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Are BZP and TTV really rivals?


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After watching this amusing video on the BZPower YouTube channel, I began to muse upon the question about whether or not TTV website and BZPower are in fact in a state of competition. I would think that they are not, simply because BZPower is selling Premier membership - forum perks and blogging privileges - while The Three Virtues is selling a podcast. Therefore, they are selling different products to the same audience - it's like saying that pant manufacturers and shirt manufacturers are competing because they market to the same audience. 

Also, I would maintain that the two forums, in fact, cater to different audiences. BZPower's forum seems to mirror off the commerce of Premiership on which it is based, which makes it inspire intense loyalty from its community members, and importance on relationships between people. I see a long of topics here that talk about the feelings of the community on certain subjects. It also lends itself to long projects that take months or years of investment, like writing long epics or playing RPG. For the one truly invested in building relationships with other Bionicle fans, BZP is the place to be. 

But TTV isn't like that. Advertising revenue from the podcast requires a large number of people to make a very small commitment to watching the show (which only costs a few minutes) versus the amount of investment Premiership requires - you have to pay the money and stay around for months or years to use the blog. So the TTV website is more business-like, more about drumming up more content for the show than about inspiring loyalty. TTV caters to the casual fans, those who "remember Bionicle" occasionally and are like "dude, what's up with that now?". It's more future-oriented and ambitious, because the more the Bionicle cause is advanced, the more the TTV podcasts have to talk about. More content = more money. For the rest of us who just want to remember Bionicle and relax, TTV's forums are kinda like a cold wind blasting at 500 miles an hour. That's why I joined here - I wanted a friendlier atmosphere. So from my vantage point, it's like this graph: 

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That's a formal analysis graph. BZP caters to a small group of highly invested fans, whereas TTV caters to the casual low-investment social media user. Also to people who want or need a large quantity of people, like games or Lego Ideas projects. But these two groups, while they may have some overlap, give the Bionicle community different services. The sites could even stand to learn from each other, possibly to understand how to be better at what they are and achieve their goals. 

However, it is possible that a counterargument could be proposed. Both websites have forums and YouTube channels, so it could be argued that if I'm spending time on one website I'm not spending time on the other (though I would maintain that the channels and forums have different content, so my appetite for Lego Twitch Gaming would never be sated by watching TTV, so different types of attention). It is also possible that you have information that I do not have access to or a different perspective on the matter. 

What do you think?

 

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Mad respect for the analysis, man. Though BZPower does have a news feed, so you could be like "dude, what's up with that now?" and go to BZP instead of TTV. But then you'd have to also remember that BZP existed (though it would be easier to remember because it has been around for longer), whereas TTV has thousands of YouTube videos, and Google owns YouTube. 

I mean, I just typed in "recent bionicle news" into Google, and the first thing that popped up was three TTV videos. BZPower was the seventh search result down the list. So there's like a competition there that we're losing. Not a huge deal, but it's there.

On 5/11/2020 at 4:19 PM, -Windrider- said:

Competition among Bionicle websites is more passé than the Enlightenment at this point, so nah. I think we're cool honestly.

This reminds me of the MoD vs. BZP fight back in the day. I think MoD is dead though. 

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you can call me boomie :D

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/12/2020 at 4:51 PM, 21Boomerangs said:

I mean, I just typed in "recent bionicle news" into Google, and the first thing that popped up was three TTV videos. BZPower was the seventh search result down the list. So there's like a competition there that we're losing. Not a huge deal, but it's there.

Just because Google favors one website over another for one search term does not mean the sites are competing. My counterargument to this is that BZPower reports news that TTV does not report, and vice versa. Recently BZP just posted two articles about new Jurassic World sets and about a Lego Xbox sale. Meanwhile, TTV just posted a video about how Bionicle: Quest for Mata Nui is a StarCraft mod and you would need to download Starcraft II to play. 

It would seem that BZP is not looking to be famous for reporting Bionicle news, but rather for reporting general Lego news. The latter would seem to be a hopeless competition where search engine optimization is concerned - I just typed in the titles for the Jurassic World article and the Xbox article and Google pulled up a bunch of sites that have nothing to do with BZPower.

BZP is more like "here is Bionicle fans' perspective on other Lego themes" instead of "let's advance the cause of Bionicle" like TTV is. I think BZP thinks that Bionicle isn't a big enough subject to talk about on its own - there's kind of an attitude there that TTV proves wrong. It's kinda like the site is doing what Lego wants, it's trying to answer "how do we get Bionicle fans to like other Lego themes, how do we convert them?" or something like that, whereas TTV is like "Bionicle, only Bionicle, always and forever." I mean, it's the choice of B6 what news he wants to report - it's his website, after all - but it's clear from all of the general Lego stuff he does that this site is very different from TTV. And then it's up to each fan to decide what they want.  

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I mean Eljay and Meso are both rather active on the BZPower Discord server... and have in their videos mentioned they have a bit of a professional relationship with BlackSix so, no I wouldn't say they are rivals. Different branches of the fandom yes, and while Eljay and Meso aren't on the BZPower forums anymore their reasons for that are more water under the bridge at this point. They view the rivalry idea as almost accidental by the sound of it. 

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All aboard the hype train!

 

 

 

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