Is GO211 Going to Zero?

We’re historically a little slow on the uptake here in the BMX Newsroom. We don’t always GET the inside joke, or funny story, at first telling. So, it was no surprise that we walked around for more than a year in 2008, not really knowing what “GO211″ meant. So, no surprise a blank stare was all that we had to offer when someone asked us what it meant on Friday at the 2009 ABA Winternationals. It was a sufficiently-unique dot com name, in the spirit of Flickr and other “all-the-dictionary-word-domains-are-taken” company names in tech, but not painfully obvious, which is what we were searching for.

“OK, today’s the day,” we remember saying on the Saturday morning ride to the track…”we’re going to find out what GO211 means today.” Calling the shots to the cameramen, deep in the Black Mountain announcers tower, was Rich Montalvo, at the time, Head of Production for GO211. The second round was over, and he had a few-minute break from working the dials, fade levers and other things required of an on-scene producer-director.

“Alright, so what does GO211 mean?” we asked. Rich explained that it was a phrase pulled from the popular 80s film “This is Spinal Tap.” Nigel Tufnel, one of the main characters is walking Rob Reiner’s character through his guitar room, and stops on his “custom” Marshall amps. Nigel says “Most blokes be playing at 10…if we need that extra push over the cliff…these go to 11.” In fact, insiders at the company pronounced the name differently than most viewers, for this reason. We all say “Go–Two-Eleven.” Staffers would say “Godoo-eleven” (as in “These go to eleven”). The loudest of the loud.

In recent months, however, it’s the silence that has been deafening, where GO211 is concerned. Frustration hit a peak in recent days, as fans scratched their heads, waiting for word of streaming coverage of the ABA Disney Cup.

Mid week, it was clear that GO211.com was down (not “pardon our dust” down…we’re talking “there is no website by that name, because the hosting has been turned off” down), and there was no mention of streaming coverage in the usual places. This begged the question: “What is the go-forward plan?” The company’s communication has been on mute since June, with Facebook messages going unanswered, and no Tweets since Rockford on June 14. That said, there were webcasts of the ABA Land O Lakes Nationals in Minnesota, and the NBL Grands–which added to the confusion of whether the company was active, or in its final spasms before howling and falling by the wayside.

BMX News set about trying to get some answers. While no word is available from company officials, we have been able to piece together the following:

Last September, this post on BMXNEWS.COM talked about the acquisition of GO211′s parent company (Action Sports, Inc.) by Metacafe.com

GO211 Parent Acquired by Metacafe.com (will open in a new window)

Less than a month later, the deal went sideways when the buyer discovered that much of the traffic data GO211 gave them leading up to the sale was (putting it kindly) deeply flawed. In a business where audience is everything, and the number of unique visitors and pageviews is the very basis for your existence (in the mind of advertisers), the pressure is on, in a big way, to keep that number trending up at all times.

Speculation on some of the action sports industry forums (not confirmed by BMX News) was that the company may have been using spam bots, pop-up flooding and other so-called “black hat” traffic-pumping practices to inflate pageviews and unique visitor numbers–a metric critical to advertisers. GO211 unique visitor figures on one popular measuring service went from 1.6 million visitors in September 2010, to just 41,000 in November–a 96% drop. The number was 7,000 by February 2011. Critics point to these as more accurately reflecting the “true” traffic for the site, versus the pumped-up millions that attracted marquee advertisers like the US Army.

Back to the merger: There was to be a combined meeting of directors from both the Action Sports, Inc. and Metacafe.com boards on September 9. Reports were, Metacafé was likely to pull out of the merger at the meeting.

GO211 CEO, Sean Aruda, never arrived at the meeting, and was found dead at his home in Massachusetts. Though it was not publicly stated as a suicide, the speculation is strong to that end, especially given the circumstances.

Here is one of the web articles following the death, including posts by his two daughters and several friends.

Boardistan.com: Go211.com CEO Sean Aruda Dies (will open in a new window)

There was talk that the company was facing several breach-of-contract lawsuits from event promoters, advertisers and sport governing bodies, and had a battalion of sponsored athletes who either had not been paid, or who had time left on contracts, and were expecting to be paid.

Following Aruda’s death, and the collapse of the merger, the bulk of GO211′s talent stayed with Metacafe. GO211 was without a leader, and without sufficient staff to continue their mission. The company seemed to be on a collision course with the pavement.

Two of GO211′s investors had, by then, taken control. The pair had neither the staff nor the desire to operate the company and it slid further into the abyss, as they tried to find another suitor. All the while, the site was still operational, though in “zombie” mode (no updates…drifting like a ghost ship, with nobody at the helm).

The ABA, who still had the balance of a five-year contract with GO211, worked with Rich Montalvo, on a freelance basis, to plug into GO211′s existing technology to webcast some of the races on the 2011 schedule. Most of you know Rich, who is a long-time BMX racer, and pioneer in BMX Racing video, having founded BMX-related video sites prior to working with GO211. Following the almost-merger, Rich stayed on at Metacafe.com, as their Head of Production.

In recent months, things have slid further with GO211, and sources tell us that no staff remains to maintain the site (hence the spotty availability of the videos of past races recently). Sometime last week, the site went off-line, and is now a dead-end.

UPDATE: 3:05PM EDT, October 24, 2011>>> GO211.COM is currently back on the Internet, though historical videos are nonfunctional, and our previous login info does not work, as of this writing.

As of Friday, no contact information exists for anyone on the GO211 side and, though there is no official confirmation, we can’t help but think we have seen the last of this once-great online service.

BMX News will keep seeking out information on this story, and hopes to bring you more details in the coming days and weeks. If you have any information on this topic, please contact us at news@bmxnews.com