The Guardian - Digital Economy or Bust: The story of a new media startup

It had been a long week. Although the nicotine cravings had begun to ease, the technical problems on the site had continued to cause problems. After several crisis meetings between the four families Sams rather dramatic way of describing himself, me, John and Daniel chatting in a pub wed finally stumbled upon a solution which might bring crashgate to an end.

J ohn had a mate who did something with computers, and as a fan of the site (well, more accurately, a fan of the free tickets wed blagged him to see Kings of Leon in May), hed agreed to host our site on his boxes.

The downside to this deal was that for some reason Jimmy insisted on being watched while he performed unfathomable technological tinkering. Having drawn the short straw (that is, not said no quick enough), I spent much of last Thursday sitting in an office with John listening to Jimmy suck air through his teeth like a Greenwich builder asked to give a quote to rebuild the Cutty Sark.

What exactly needed to be done in order to move Enter4entertainment.com from its previous virtual home to its current one was no clearer after three hours of clicking, although I was pretty sure our website was rubbish after Jimmys regular and frank appraisals.

Who built this pile of cack? he asked scornfully as John and I continued our cyber peep show from nearby swivel chairs.

Despite our lack of satisfactory answers, just after 8pm Jimmy announced the project was complete. Whats more, he guaranteed that downtime was a thing of the past thanks to 8 CPU cores and advanced server monitoring hed see to that himself. It all sounded very impressive, and at 25 a month (about 10% of the cheapest commercial quote), worryingly affordable.

He likes helping people out, explained John as we left the office. Hes not dodgy.

I didnt say dodgy, who said dodgy? I replied, in the style of a particularly zealous police officer.

Well hes not, John concluded. We walked on.

Having dropped John off at the tube station, I headed for Tottenham Court Road to meet Sam and a potential advertiser. Sam insisted that a dank Korean restaurant in the shadow of Centre Point would be the perfect place to secure the commercial future of the company. He said it was representative of our place in the digital wild west, on the frontiers of new media I also know for a fact he very much enjoys cheap Asian cuisine.

Cheryl, an attractive woman in her late twenties, was already perched opposite Sam on a table next to the open plan kitchen when I arrived.

After a few pleasantries, followed by the characteristic oversell (a la Channel 8) from Sam, Cheryl explained a little bit more about her advertising network, CueViralAd. Its fairly simple really, she said. We dont just work with anyone, we pair cool companies with hot websites and weve been looking around your site, and we like what we see.

Flattery, of course, gets pretty young women anywhere with sad thirtysomething men.

Where do we sign? Sam piped up as lights began mysteriously flashing in the restaurant window.

Thats the beauty of it, Cheryl continued. Theres nothing locking you into a long-term deal with us. You just pick the ads you want we set a price per click you embed them and we pay you every month.

It sounded too good to be true.

Can you smell smoke? I asked, as a new carbon rich malodorous scent began to mask the incumbent smell of over-used cooking oil mixed with mono-sodium glutamate.

Whats going on outside? Cheryl pointed to a group of rubber-neckers who were now partially blocking the entrance to our restaurant, and also preventing a second fire engine from easily entering the street.

Its nothing! Sit down! shouted the waiter as I stood to take a closer look out of the window.

Against the will of the management I fought my way out of the restaurant on to the street. The adjacent eatery was, as I suspected, ablaze.

Erm, I think wed better settle up and go. I told my fellow diners as I returned to our table.

Why are people taking pictures? Its just weird, said Cheryl as we pushed our way past the growing throng of onlookers towards Charing Cross Road.

Probably to put on Twitter or something, said Sam as he pulled out his camera for a quick souvenir snap.

Safely back in a street that wasnt on fire, we said goodbye to Cheryl who promised (despite her obvious distaste at Sams disaster fetish) that we could begin working with CueViralAd immediately. A drink? said Sam as Cheryl disappeared into the tube station.