ToyCyte scales down

Very sad news over at ToyCyte, but I’m not completely clear on how they even managed to have a paid staff at all. I guess investors and ad sales can work out, but it feels like a dangerous risk to me and I don’t understand how anyone could convince investors to sink money into a toy blog.

I also don’t think it would be a lot of fun to have to adapt material to suit advertisers, so it made me happy to read:

“We correctly erred on the side of being a watchdog rather than a lapdog and I am extremely proud of what Jeremy, Collin, Sunny, Hana, Nic and the rest of our contributors have accomplished.”

I’ve talked to a couple of potential sponsors for battlegrip.com, and so far each has seemed a bit turned off by my “post what I want” approach to the site. It felt like the reviews of older toys, and the constantly random jump from tiny indy toys to mass market toys, had the potential sponsors a little nervous. Well, that’s the way I like it and that’s the way it’s going to stay.

That’s not to say we’ll never see any sponsors here. No, I’m just saying that I like the way the site is progressing and I don’t feel like changing my approach.

Good luck, ToyCyte. I hope you guys manage to stay online.