I've only been following Svbtle with passive interest, so I cannot recall or comment on how his responses may have been off-putting.
I would like to explain my hypothesis as to why he jumped on the fact that people copied the theme.
Consider pg's statement:
"it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations"
If you are building brand around a loose confederation of writers, decentralized between domain boundaries, then brand recognition (and, conversely, brand dilution) is an important issue.
Just to dig into your example a little further: Yes, the value in the NYTimes is the content. But if you can't tell whether the content is from the NYTimes or a knock-off competitor, then you don't get the value of recognition when you see something that resembles the NYTimes before you consume the content. So brand differentiation is important for value-creation.
As I said, I don't know how he addressed this question of brand dilution. Nor do I know exactly what the right way to preserve the brand of a loosely federated organization on the wild wild web. Perhaps a trademarked seal for all participating sites?
I would like to explain my hypothesis as to why he jumped on the fact that people copied the theme.
Consider pg's statement: "it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations"
If you are building brand around a loose confederation of writers, decentralized between domain boundaries, then brand recognition (and, conversely, brand dilution) is an important issue.
Just to dig into your example a little further: Yes, the value in the NYTimes is the content. But if you can't tell whether the content is from the NYTimes or a knock-off competitor, then you don't get the value of recognition when you see something that resembles the NYTimes before you consume the content. So brand differentiation is important for value-creation.
As I said, I don't know how he addressed this question of brand dilution. Nor do I know exactly what the right way to preserve the brand of a loosely federated organization on the wild wild web. Perhaps a trademarked seal for all participating sites?