No Future For BlogTV

Posted by Sookie
Filed in City
September 20, 2007

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It wasn't long ago blogTV.ca (no relation) announced its TV portal of the future by cruising the city in obnoxious Hummers screaming out for attention, and 'viewers'. Initially business was good for the social networking slash video site, owned and operated by Alliance Atlantis. However, since the launch in March, traffic had dropped steadily and sales never really accelerated. Today, a memo circulated to employees in the interactive department explaining the site's lacklustre performance and pointing to a dead end. Playback speculates several execs may go down in the crash too. Once a road warrior blasting through the fast lane, blogTV's now sputtered and run out of gas.

I can't say I'm upset about this. My first experience with the site was one of disgust. I'd attended Ron Jeremy's book launch at The Gladstone and suffered some audio issues with my camera. I needed some video fast. Since I knew the crew from blogTV had been there I scoped their site for some video of the event. The first I came across was a pre-Jeremy interview with two lovely ladies in the back of the blogTV limo, er, Hummer. The backseat sleazeball from the site kept zooming in on the girl's boobs then began asking them to take their tops off for the camera. It didn't seem like these girls had expected the 'interview' to take this direction. They politely declined, and then it just got gross. The 'interviewer' was fixated on getting his money shot and wouldn't take no for an answer. He kept repeating his proposal. They held firm, surely hoping Jeremy would soon arrive and break-up the routine. It was uncomfortable for me, so I can only imagine how these ladies felt. Next time I saw the blogTV Hummer parked on College Street I made a point of telling them how horrible I thought they were and never visited their site again. Adios sleazeballs.

According to the memo the site will cease operating on the 28th. As of yet no plans are in place to maintain or move user-generated content.

Tim on September 20, 2007 at 2:04 PM

It is just unbelievable the idiots running some of Canada's media companies. The online strategy coming out of these places is idiotic or me-too at its best.

Maria on September 20, 2007 at 2:09 PM

I was invited to participate on some pre-launch research. I told them that I didn't think the site would work. A few months after I was invited to the site launch, so I went. It's no surprise it didn't work. If they had only paid attention to the research.
And I agree with Tim, they are just not applying a good online strategy.

Ratni on September 20, 2007 at 3:10 PM

I wont be sad to see the end of those hummers sitting parked on King Street blasting loud hair band rock music. Your description of what happened at the Ron Jeremy thing explains a lot.

fred on September 20, 2007 at 5:06 PM

It was a bad idea from the get-go.

Matthew Burpee on September 20, 2007 at 8:24 PM

Bloggers at their launch party I was at gave the service a thumbs down mainly because it blocked U.S. content. We were also confused by the free fancy items such as logitech webcams. It seemed very 2001 dot bust like at the time. Perhaps gut instinct was right.

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