Slashdot Mirror
Cyber-Soap Returns From The Dead
An anonymous reader submits "Back in 1995, an experimental "cyber-soap" had a wildly successful launch. With over a million page hits a day (an almost unheard-of amount of traffic at the time), The Spot was named "Cool Site of the Year" in 1995, and by all appearances was a huge success.
As was the case for many projects of the time, though, by 1997 The Spot was gone, another victim of the dot-com bust. However, unlike other dot-com projects, The Spot has been given new life, un der new ownership, and was relaunched in March. Can the Spot, a unique blend of soap opera, blog, and reality show, survive this time around, or is it doomed to end up back in the graveyard of failed websites in which it was first buried seven years ago?"
The way Americans love their reality entertainment, it'll soar in theory. However, I doubt it goes far for one simple reason: nobody will have heard of it. Can't beat American Idol if nobody knows about it.
I am a viral sig. Please copy me and help me spread. Thank you.
I think it's pretty obvious why this site died a few years back. Just remember that history is destined to repeat itself.
-- 42 --
by 1997 The Spot was gone, another victim of the dot-com bust.
The dot-com bust in 1997? Huh?
Love them hype-journalism phrases. "Dot-com bubble" and "dot-com bust" are used to explain every negative event in technology.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
"..By reading these words, you are already part of the story. How involved you want to become is completely up to you...
Yep. *Closes browser*
- Mad, ingenous - they've both left you puzzled -
Let's face it, with the explosion of blogs on the web these days... people seem to love reading about people they barely know.
So, take beautiful actors and inject scripted situations... and away they go. I'm sure this'll spin into something this go around. 1995 was just a little too early.
Dear 1995,
We do not want this. Please take it back. We have enough reality TV shows as it is, who in the HELL would want them on the internet???
Signed,
Conserned Slashdotter.
PS, please tell Al Gore "Thanks for your brilliant contributions".
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Dotcom Bust in 1997? Even the Boom was just getting started. Find another copout for failure, instead of inventing fantasy macroeconomics.
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make install -not war
Just because the kind of people who like that sort of thing would rather watch a reality soap on TV than read a webpage.
No, because it's a soap. People who watch soaps are spods that shouldn't be using the internet. They really need to get a life and stop immersing themselves in alternative realities.
Sorry it's a short post, I have to get back to Everquest.
When they go write stuff such as "OMG! I was actually recognized by a Spot fan at work yesterday! It was so surreal and uber awesome" or "Anyway, gotta hit the bucks right now for a Tazo Chai latte! Make it a super day!". Puhleaze, real people (it's supposed to be a reality soap, right?) to whom we are supposed to relate do not talk like a textwriter trying to emulate the way people who are like 20 years younger are talking. And the acting shown in the "Spot Moments" is just awful. I want no part of this crap.
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
...I come to Slashdot. It's like a soap opera without the soap.
In 1997 we were still flying high (I was anyway). Easy to find jobs that paid scads of money.
I thought the bust was more like 2000-2002. I was laid off in from my comfy biotech position in mid 2001, when the only aspect of the company that had any remote potential was eaten by a bigger fish. Something like 85% of the employees laid off.
Does this anonymous poster have a short-term memory?
eleven plus two / twelve plus one
Let's Slashdot this thing before it has a chance to take off!
All together now...
*click* *click* *click* *click* *click*
The coolest voice ever.
Well, i wouldnt mind if Sarah Michelle Gellar was in my somewhat geeky soap-opera...
this is probably the most boring sig in the world
Tell the truth, this could probably be successful. It's an extension of a traditional idea that has been moved to a medium which is actually superior for delivering that kind of content.
People already lap up blogs and celebrity websites, and watch webcams with frightening regularity, and soap fans already have a large stream of spolier mags and dedicated websites. Now that the dotcom boom has passed, it's more likely that someone will actually generate a decent way to generate money from the system rather than think "it's on the intarweb! It must be profitable".
The only real issue I see with this is there is real competition with actual weblogs and "legitimate" celebrity webpages, where the content is free and more "true to life".
As if inane, trite blogs/boards/et al., weren't enough - now we're going to get hordes of semi-produced/casted business versions...
I spent all of 5 minutes browsing the spot, and it was blatantly obvoius that most "post" we're little more than product placements. "Amanda" "hears" about how [swedish retailer of semi-disposable furniture]'s got some great(!) stuff - going there now!! The "Kai" character takes up surfing - i.e. goes to a named and praised surf shop (link+logo included of course), the guys at shop X we're awesome!!
So, this is apparantly business' take du jour, on the latest mainstream trends online - we get the likes of the spot and the subservient-chicken. Viral marketing ey? Well, let's start spraying some virus-killing poison then.
I'm so reminded of the ad agency in Gibson's Pattern Recognition it's not even funny.
Wherever and whenever real people try (and do) find each other in - to them - meaningful ways, you can be goddammed sure that advertising leeches will find a way to nestle their way in between them. Gotta get yer earnin' on.
668.5
The reason the Spot was interesting at all when it began was that it was not labelled for what it was (a corporate sham), and at the time, it seemed amazing that anyone would post anything of a intimate nature on the web.
I remember a friend mocking me at the time for thinking anyone would post such stuff for real. But now, with a million blogs/webcams where people post insanely personal information/images for no financial gain, I feel somewhat vindicated...
it died in '99 .com bust
I think that's why they said
http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.thespot.com
Back in 1995, the Internet was young, and many of us weren't sure whether The Spot was for real or not. Lots of people I knew thought it might be real people living in a real house. Today we all know instantly that it's a fake, and the spell is broken.
It won't work this time round. I'll watch The O.C.
Anything worth doing is worth doing badly -- G.K. Chesterton
The Spot was one of the first in and first out of the Dot-com era...
Must've been exactly that, since I've never heard of it before.
Then again, I was only a baby then.
That show ended last year, which was about four years too late.
Wow... Though this whole thing probably sounds very unlike Slashdot to report on in the first place, I do remember "The Spot" and how it was a pretty fresh, original idea at the time.
If I recall correctly though, one of the things that detracted from it was when it became pretty much public knowledge that the whole thing was fictional. Part of the early fascination of "The Spot" was the belief that you were actually reading about the daily lives and adventures of real individuals (hence, the "reality TV" type concept, long before it existed on TV!).
I seem to remember the advertising agency running it really wanting to remain hidden as long as possible, to keep readers believing they really were reading a site hosted by the 20-somethings writing their life stories online. When the truth came out (partly due to magazines like Wired spilling the beans), it just failed to interest me any more.