Gary Vaynerchuk is going after the Oprah set. The wine wholesaler who launched a career as a Web video celebrity talking about wine and marketing just launched Obsessed, a new video talk show hosted by Samantha Ettus. With Obsessed, Vaynerchuk hopes to move beyond niche programming on the Web to appeal to a mainstream audience.
The format of the show is an in-depth 30 to 40 minute interview with guests that appeal to 25 to 55-year-old women. The first interviews on the site right now are with food writer Mark Bittman and floral designer Preston Bailey. Future guests will include Today Show travel editor Peter Greenberg, TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, and BlogHer founder Liz Stone. (They are working on some bigger names as well).
Ettus will host the show and be the main star, while Vaynerchuk will come on at the end for 3 minutes to talk about wine, which is his thing. He is the host of Wine Library TV and also serves up regular videos on gary vay•ner•chuk, mostly about marketing. “There is only so much content I can pump out,” Vaynerchuk say. “I need to own as many media properties as possible.”
Vaynerchuk and Ettus are co-producers of the new show. Each owns half of Obsessed TV, the production company behind the endeavor. Vaynerchuk’s other projects include a T-shirt search engine and Corkd, a wine rating site he promises to pay more attention to this year.
This is beyond lame
I wish I could get people to add •s to my name even within a sentence.
Yeah, I am getting a lot of lame fruit on the back pallet, a lot of studio-setting oakie munstah, a lot of fruit bomb, and a lot of “chemical lab” winery thing. I would give it a “pass”, just because it really is a super good idea, and because of Gary. Let’s just not think that the fact that Gary has mastered the medium, means anyone with a big surgically enhanced smile and candy-like cameo web “skins” can do the same. It just don’t work that way.
this•totally•sucked
eh
freefreebiefinder.com/
Doesn’t matter if he invests $1 Billion in his video empire unless he comes up with a good monetization model.
Agreed Malang and if I had a billy it would be going right towards the NY JETS
Congrats on the launch, Gary.
My vote goes to Etsy’s CEO for your next guest appearance. This is an interesting direction for you, but why the three minute segment at the end on wine? Is it really that complementary to the content this show will be running?
Anyway, looking fwd to the new Cork’d (I’m guessing that’s next)
chris I am jumping in at the end at times but this is Sam’s show
He sells wine.
I do man, hope to meet you and share a glass
yea, but how many times can you say “hey guys, try THIS new wine. its so awesome”.
With social media, douche bags continue to spread their douchiness.
Ironic. How does making a douche-baggy comment help the case, M?
Best of luck, Gary. Should be interesting at the very least. Killer FOWA keynote too.
M,
Why bother even making that comment?
The man is expanding is coverage to increase his brand.
Keep up the good work Gary
M hope to get to know u better so u can get to know me man!
Great response Gary, shows alot of class to even bother responding to a comment like that. Although, the use of the word douchebag as an insult always makes the 8 year old in me giggle a little…
M,
Are you jealous of Gary? What is stopping you from going out and doing what he is doing? So enjoying what you do for a living makes you a douche-bag?
Well soon I can’t wait to become one
“I’m a techcrunch commenter and I leave comments about people without being informed, having any real knowledge about the subject matter and I hide behind first names because I’m a whiny baby!”
Jesus, you guys just shut the hell up. Gary has done some very phenomenal things in technology since he entered the field just a couple of years ago. I met him last june at a Wine Library Event. I don’t really like wine and I’m not a fan of his show but I chatted with him in SF and I saw him again at BlogWorld in Las Vegas and his lifestyle, work ethic and ventures are very inspiring and worthy of an applause.
I believe Gary’s actions in the past few years in taking a small New Jersey wine shop and putting it on the web, going big time and making MORE money will be studied for years to come as new media and social media marketing begin to be taken seriously at colleges around the world. He took a chance and effing rocked at it and this is yet another stepping stone to take his brand and expand it to a broader audience. Anyone in tech, social media or new media marketing needs to shut up, pay attention and study what he’s doing because everything he does gives more credibility to what all of these new media marketers are doing and everything he does right can be borrowed and implemented into your own tactics.
