host 4 million web sites – not too shabby.

The challenge is to write a 250+ word article and put it on their new blog. The catch is they must draw their article subject from a bowl. The subjects were taken from each contestant’s biography. So most of them will be writing about one of the other contestants interest.

Right away, Nico draws the exciting topic of Visual Basic. Needless to say, Nico and visual basic don’t mix. Hot guy from South American jungle writes about boring computer language. You can already see where this episode is heading. Hmmm, maybe there’s something more interesting on TV tonight. Oh, all right, I’ll keep giving you the scoop.

Oh great. Jason H. has another opportunity to tell us about his bunny rabbits – Piggly Wiggly and Bumpkins. He misses them. I’m sure they miss you too, Jason.

The contestants get 1 hour to create their blog, and off they go.

And done.

Okay, now the critiques.

Jaime got computer repair as her topic and tells us she’s never blogged before. She scores points for putting keywords in her post titles. Hey, I think we just learned something here folks. Maybe this episode isn’t a total waste of time.

Joel says she had formatting problems. Oh well, good job, Jaime, for it being your first ever blog.

Charles Trippy wrote about illusions (magic tricks). He let’s Joel and Josh know that he’s never done a blog before because he hates them. He even hates the word “blog”. Now we know the secret to getting on his nerves really bad. Just go up to him and start a conversation. Whatever he says, include the word blog in your answer.

You: Hi, Charles, what’s up?

Charles: Not much, what’s going on with you?

You: I just posted on my blog today.

Charles: Don’t talk to me about that. I hate those things.

You: You do? Why would you hate a blog? I mean, blogs are so cool. You can blog about anything. Today I blogged about my friend who also has a blog and we read each other’s blogs and laughed about what we blogged about.

Charles: Can you please stop saying that word?

You: What word?

Charles: Blog.

You: Why? What’s wrong with the word blog?

Charles: I don’t know. I just hate it, that’s all.

You: That’s silly. It’s just a word. I think blog is a great word.

Charles: Stop it.

You: Blog, blog, blog.

Charles: Shut up.

You: Blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog.

Charles: Ah!

Ok, back to the show. Charles does a screen shot of a person performing a magic trick and links that to a video. Joel is impressed with it.

Meanwhile, Thor thinks Charles is the best and will be calling him after the show with joint venture ideas. They could end up being the odd couple of internet marketing.

Thor: I’m a little bit country.

Charles: I’m a little bit rock and roll.

Trippy & Thor Enterprises. Kinda has a ring to it.

Thor tells us about his fashion blog. He sold men’s suits while in college so his blog focused on men’s suits, of course. Nothing fancy, but it looks nice.

Jason M. gets Costa Rica as his subject and focuses on the content. His blog title says “Welcome to Paradise!”. Joshua calls him out on not using the word Costa Rica in the title or in any links, which makes his blog very vague.

Laura writes about wake boarding, a topic she knows something about. Joel says she did better than he expected.

Unfortunately, we don’t see anyone else’s blog get critiqued.

And the winner of this week’s Hacker Safe immunity challenge is . . . Charles Trippy!

Yeah, the guy who hates blogs won the blog challenge. This proves that in spite of his laid back image, he’s a dark horse to win this competition. Why? Because it’s easy to do stuff you love, but hard to do well at things you hate.

Jason H. whines about Joel’s critique of his blog. Even though we don’t get to see it, his subject was financial advice. “I did not agree with Joel Comm’s assessment that I was too much marketing.”

Ok, here’s Thor’s gossip about this matter:

“I would love to see Jason Henderson go in the sandbox. Jason is a name dropper. He’s got a lot of knowledge . . . I could see him using that knowledge in key situations, like he did with the blogging this morning. I mean, it was all about name dropping . . . he stopped me afterwards and said, ‘I don’t understand why they thought my blog was about marketing’ . . . it’s cause you name dropped every marketer you could think of in, like, one paragraph.”

Armand Morin stops in to talk about branding.

It’s all about logos. Get yourself a logo, even if you’re small.

Armand says most internet marketing web sites look the same. Dark blue, white box with sales letter in the middle of the page and no clue as to who wrote the sales letter. Armand says this is not good enough. It’s very hard nowdays to get people to buy repeatedly from you. Branding will help customers recognize your products and services over non-distinct competition.

Armand will show the contestants how to design a brand around a product or service – this is supposedly easy to do. He mentions “obvious marketing”. A brand is much more than a logo, it’s the entire look and feel of it. He says the easiest way to make money online is to increase your look and feel. Basically, even if you haven’t got much money, you can look like you do by branding yourself with a nice logo and professional image.

The Execution Challenge: Create a brand new logo design for “The Next Internet Millionaire”

To keep the teams even in number, the BULLSEYE team gets to pick a player from the KISS team. They pick Jason M. A wise move, indeed. Team BULLSEYE calculates that without a strong presenter, KISS will be weak in presenting their concept.

Ok, let’s see how that works out for them.

They have 90 minutes. Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock.

Nothing interesting is shown to us during this segment. Joel offers them more supplies to work on their logos in exchange for four e-commerce chips. For one e-commerce chip, they can peek inside his basket of goodies to see if they want to use them. Ooooo, what’s inside that basket?

All I can see is some rulers and pencils. Shrug. I’m sure this stuff will help them, but it’s nothing tantalizingly great.

Seems like picking Jason M. has paid off for team BULLSEYE. He came up with their most important element for their logo. It’s a cut out of two human sillouettes shaking hands that forms an “M” for Millionaire. Pretty clever.

