The Downfall of A Dot Com
by Brooke Geery
Snowboard editor Mike Arzt was really excited to get his new Bluetorch business cards, but other than that, didn't seem too upset about the end of Bluetorch. |
I’ve been claiming all day that I was going to have coverage of the downfall of Bluetorch up ASAP. It’s only right that I would, considering that I did have some ties with the company. Well, as you may, or may not know, the company did some “restructuring.” Today, the plug was pulled on all aspects of the company except television, something that they are locked into for five years. As part of the downsizing, 61 people lost their jobs. Personally, I don’t care, as I had already quit mine a few weeks earlier, only really depriving me of severance pay. The benefit of this however, is that I didn’t have to sign anything saying I wouldn’t slander the company. However, I’m not even bitter about the whole thing, so slandering doesn’t even seem necessary, instead, I’m offering a few theories on why Bluetorch was the first of the dot coms to go.
- The VP’s found that working for an Internet company wasn’t getting them any more chicks.
- They were too busy “protecting from the mainstream” to get anything done.
- RGXS pulled their advertising dollars.
- The company just wasn’t extreme enough to cut it in the “action sports industry.”
- There’s no money in the Internet unless you’re selling porn.
- Kiddy porn is still illegal.
- I wrote too many offensive stories and people from the snowboard industry were sending in death threats.
- They wanted to test employee loyalty by seeing who would reapply for the 35 jobs that are available in the television department.
- They realized that I was actually leaving, and decided there was no way to survive without me.
- Corporate America RULES!
Okay, so none of those are probably accurate, but whatever. One of the action sport dot coms (the somewhat reputable ones, I’m not counting zoggle.com here) went, and it’s really no surprise. However, it is somewhat comical, and thanks to this, Yo Beat will have a few weeks worth of great content.
Stay tuned for tips for how to work at a dot com and other quality content when I get a chance to get them up.
Oh shit, look who got the funny pictures off my camera:
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1. I wonder if this is considered slanderous? 2. As a result of the company downsizing, Yo Beat has a year's worth of free office supplies! 3. We've never had a fax machine before! Sweet. |
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