Saturday, July 19, 2008

What ever happened to...?



I was just going through some old papers that have accumulated on my desk, trying to see what can be tossed, what still needs action, and what has sat too long to be of any use now. I pulled out the ad (from Bluff Magazine, I believe) shown above. It ran maybe a year ago. At the time, I went to the web site specified and signed up. Among other reasons, I did so because they promised to send a free web cam to everybody who signed up, and, if I recall correctly, said that they would send it right away, even before they had their site ready for playing poker.

That sounded fine to me. I don't have a web cam. Of course, I don't really need one, or I'd plop down a few bucks of my own and buy one, since they're pretty cheap these days. But it might be fun for chatting with friends and family, maybe even recording a few video rants/clips for this blog. And I was intrigued by the idea of an online poker site with players all sitting in front of live cameras. Watching other people is both more informative and more interesting than staring at a bunch of cartoon avatars, or empty chairs (UB), or blank circles (about half the Stars players).

But after entering my contact information, the site told me that they weren't quite ready to get started yet. They would, of course, let me know as soon as they launched. I quickly forgot all about it, until running across this ad in my stack of junk tonight.

What had been vegasbulldog.com now redirects you here, a site called "Gray's Poker." Other than the name change, everything looks pretty much like I remember it. The "news" section's last update is September, 2007, and includes the Bluff Magazine ad campaign, almost surely referring to the Bulldog ad pictured above. There is no explanation of the name change that I can find.

If you try to download the software, you get roughly the same message I recall from last year: We're not quite ready yet, but leave your email address and we'll notify you soon. Don't call us, we'll call you. The site still promises a free web cam as soon as you sign up. Best money is that that's not really true, either.

So, does anybody know what happened to this outfit? What happened, in business terms, that caused them to buy the ads, then do nothing more (apparently) after that? Why the name change? Why keep the site up if they've gone bust and nothing will ever come of it?

Oh, and where's my free web cam?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I never even heard of them, or maybe I did and just don't remember. There are tons of poker sites I come across that I never heard of.

The webcam idea does sound pretty good though.