Team KISS is up first. Their logo is a box representing a computer screen with a question mark [?] symbol inside. Below that is a computer mouse with a $ sign that extends from a mosaic keyboard. In big blue letters next to the image they’ve written “Next Internet Millionaire”.

It’s creative and different, but will Joel like it?

Jaime is the chosen presenter and she does a good job filling Jason M’s shoes. Alisande says she is a major contributor to this concept.

Joel likes their creativity, but thinks the keyboard mosiac is a little edgy. Armand likes their idea of using the computer as a symbol. It makes you think of the internet right away. Joshua Sloane didn’t like their statement about the show appealing to everybody. He thinks their target market is too broad.

Team BULLSEYE is up next. Their “M” made out of sillouettes is the main focus of their logo. The rest of it is the words “Next Internet illionaire.com” in bold black lettering, and some smaller red lettering on a yellow background underneath. Can’t read what it says, sorry.

Nico is the presenter for his team and I’m sorry to say that he is terrible at it. He comes off as unsure of himself and his team’s concept. There’s a moment where he takes a long pause (must of forgotten what he was going to say). There’s just no excitement or energy in his speech or body language. He seriously needs to work on his public speaking skills if he’s going to advance much further in this competition.

Thor’s gossip about Nico as a presenter:

“We spent the whole time trying to give Nico words to use, but at the end we said, you know, Nico’s gonna say what Nico’s gonna say, and no amount of programming is gonna get this into his head.”

That’s okay, Nico. Some people just aren’t easily programmable (the good news is he’ll never be taken in by a cult). No matter, your status as this show’s stud muffin is still secure.

Joel likes the “M” sillouette, but is not crazy about the script font used for the bottom text.

Armand also likes the “M” and is impressed it was cut out of a piece of paper. However, he thinks there’s a little disconnect with the M and the “illionaire” wording. Joel agrees with this point.

Joshua thinks it’s a bit formal, but overall likes it.

And the winner is . . . team BULLSEYE.

The winners receive all of Armand Morin’s software products.

Off to the judgement room we go.

Jaime feels they came up with a good design. Maybe they didn’t use all the tools available to them.

Armand criticizes them for having their lettering crooked, especially since they had rulers. He thinks they did just good enough to pass. Jaime disagrees with this assessment, but admits they realized it wasn’t straight.

Joel compliments Jaime on her leadership style. I have to say that the audience didn’t have a clue this time around who the team captains were.

Alisand was a good co-leader and impressed Joel. Too bad we didn't get to see her in action.

Steve was floating around during this task. He admits he didn’t contribute too much. He’s not used to working in a group situation. Joel questions how Steve can see himself doing a joint venture since he works alone. Steve is asking himself this same question. Joel asks Steve if he wants it. Steve says he does, but that he’s young.

Armand advises Steve to not see his youth as a hinderence.

Ok, here comes the bombshell: Steve already makes 5 figures a month. That’s $$,$$$ per month! I think he should be doing some of the coaching on this show.

Joshua notices that Steve is the comic relief of the team, which could cause others to feel he’s not pulling his weight. Steve acknowledges his not being serious enough is a problem. You can tell Steve is really smart and seems like a great guy, but he has a playful spirit. I think this is only a detriment in formal, adult-like settings. He’s gotta learn how to turn his playfulness on and off.

Joel asks Steve point blank if he’s in this to win. Steve humbly says he’s here more to learn, but does want to win and set an example. Joel doesn’t see the hunger to win inside of him.

Jason H. was semi-invisible on this task. He says he was trying to back up Laura who had the key idea about having a sillouette. The team admits they considered this idea but didn’t think they could make it look professional.

Armand says simplicity is the key with this task. Their logo was too busy – had too many elements.

Laura’s lettering wasn’t good, and Laura agrees.

Alisande says she could do the lettering, but wanted to be a team player.

Joshua tells Laura that recognizing your own weaknesses isn’t fun or easy. Don’t be afraid to get help when you need it.

Laura at first refuses to name two of her teammates that she thinks should be eliminated. She doesn’t want anyone to hate her. Finally, Joel gets her to name two people. She picks Alisande and Steve.

There’s a brief argument among two team members about agreeing on the concept for the logo. Jason H. claims he pushed for the sillouette, Alisande strongly disagrees and states he said he liked her concept.

The two people targeted for elimination are:

Laura Martin and Steve Schuitt.

They are now both in the sandbox with Carly and Debbie.

Now it’s dirt dishing time.

Jaime gets to state her true feelings about Steve and Jason H. She really likes Steve and hated picking him for elimination. Um, so why’d you do it, Jaime?

Steve says he put out the wrong vibe about not wanting to win the contest. He plans to dig his way out of the sandbox. I hope so, Steve, since I don’t think we’ve gotten to see what you can really do yet.

Back to Jaime. She says that Jason H. has disappointed her the most. She’s worked on two projects with the big guy and both times he’s been a dud. Jaime calls Jason H. out for being two-faced.

During his confessional piece, Jason H. wants us to know that he thought the sillouette idea was best and says he brought it up three or four times. He thinks Joel wants him to “take over or something” since his speaking up isn’t doing the trick.

Apparently, when Jason H. is in the judgement room he talks a good game about his so-called leadership skills, but the reality is he knows he’s talking B.S. – he privately admitted it to Jaime.

You get the distinct feeling Jaime and Jason H. don’t like each other.

I didn’t like this episode much, but I’m still going to watch the next one.

Stay tuned.
Watch Episode 2 of The Next Internet Millionaire