You guys go start a freaking company already, or get busy and do some work at the job you have right now and stop pulling these guys back down with you with your own insecurities and utter bullshit.
Ditto what Adam said. Gary, you rock, man!
Yeah. People are 10 feet tall when they’re hiding and commenting anonymously from their mom’s basement.
Gary V. is a ROCKNROLLA! He’s doing his thing, and I’m loving it. I don’t care for interview shows so I may not be a regular viewer, however, I will subscribe and watch occasionally to show support. I’m sure it will be a great show just because he’s involved. And, he’s proven he knows his stuff.
Thanks, Gary, for continuing to share you creative endeavors and your heart with us.
Thanks, Adam, for the comment. I love your honesty.
Very well said! Those who can’t do anything like to talk. It is called “Envy.”
Completely agree – Gary is a case study in what the web is becoming: less talking heads and more heads of businesses.
I’m not a wine guy, but I am a marketing guy. Give genius its due. Gary has taken the game to a whole new level. He didn’t need to invent the social media market, but he’s shown us how to master it. Keep rocking, Gary. Drop a note when you’re next in Chicago or Milwaukee.
Good luck Gary! We’ll be watching…
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You guys are weak. Gary is just doing his thing. I’d say it’s a better than even chance this is his next big home run as his brand gets introduced to the mainstream.
I think this move is dead on. Forget guests, who have been on Oprah, my prediction is Oprah is on for an interview in under 2 years.
It’ll take time to build the fan base, but once again Gary is focusing on serving a dedicated target market who’s web based needs are yet to be met.
you obviously have no idea of the power of Oprah…
Congrats on the new venture. I hope the new show finds its audience and becomes a big success.
One reason Gary will win (again), he’s actually listening to your feedback and responding on this board.
-M
twitter: MikeRevolution
Gary – Great idea and the time for this type of lifestyle program online has come; your target audience has clearly been established through the mainstream media. This is a valuable piece of virtual real estate considering that this is a tech savvy demographic.
Best wishes with the project and congratulations on finding a great point for leverage.
James Holmes
http://www.Twit.../AskJamesHolmes
With all the sales I’m sure his Today Show appearances garnered, tapping into the Oprah set is straight genius.
I bet he’s got one of those big telethon dry-erase thermometers at his house with the current price of the NY Jets at the top – maybe this will get him to marker in a few more inches to the top.
Cheers.
Gary, we wish you all the best from Berkeley, CA. I’m pretty sure you won’t need it though – this looks like a gold mine. You have incredible content – now go hustle!
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It’s a new show. Like any new show, its quality will determine its success. Will it be unique, will it be valuable? His wine show is. His brand, supported through a commitment to social media, will open me up to sampling it. If he can get me and others like me to commit to it, he’ll make money. It’ll be another case of social media contributing to (but not solely responsible for) success
Love Gary, love the show, love win library. More power to you Gary!
Samantha Ettus is a class-act. I’ve been waiting to actually *see* this project as I’ve been hearing about it for a long time! Love it so far. And it’s cool to discover Gary Vaynerchuk, have not heard of him (okay, forgive me).
John aka OrganizingLA
Keep up the great work Gary.
I’m looking forward to seeing how Gary tackles this market and seeing how big he can make it!
Way to go Gary! Thanks for all you do! YOU ROCK!
Gary Vaynerchuk is this decade’s Crazy Eddie http://en.wikip...iki/Crazy_Eddie
He’s a liquor store owner who uses the internet to advertise. It’s not like he’s the first business owner to use their own face to advertise. This does not make him a media mogul.
or crazy gideon?
http://www.yout...h?v=5ODs4nxNnWM
Go on Maxine! Great video comment!
Good luck to Gary and the new show!
