Salon Video Dog: Bad Dog! Bad Dog!

December 6, 2005 1:49 PM

Salon Video Dog: (Reg. Req'd.) After squandering an entire decade on all-too-often embarrassingly cerebral journalism, online publishing pioneer Salon.com has clearly decided to finally get serious, making a concerted push to join the ranks of the internet's pillars of innovation and originality. Good thing too, because it's all too hard these days to find quality mirrors for the Star Wars Kid, the Exploding Whale, and freshly ripped clips from last night's Stewart/Colbert broadcasts. Thanks, Salon!
posted by MaxVonCretin (21 comments total)

The exploding whale video makes me proud to be from Oregon.
posted by mullingitover at 2:01 PM on December 6, 2005

Stephen Colbert makes me proud to be an exploding whale.
posted by the theory of revolution at 2:21 PM on December 6, 2005

I just get a 404.
posted by camworld at 2:25 PM on December 6, 2005

That link made me proud to see Salon's 404 page.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 2:26 PM on December 6, 2005

I like this whale video [google vid] as well.
posted by Staggering Jack at 2:27 PM on December 6, 2005

salon's new page crashed my browser repeatedly thisafternoon. embedded video sux0rz.
posted by quonsar at 2:33 PM on December 6, 2005

I thought you were linking to this whale video, Jack.
posted by crunchland at 2:40 PM on December 6, 2005

That was the one mullingitover was mulling over before salon crashed.
posted by Staggering Jack at 2:42 PM on December 6, 2005

embarrassingly cerebral makes me see salon suddenly in a different light.
posted by jouke at 2:43 PM on December 6, 2005

hm. I guess it's helpful to read all the comments...
posted by crunchland at 2:46 PM on December 6, 2005

My Salon subscription expires today. I sent them a couple letters at the launch of their unreadably-ugly new design to indicate they would never see another dime from me. They didn't seem to care. The interesting, lengthy articles from the days of yore are gone altogether in favor of paragraph-length blog-wannabe crap. And this. Ugh.

Won't you come back to me, Suck.com?
posted by kjh at 3:07 PM on December 6, 2005

The exploding whale video makes me proud to be from Oregon.

Yes, and what did you do for Exploding Whale Day this year? If only Oregon had any Carvels, I could have purchased a Fudgie and smashed it Gallagher-style with a sledgehammer.
posted by theonetruebix at 3:11 PM on December 6, 2005

That is irritating. Don't we have Ebaum's World for this kind of junk?
posted by killdevil at 3:29 PM on December 6, 2005

killdevil: That is irritating. Don't we have Ebaum's World for this kind of junk?

Yes we do, killdevil. I believe that's the point.
posted by Fontbone at 3:49 PM on December 6, 2005

Yeah, but Ebaum doesn't allow you the glorious opportunity of sitting through an interstitial for MS Office or the Honda Accord or some other product without which your life would surely end. It's a crime, I tell you, a crime.
posted by arto at 3:55 PM on December 6, 2005

Oh, fuck it: http://www.salon.com/news/cookie756.html is the free Salon SitePass URL that the interstitials redirect to. If they can't be bothered to write a secure authorization system, I don't feel the need to keep their "secret".

I didn't link it so they won't find it with a Google link: search. I wonder if they read MeFi?
posted by nicwolff at 4:27 PM on December 6, 2005

I haven't visited Salon in a long time, and damn, the new design sucks.
posted by grouse at 4:58 PM on December 6, 2005

(Reg. Req'd.) (Also, my whole point was to make you regret getting that reg. in the first place, so don't blame me when it's disappointing.)
posted by koeselitz at 6:34 PM on December 6, 2005

I'll admit the output so far isn't exactly mind-blowing (though I do love that damn whale) but I'm hoping the idea here is to do a lot more things like the O'Reilly splice (or the long QT movies Salon cut together from Katrina footage just after the hurricane). This would actually make it something significantly different -- and more like journalism -- than the videos of people lighting their own farts on eBaum's world. Hard to tell if it's going to be mostly user-generated or stuff they produce.

And yes, the new design blows.

And koeselitz, thanks a ton for putting up a link designed to make me regret clicking it. That's super.
posted by jasonsmall at 9:55 PM on December 6, 2005

And by koeselitz, I mean MaxVonCretin.
posted by jasonsmall at 10:03 PM on December 6, 2005

Wow. Salon has gone downhill. I also haven't seen the site in a long time. Too bad, I was pulling for them to establish some kind viable business model, but it looks like the site just went to the dogs.
posted by xammerboy at 10:24 PM on December 6, 2005