Last night I couldn't get either of the sites to load but today they worked. The first is a sham site for a platform jumping school with a few pages. The second is a sham site for The Institute for Additional Dimension Adjustment Therapy. If you click through the various pages and links on either site, eventually you'll find a lin leading you to a promotional page at GameTap. (I would link you mine except it has since "expired.")
GameTap is a gaming service. You pay them a monthly fee and they provide access to hundreds of old games for you to play. The promotion sported a free month of access followed by $9.95/month for the subsequent three months (and $14.95/month thereafter). (Offer expires 9/30/05.)
I just poked around looking for the link and you can find it on the getgoatz site under the class schedules, click on "HEY! Enroll Now!" I also found it on the whatisadat.org site - on the Buy the DVDs page click on "PURCHASE THE DVDS" at the bottom of the page.
Ah, I poked around the GameTap site a bit more and found this recent 9/22 press release. Brief quote:
Announced last spring and debuting at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, GameTap offers games-on-demand plus original programming via a broadband connected PC. The service offers a wide range of games from classic arcade to PC to popular console. GameTap will launch with hundreds of titles and then roll in additional titles and programming on an ongoing basis. Original programming will feature an exclusive mix of magazine, reality, and lifestyle shows, interviews with the who's who of gaming, celebrity features, and all-new "game trailers" for the GameTap service. Delivered via streaming video, the programming will celebrate games in the same way that Cartoon Network celebrates animation and TNT celebrates drama.So apparently this is a TBS (really Time Warner) enterprise still in pre-release. Very interesting.
Ooh! From this 9/09 press release it looks like they're going to carry Space Ghost Coast to Coast. Awesome!!!
What I find most amusing is their recent advertising on Adult Swim. The commercials are downright weird, though certainly well-done and appealing to their target audience (i.e. Adult Swim viewers like me, predominantly geeks and computer-users and game-players). The commercials advertise the sham sites, making absolutely no mention of the actual end product, GameTap. In fact, it's hard to say the commercials even advertise anything. You have to go to the website and click through it for 5-10 minutes to locate the link to the GameTap promotion, all while being bombarded with the sham site's garbage.
Is this guerrilla advertising? Admittedly I just coined the term without seeking a preexisting definition but it feels like a good descriptive.
In other news, Happy 7th Birthday to Google!