People will always be upset as others rise to the top. It’s a natural occurance of those who won’t take responsibility for the own success.
People who succeed take risks. This is the very reason Gary has done well. This is just another calculated risk for Gary and he wins regardless of the outcome.
If it becomes popular his goal has succeeded. If it flops he still succeeds because he he can take what he has learned and turn that knowledge into another opportunity. It’s a simple formula off those who take responsibility for success and become successful.
As Edison stated “if you want to increase your chances of success, you must increase your rate of failure”
Gary success shows he know this.
@zoe – What makes Gary a media mogul is that he parlayed a liquor store into a hugely popular web TV show that appeals to more than just wine snobs.
I challenge you to watch 1 episode of Wine Library TV… and not get hooked.
I guess you’re not aware that Crazy Eddie is a marketing genius?
“Crazy Eddie is a marketing genius” — Right up until they day they went bankrupt.
Is Gary as talented as they guys on the food network? Sure. But so what?
80K viewers is a poorly performing TV show on a niche cable channel.
Zoe I hope we get to meet and yap, I hope getting to know me better will at least shoe you I am trying and a good guy, we’ll see how this all turns out ( meaning the next 40 yrs of my career) but I promise you I will have fun and try hard as heck to make my family proud.
You’re right, 80k viewers is an awful TV show. But what does it cost to create and distribute a cable TV show vs. a web show?
And that 80k is only going up from here….
Exactly right – vast majority of sane people would kill for a regular audience of 80K, with low production costs. These things grow virally and exponentially. And cross-promotional possibilities make one salivate. Great job, Vaynerchuk! Or should I say “Jim Cramer x Martha Stewart of the Wine World”?
Gary,
Super job! You are a genius. You continue to inspire.
I appreciate you.
Jason
The show is cool and the opening is awesome. My only comment is to edit it in spots to tighten it up and set a nice pace and flow throughout the program.
There are people who will always have something negative to say, that’s just the way it is. Gary knows this and will answer each one with respect, and in most cases gain their respect back. Not sure if this new venture will succeed but kudos to Gary and Samantha for giving it a go! They’re in the game which is probably way more than the negative commentators can say.
Gary made wine exciting.
Good luck, Gary! Any way to get your name out there behind quality content is a good one!
I really don’t understand taking time out to make negative comments on people when you could turn that into a comment with some valuable info that can get you noticed more. Unless of course the them of your content is all about bashing people.
Brian
Love seeing the vay•ner•chuk nation out in full force here. They’ve got your back, Gary.
You know it!!!!
love it! Just checked it out and can’t wait for it go all out.
If you need a talk show producer, give me a shout out, thats my thing!
-Margaret
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I can see the stay-at-home and work-from-home Moms flocking to this thing. I think it’s a great move Gary. It may take a little while to catch on (I don’t think WLTV gained popularity overnight) but I think it will.
Ignore the haters. GV knows what he’s doing. This will expose him to even more people. Great work Gary.
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Gary is the man! How he does everything he does in the same amount of day that we all have, is just simply impressive! And I love how he even sneaks into articles without even knowing it! TV Guide? Nice!
O.K. First, congrats GVee!
I was going to respond to a lot of the comments and then I realized, this announcement was today, and I am not sure other than a product launch (apple, kindle whatever) there is so much noise!
I don’t care if it is positive or negative – Gary has impact, even if this sucks (and it won’t) he tried something and will very probably make moeny at it or at least impact some people’s lives!
and for our “douche bag” friend what did you launch today?
I don’t know who Samantha Ettus is (but she’s hot, not that it really matters. OK, a little bit). I vaguely recall hearing something about this Oprah chick.
But I know GaryVee, and I’d bet my next commission check that this thing will be wildly successful. Will I watch it? Of course not. I’m not a 25 – 55 year old woman.
But a bunch of them will.
Good luck Gary, f’ing KILL IT!
Um…huh?
