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May 25, 2006

Our Prisoner Should Be Interesting For a Good 5 Minutes

Michael Arrington

43 comments »

Our Prisoner is, clearly, a publicity stunt for the email company producing it. It will be a six month long, twenty four hour a day Internet television program that will follow the life of a 35 year old man named Kieran who is, according to the site, a loser. He will not be able to leave the house, and the only room that won’t be on camera is the bathroom. Everything he does, from when he sleeps, what he wears and eats, and who he dates will be determined by a vote of the viewers. If you want to be the next prisoner for a future show, you can sign up on the home page.

I just don’t see this working out very well for the company or for poor Kieran. Something tells me it will get old, fast.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 25th, 2006 at 11:34 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. that canadian girl » Blog Archive » Our Prisoner - As if Big Brother wasn’t lame enough

    May 26th, 2006 at 1:32 am

  2. Web 2.0 - Что нового? » OurPrisoner.com - наблюдаем за жизнью лузера в онлайн-режиме

    May 26th, 2006 at 12:10 pm

  3. BiZwiKi.CN - 喧闹 PK 噪音 » Blog Archive » Daily news roundup: 2006-05-28

    May 28th, 2006 at 12:10 am

  4. The Technology Blog

    June 1st, 2006 at 2:38 pm

  5. The Technology Blog Podcast » Blog Archive » Technology Blog Podcast - Episode One

    June 1st, 2006 at 3:04 pm

  6. The Technology Blog Podcast

    June 4th, 2006 at 7:26 am

  7. CoFactors » Blog Archive » Save Me from Our Prisoner

    June 20th, 2006 at 1:19 pm

Comments

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  1. Andrew Fife

    May 25th, 2006 at 11:49 pm

    How interesting can it be if can’t leave the house?

  2. Simran

    May 26th, 2006 at 12:29 am

    This whole thing sounds lame. Why would I want to watch a loser sit around doing s*** in his house? It might even be a bit gross.

    I guess it’s either really popular or really bad, because the site is down.

  3. Jordan

    May 26th, 2006 at 12:34 am

    The Truman Show 2.0?

    Just without a great actor, funny plot and outside interaction?

  4. George | MonthlyDollar.com

    May 26th, 2006 at 12:43 am

    yeah, i agree.

    i wonder why they didn’t cast a hot blonde?

  5. Ivan Pope

    May 26th, 2006 at 1:06 am

    Err, Mike, you’ve got an extra ‘i’ in the site link, so it doesn’t work. The site itself is fine - don’t know about the concept. Maybe we’re running low on interesting companies …

  6. anon

    May 26th, 2006 at 1:15 am

    dotcomguy.com…

  7. Kieran

    May 26th, 2006 at 1:21 am

    Hasn’t this already been done? In the UK it’s a tv program called Big Brother, which you can pretty much watch 24 hours a day! Whats better is that they’ve got lots of people to laugh at and they occasionally get given some stupid task to do so that the nation on a whole can laugh at them.

    Maybe they’re trying to get on the bandwaggon or something, it probably won’t work, although I guess it may be slightly more popular now it’s being publicised for being such a flop? haha.

  8. Darren McLaughlin

    May 26th, 2006 at 2:47 am

    Jordan hit it right on the head.

    I’m afraid I don’t have the 8 minutes today, but thanks for pointing it out.

  9. alan jones

    May 26th, 2006 at 2:49 am

    “www.bigloser.com” is more like it.

  10. Jesse

    May 26th, 2006 at 3:40 am

    What does this on Techcrunch ?

  11. Joshua

    May 26th, 2006 at 4:46 am

    First, there is a bad link in this blog entry. The link from the logo doesn’t work, but the text link next to it does.

    The key to a site like this is that Kieran must be an interesting character. Someone people really find funny or makes people angry. Something. People may start to watch from time to time to be entertained.

    The secondary key is to have a web site and technology that doesn’t get in the way. After giving it all of 60 seconds I found the site to be confusing, and the video didn’t seem to be working.

  12. cram

    May 26th, 2006 at 5:36 am

    Hi

    Sounds a lot like EdTV, the movie.

  13. Julie

    May 26th, 2006 at 5:44 am

    I like the idea of the recallable email by the ourprisoner owners, BigString, now thats interesting! Mike have you checked that out?

  14. mark

    May 26th, 2006 at 6:30 am

    Oh my - you all are so horribly underestimating the tolerance the average net citizen has for the mundane. This ‘loser’ thing - it terms of value or interest - is no less valuable and no less interesting than 99% of what appears in all the so-called ’social networking’ sites.

    All it will take is handful (or periodic) outrageous, perhaps even controversial acts for this thing to find it’s own space on the shelf of more mindless things to do on the internet.

  15. Ashish

    May 26th, 2006 at 7:24 am

    |”The Truman Show 2.0?
    |
    |Just without a great actor, funny plot and outside interaction?

    There was a great actor on the Truman show? ;-)

  16. m

    May 26th, 2006 at 8:43 am

    yawn

  17. Larry

    May 26th, 2006 at 9:37 am

    Sounds exactly like DotComGuy.com from 2000… except he was put in a house with nothing but a laptop and the clothes on his back, and had to order everything from the internet….. and he did it for a full year. Webcams galore in his house, with a team that was ‘producing’ it for the web (switching cameras, etc).

