Blyk goes bye-bye

Youth of Today

It does rather appear that the claims that today's youth have a deep understanding of the media and communications landscape are rather flimsy, while the claims that today's youth can't spell and have an unjustified sense of entitlement are rather more plausible...

Paris. She can't spell, and has an unjustified sense of entitlement.

Targeted advertising

It's funny how little stock people put into targeted advertising nowadays. A consumer who will put up with any kind of trouble in order to get services cheaper (eg. somebody who will spend hours nosing round charity shops instead of popping to Debenhams) is completely the wrong person to be advertising paid services to.

Shift of Business

The message they sent me today telling me about the shut down was damn confusing.

It said you will still get your refills even though they are shutting up shop.

But they also say they are providing advertising on a paid network.

Wrong model

The model as an independed MVNO was just wrong and not sustainable. The model being setup in the Netherlands is a less riskier one; offering the service with a big operator instead of trying to compete with all the other existing (cheap) MVNO's. It's not that Blyk is offering something new, just slightly cheaper (and for most customers not a reason to change operator since the only thing the average customer wants is a new-fancy mobile once in a while).

Dead Parrot

Sad to say it but the UK is dying. They need to just end welfare and lower the price of food. Cut taxes on everything.

Blyk?

Weren't they big in South Africa??

whats wrong with freetards?

Maybe el reg ( and the Daily mail website too) should go subscription .

I think blyk failed cos the advertisers moved to BT. I get a half dozen spam messages on my phone each day.

@John Smith 19

New keyboard please!

That is all

*e-sigh*

I've been with Blyk for ages - never had any complaints with it. Not surprised they've run out of money, as I was only getting adverts every couple of weeks (most of them government-funded, telling me to stop drinking and go to uni) and they haven't given out new invites for months. I'll be sad to see it go, though. Not all of us are illiterate monkeys, in any case.

Great Idea

If I went to the bank with a business plan like this it would get laughed out of the office (BM= Bank Manager):

Me, Hi, I'd like £10 Million please

BM, What for

Me, I am going to set up a business and give free stuff (music, text's, calls, laptops, whatever) away

BM, OK, so how are you going to make money

Me, I'm going to sell the user base as a target for advertisers

BM, and you think advertisers will pay to send adverts to people whose main motivation is getting something for nothing

Me, Sure, it works for, well, everyone does it on the web so it must work, right

BM, Thanks for your idea but FU$K off!

Utterly predictable

I've been waiting since the launch for this to happen. They clearly didn't learn from all the previous failures who used this business model. As an advertiser I wouldn't touch this kind of service with a bargepole (which explains why the Govt is about the only one on the service, cos "return on investment" ain't in their vocab).