25-55 women? lifestyle show?
I don’t know wine, so I didn’t know Gary’s wine show from a hole in the wall. I learned about Gary from the work he does in social media – specifically being a brand ambassador for AUTHENTICITY in your branding. So based on that I find this niche marketing thing he’s doing (for the older chicks) kind of…inauthentic. and I’m in the demographic for this show. I guess I’ll have to watch and see. and I agree tacking the wine thing on the end is odd.
Charlene thnx for the comments, Authenticity is the only way for sure, these guests are picked by Sam as people she really is obsessed with, me coming in at the end is just fun for Sam and I but I agree I can see it going away, thnx for your honesty
No doubt in my mind this is going to be a huge success. Why? Because Garyvee is attached to it and he won’t let it fail. Maybe it’ll take some tweaking, but Gary knows the game and will make it work. Better yet, Gary is the f’ing game, keep killing it!
Right on. Gary rocks, and I am not getting anything out of Sam. Sorry, Sam. One thing is to say “we are after Opera”, and it is a completely different thing to compel people to watch you. While Gary IS compelling, it doesn’t mean he is easy to replicate. You need a lot more personality and a lot more zest. It has to be raw in a way, because “flat” works on TV and doesn’t work online.
Shake off the haters and continue to push forward. It still baffles me that people would take the time to write something negative, just for the sake of being negative. Their lives must really suck. Instead of bashing Gary you should be listening to him. He has achieved amazing success at building solid and productive relationships. I am grateful to share this period of time with him and others like him. Gary really knows what it means to MYLE (Make Your Life Extraordinary). Keep grinding.
Gary… I think this should be a Samantha only show. Let her fly solo, the way Oprah let Dr. Phil spread his wings and create his own identity.
Perhaps you can just do a periodic gueststar appearance every once and awile.
I sooooooo agree, tell Sam, email her
Gary…. I propose that Sam interviews ME….. Ladies in the age group you’re going after love to hear about how certain wines are taylor-made( yeah, golf pun:) for certain party events…Then we can showcase the custom Luau party favors I have for your Thunder Cruise.
Good for Gary. The guy knows how to market himself, no question, but he is passionate and knowledgeable about what he does.
What the hell is wrong with knowledge mated with passion? This country could use a hell of a lot more of that.
Gary practices carpe diem to the hilt. He should be saluted, not slated.
I think it’s smart for him to transition into other things and would be interested in seeing how long form does online for this demo.
Wine Library.tV was a smart play on retail more than anything in my opinion, but it’s easy to have a web show hit when you’ve already got a solid traffic base coming in from elsewhere (retail site). It’ll be interesting to see how well he can build an audience around somthing that doesn’t have that built-in momentum. It’ll be a good test of his methodologies.
Patricia good point, but FYI I wasnt as lucky to get as much from WL.com as I had hoped it was a lot of 18 hr. days to build WLTV, I mean it was a lot of trenches work to get the audience not to mention good content and a lot of care!
And a lot of strategically placed wrestling action figures. I think that was the key to building your audience.
It had nothing to do with you hustle, knowledge, charm, and famous camera man.
GV’s an impressive guy, but this product is a stretch. You’re swimming upstream on some core principles of entertainment:
- Most people aren’t interesting
- Most interesting people aren’t interesting most of the time
- Many people who are interesting in other media or domains aren’t interesting talking about it on video
Oprah is a feel-good packager of middle America the same way Chicken Soup for the Soul and all those Christian chain emails are. I mean that in a good way. But that’s especially difficult to replicate on the web, and this package ain’t the right one.
The set is nice, the lighting and sound are fine. Sam is hot. But 25 mins of some NYTimes geek or candy store owner is too much.
