When I blogged yesterday about Swivel.com, the site had nothing but a “coming soon” banner. Well, one day later, Swivel has gone live. There’s not too much there yet, and things seem a little buggy, but it’s well worth a look.
One commenter on the original post wrote: “Coming soon” on a website is similar to “Closed for renovations” in a restaurant’s window. It’s a safe bet that the restaurant will never reopen, and it’s at least a semi-safe bet that the website will never be up. I’ll believe Swivel when I see it.
So this Doubting Thomas turns out to be wrong, about Swivel at least. But he’s pretty right about the “Closed for Renovations” sign, isn’t he? Why do restaurants always post that sign when it’s not true? Is there an upside there that I’m not seeing?
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Way to kill swivel
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Sorry, our servers seem to have hit a snag. Please try again later.
Seems like they weren’t ready to go live quite yet.
Way to kill swivel
500 Error
Sorry, our servers seem to have hit a snag. Please try again later.
Seems like they weren’t ready to go live quite yet.
That’s really neat, will be invaluable for under-grad, budding econometricians. Levitt should have included wine consumption as a RSV in his crime model: http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/1001967
(Another vain attempt at humor. How the devil do you embed a hyperlink in a word?)
That’s really neat, will be invaluable for under-grad, budding econometricians. Levitt should have included wine consumption as a RSV in his crime model: http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/1001967
(Another vain attempt at humor. How the devil do you embed a hyperlink in a word?)
When I was at Cambridge last spring, the Copper Kettle had a closed for renovations sign, and sure enough opened with a new paint scheme while I was gone. I bet your observation is also frequently proven wrong for nightclubs.
You might post the sign to retain (or advertise) your brand value while looking for a new owner.
When I was at Cambridge last spring, the Copper Kettle had a closed for renovations sign, and sure enough opened with a new paint scheme while I was gone. I bet your observation is also frequently proven wrong for nightclubs.
You might post the sign to retain (or advertise) your brand value while looking for a new owner.
Here in Charlottesville, there’s a local bagel chain named Bodo’s Bagels. They’ve had two locations open for quite some time and the owner leased a third location over a decade ago. After leasing the third location, a Bodo’s Bagels sign was erected and a “Coming Soon” sign was displayed in the front window and time marched on.
It took over a decade for the location to open, with no movement in or about the location until the last few months before opening. You can read the full story at
http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2005/06/23/newsAllThingsComeTenYearsL.html
but some of the owner’s comments about the delay are quite interesting…
“It was never a plan to postpone it. It was always season by season, and it never felt right.”
“When I was done educating my kids and didn’t have a wife anymore, I couldn’t find the ambition.”
“I don’t know how much it has to do with it, but now I have grandchildren. It gives a little push to things because I want to help them out.”
So, sometimes it just comes down to not having the drive to do what’s necessary to take the “Coming Soon” or “Closed for Renovations” sign out of the window. I would imagine that it’s also sometimes not having the money or other resources needed to do what’s necessary.
As a web designer who has seen many web sites (and made a few, as well) that never emerged from a “Coming Soon” or “Next Version Coming Soon” sign, I would say it’s the same thing for web sites.
Here in Charlottesville, there’s a local bagel chain named Bodo’s Bagels. They’ve had two locations open for quite some time and the owner leased a third location over a decade ago. After leasing the third location, a Bodo’s Bagels sign was erected and a “Coming Soon” sign was displayed in the front window and time marched on.
It took over a decade for the location to open, with no movement in or about the location until the last few months before opening. You can read the full story at
http://www.readthehook.com/stories/2005/06/23/newsAllThingsComeTenYearsL.html
but some of the owner’s comments about the delay are quite interesting…
“It was never a plan to postpone it. It was always season by season, and it never felt right.”
“When I was done educating my kids and didn’t have a wife anymore, I couldn’t find the ambition.”
“I don’t know how much it has to do with it, but now I have grandchildren. It gives a little push to things because I want to help them out.”
So, sometimes it just comes down to not having the drive to do what’s necessary to take the “Coming Soon” or “Closed for Renovations” sign out of the window. I would imagine that it’s also sometimes not having the money or other resources needed to do what’s necessary.
As a web designer who has seen many web sites (and made a few, as well) that never emerged from a “Coming Soon” or “Next Version Coming Soon” sign, I would say it’s the same thing for web sites.