Saturday, January 31, 2009

Blonde in Trouble?


Well the answer to this is a resounding yes, and I am truly sad about this.

For months Blonde have struggled with finances. The margins for profit have always been relatively small and given a relentless period of financial difficulty it was inevitable something would snap sooner or later.

Well it just did and sadly Snoopy and Homer were the two men who felt the axe, both fired - or to use the ever-too-popular euphemism that has been floating around - "temporarily removed from their positions."

I feel bad for both of them.

Homer has managed the updates for the last year and a half to two years and it hasn't been the easiest of jobs but he has acquitted himself well and has certainly given a lot to blonde.

It was even harsher on Snoopy though. Snoopy was a crucial limb of blonde, and losing him cripples the site in a multitude of ways.

I always considered the foundation of blonde to be Tikay, Jen and Snoopy. Jen has continued to do updates over the last few years but her presence on the site has become much reduced, perhaps as she felt frustrated at not having her suggestions for bringing the site forward taken seriously.

That is a shame as apart from being an articulate and interesting writer, Jen's a very intelligent girl and when she has a suggestion, it is usually well thought out and meriting careful consideration.

With Jen moving to the background, that left Tikay and Snoops as the primary figureheads at blonde.



Tikay has and always will be an inspiration for me. He is no spring chicken (to say the fucking least!) but he retains an incredible enthusiasm for poker and has so many fingers in pies it is no suprise he allegedly only types with the one that isn't inserted into a pastry-coated treat of one kind or another.

Despite his mono-digital handicap, he still churns out his diary on blonde, plays poker regularly and works virtually full time as a presenter on sky.

I truly hope to have Tikay's boundless energy when I reach his age sometime in the 22nd century.

However I do think that his increased involvement with Sky did remove his ability to be as involved in blonde, both practically and emotionally. I know he's still very fond of the place but his jam-packed schedule means there are plenty of times when blonde is forced to take a backseat to his other interests and concerns.

This is not a criticism of Tikay - but I think it illustrates the increased importance on the work Snoopy does - or did - for blonde.

With Snoopy gone, blonde is now little more than a forum. A great forum sure, with lots of interesting characters and good information, but there are hundreds of similar forums out there. Maybe few have the close-knit community and good feeling that you see on blonde, but if blonde had any intentions of ever making money to being more than a forum then Snoopy was a vital necessity.

With him gone, I can't see this ever happening now.

He's a world-class poker journalist and a massive asset to blonde. He's shown great loyalty and ploughed his entire life into blonde for the last 4-5 years. It has been suggested by Tikay that Snoopy's work has little direct-revenue generating ability.

To me that was a massive wow as I was surprised that someone as astute as Tikay wouldn't realise that the opposite is true.

Snoopy's vast content, both in the form of the masses of news articles he writes, regularly updated results service and of course blondepedia are exactly the type of excellent content that all the successful sites I am familiar with strive to achieve.

There's no doubt Snoopy has raised blonde's reputation enormously in the poker world and that opens up superb opportunities for making money. If you want to be a successful business though, you simply have to grasp those opportunities, even if it means compromising on certain areas.

This is all a little vague and I will expand on this at a later date.

The card-room has been brilliantly promoted by Kev but the fact that it is only just better than break-even shows how difficult a job he has. I think without Kev it would be doing worse though. He's another incredible character...always quick with the funnies but not averse to rolling up his sleeves and applying some elbow grease to tricky situations.

I was always told not to trust someone who can't look you straight in the eye, but with Kev I make an exception.

Ok, there's hundreds of points I could touch on and go into in more depth about blonde and I'm sure I will at some point but for now this is just a random out-pouring of my thoughts.

Next up, EPT Deauville!

3 Comments:

At February 9, 2009 at 8:57 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

thanks for the post. interesting comments. be good to hear the rest of your thoughts about blonde. Keep up the great blog - too good to let die !

 
At March 16, 2009 at 5:26 PM, Blogger M3boy's Poker Blog said...

Well I am sure Blonde WILL be a financial success now, as the "mysterious" (haha) backer no doubt has plans to turn things around. BIG changes afoot me thinks.

BTW good to see you back posting m8

 
At April 8, 2012 at 5:23 AM, Blogger sevencard2003 said...

guarantee u my blog is a lot more famous than urs.

 

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