Back to the drawing board…
PVDUDE solid points and we will see, I mean all this Oprah talk is wayyyyyyyy out of line, sure we dream big and want to have a hit show but it will take years and hard work and Sam is a mother and will be challenged to find the time needed to put into the community in the trenches ( Facebook, Twitter,tumblr,viddler,seesemic) and I have many projects and ambitions but I think we will both do everything we can and I feel that the personal brands that come on the show will have a fan base that does want a in depth interview, that said it is def. challenge and PV has some great points, time will tell, but effort will not fall short, ratings may but not effort!
I think you’ve got the right idea. Your target audience doesn’t read techcrunch, so I suppose you should ignore all of us : )
I watched ‘Spain: On the Road Again’ and it was a superb series. Having people like Bittman on is a great start. Just have to get your female non-techies watching. I suspect lots of working women will be streaming this show while at the office in the near future.
Working women are not streaming anything at work. Most people don’t get sound cards, or if they have them they’re not sitting with headphones on because they need to talk to people and answer phones. If they’re admin level they’re definitely getting the lowest profile hardware and would get severely reprimanded for *watching tv at work*. Lots of corporate firewalls are blocking bandwidth hogs like Youtube, and the IT guys are watching what people are doing and if they’re not taking action by blocking it, they’re coming over to have a quiet chat with you about your streaming XM radio or hours spent on match.com (this is what I hear from my IT guys anyway). IT has its hands full these days keeping costs low and if people are streaming 20 minute shows all over the office when it’s not part of their job, that’s going to stop or get stopped.
Middle, professional and above might get a chance to watch something during a lunch break, but probably will not.
I think it’s a huge stretch to say “women will watch tv at work”. I mean, do I live on another planet or something? I might get to watch 30 seconds of a youtube clip but basically all I do is mark it in Delicious to watch at some point later.
I don’t agree with “Interesting people not being generally interesting”; especially those that are genuinely interesting, as “interesting” is subjective. I find lots of things about interesting people interesting. Generally, creative geniuses and the like have their own way to do a number of things, and it’s a matter of perception and observation that makes them even more interesting. Proper questioning could exploit that and make for stellar work. The trick though is – I agree that most people aren’t interesting… Genuinely anyhow.
In terms of the outcome, with effort + worthy content + consistency doesn’t always equate to the success of a campaign, but as I like to say – Who cares? If you’re having fun, and doing what you enjoy – that’s a success in and of itself. Game on, Gary.
If brevitiy is the s.o.wit…you, ARE the genius you posted about. I’m in Nontraditional Media, tech-adept, yet LOVE Gary as I find that he is organic juxtapotion of 2 of my heroes…Henry Rollins & Roy Williams. I wish that I could write :30 second not :60 spots, get my Tweets in under 45. You just said what I’ve wanted to for years
Gary – the “Oprah” comparions were started by you in the first place (http://www.busi...5683_page_2.htm). Why are you shying away from them now?
Solid point Kevin, just they aren’t in the rear view they are a tad more down the line
plus it was my proud dad making those comments 
I’m in as your resident HR/career expert.
Congrats! I’m just launching my website to support my store. I plan on following you every step of the way!!
Nice!
But one thought… on the “Be a guest” page, it says “An Obsessed guest has likely been on Oprah, The Today Show and countless other media outlets sharing industry wisdom. ”
And I know it’s a lot of work, but finding people that are a bit more “out of the box” might serve you better. I for one get tired of finding the same author/expert on two different NPR broadcasts and three TV shows in the same month.
And besides – isn’t Oprah known for “making” people too? (as opposed to only having people on who are already “made”.)
Best of luck with it!
Mark
Mark,
I noticed that as well. I’d personally enjoy an in depth look at the “up and comers” as opposed to the usual suspects of the the talk show scene.
But then again, it is targeted for women between 25 – 55. Hell, I watch Ellen so I’ll probably enjoy the interviews but I’ll be hoping for some unfamiliar faces in addition to the expected success stories.
Gary will kill it! While our govt puts money back
into the hands ofthe dimwits that got us here, itwillbe entreprenuerial spirit that digs us out.
This is awesome! Good luck with this project!