    So yeah, already been done…. 6 years too late.

  18. Jeremy Pepper

    May 26th, 2006 at 9:47 am

    It’s a retread of a dotcom era idea, which gave us dotcomguy and the New York Times had a reporter that did not leave his apartment, but ordered everything from online stores.

    So, stunt.

  19. Darin Myman

    May 26th, 2006 at 10:42 am

    The site is not ready for review and we are not sure how it ended up on TechCrunh. Please wait to pass judgement until you see the end product. Launch date is June 14th. In the meantime, we have taken down the beta site.

    Darin Myman
    CEO
    Bigstring Corporation

  20. Hol

    May 26th, 2006 at 10:44 am

    Look at myspace did anyone truly believe that users would spend endless hours trying to replicate the look of ones bedroom on the net. I think you will be surprised at how interested America is in watching someone else who is more of a mess than ones self.

    I say go Kieran!

  21. Ken Rossi : CivilNetizen.com

    May 26th, 2006 at 2:27 pm

    In my travels I found someone that is going to live his life for an entire week based on the results of public voting. If anyone knows of the email address for this please post here.

  22. Ken Rossi : CivilNetizen.com

    May 26th, 2006 at 2:28 pm

    not email I mean URL….. duh…lol

  23. jr

    May 26th, 2006 at 3:36 pm

    What in the world does this “show” have to do with a recallable e-mail service?
    While we are on the subject, what do you guys think of Bigstring’s e-mail service? This company is a public stock and trades under the symbol BSGC and is sitting around $.79 a s share. Is this publicity stunt going to help its stock? Once again what do you guys think of the e-mail service?

  24. bizwiki

    May 27th, 2006 at 4:37 pm

    jr, e-mail service still be a main and pop subscribe method untill now a internet does.

  25. e1presidente

    May 29th, 2006 at 9:47 am

    This is bringing back memories of the fabled DotComGuy, who back in 2000, legally changed his name to DotComGuy, and lived in a house for a year without leaving, buying everything on the internet and broadcasting the whole thing. Because he was contractually obligated to by his sponsors, he sat watching in horror as the market crashed and all his sponsors began to go under.

  26. t

    May 30th, 2006 at 12:56 pm

    the email function is great - its like a condom for your email - practice safe emailing - a great service for the 21st century.

  27. Dan Diemer

    May 30th, 2006 at 1:47 pm

    what happens when everyone votes “Kill Yourself”

  28. t

    May 31st, 2006 at 10:37 am

    interesting question. i am sure majority votes on that will not win out - there wont be any rubber necking for that i’m sure. bigstring is a valuable email service that works and makes me feel better knowing i can control my email if i want and recall it at will.

  29. info on dotcom guy

    June 1st, 2006 at 7:33 am

    http://www.wired.com/news/cult.....40,00.html

  30. Skye Dicker

    June 8th, 2006 at 10:53 am

    After reviewing the eight minute video on the site, it looks pretty funny. It reminded me of Larry David’s hit HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm. This guy Kiernan comes off very funny (Woody Allenish) and I look forward to checking it out.

  31. dock jones

    June 10th, 2006 at 7:19 pm

    look at the site looks cool

  32. Keisha

    June 14th, 2006 at 6:17 am

    Wow… this guy is in dire need of therapy! Have you read the “Hang-Ups” on the website? Bless his heart. If he actually thinks that the decisions others will “vote” on for him to run is life will be better than what he can do/has done for himself - and he has these intense “hang-ups” as he calls them? The boy is truely touched…and needs a serious hair cut. High and tight would be much better than that mess he has now! Wonder if whether or not he gets a hair cut will be voteable? LOL! Seriously, man, he needs professional help.

  33. polarstar

    July 20th, 2006 at 10:58 pm

    ourprisoner.com — “how interesting can it be if he can’t leave the house?” Interesting enough to generate controversy. 07/20 episode featured Vogel getting ’serviced’ on the couch, generating complaints to the FCC and the Dept. of Justice.

  34. Nana

    August 19th, 2006 at 10:37 pm

    You were spot on. Not only did it get old, fast….but bloggers and chatters are leaving in droves. Pretty much nothing was as it was supposed to be, and what HAS occured has been as a result of manipulation, not voting. A complete train wreck.

  35. Dave

    August 24th, 2006 at 11:35 am

    Actually for a chat room it provides an entertaining third party object for chatters to discuss while hanging out, I personally dislike chat rooms “period” but this one seems to be quite different. Just attempting to figure if the deeds are scripted and the drama is real has been rather fun. Participatory TV more or less as you can call and talk to them in the house. Nana did seem to loose it big time which was quite fun so the entertainment is seen just as much in chat room guest reactions as in the prisoner himself. It has been quite entertaining.

    As for the BigString recallable email concept, not a bad idea really!

  36. Dave

    August 24th, 2006 at 11:51 am

    Oh, just so ya know, it was Nana who said she filed the complaints to the FCC and the Dept of Justice. It was such a train wreck she still hasn’t stopped talking about it, I can’t believe that I just happened upon this site and there she is , hahahaha, Hi Nana, how are you doing?, long time no chat!
    omg this is too funny. Go Nana Go! (remember to cover your eyes when you browse the internet)

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