Yesterday, BlogTV quietly launched.

I’ve been checking back periodically to see what became of this new service as it was originally slated to launch Monday 8/18 at noon and was understandably a bit delayed. I have linked to them almost since my blog started, so I have looked forward to this. I thought it might be some technological leap forward in blogging. Something new and exciting in the blogosphere.

At launch, however, there are still more questions than answers for this service. If you click the support link it goes directly to a password-protected area. Click the forum link and it says that section is coming soon. Maybe the “official” launch date should have been moved back and changed to September 18?

They have bought up a bunch of blog-related domains to launch their service: (blogpolitics, blogmovies, bloghealth, blogfamily, blogdiets, blogcars, blogsex, etc) and are offering 3 pricing structures for hosting blogs: $9.95/month for one blog and 1 gig traffic per month,  $14.95/month for two channels and still 1 gig per month, and the family pack (4 channels) for $24.95/month. The $9.95 plan offers a 30 day free trial to check it out and lists a bunch of features, many of which promise a (secret?) community atmosphere: “Lose weight via blogdiets (meet others like you)” and ”Surviving with Cancer? (…You’re not alone)” 

Interestingly, all their channels still redirect to BlogTV (as of the time of this writing), so I guess they launched with no hosted blogs or community members? It’s curious why they didn’t they go out and solicit at least one or two bloggers for each category/domain to use their service so they could launch with some content? Even comped account shills would be better than a big goose egg. Without startup content, they are little more than a shell for a blog-only (?) hosting company and thus will almost immediately be compared to other similar services and straight hosts by prospective customers.

For the $14.95 and $24.95/month plans more than 1 gig traffic a month should be included. A good profit can still be made if they charge $5 per gig, so give the user 5 gigs at least for 25 bones a month. If the blog uses video clips, lots of pictures, and enjoys even modest success (my guess is the blogsex.com channel will be especially easy to exceed this included limit), then 1 gig will not be that difficult to burn through. Video especially has a healthy appetite for bandwith. I couldn’t find how much overages were charged at easily on the website as many pages still say: “this page is still being updated” and that’s not good. How about a terms of service or privacy policy? Nadda.

The flash menu with sound is sharp, but it takes a few seconds to load on a 500k DSL connection, and I’m not a big fan of sound on webpages by default. It’s ok if I want to enable it, but sound should be turned off when surfers enter a page unless they are expecting sound.

BlogTV launches with a sharp, slick designed interface and promises many features — but it seems that the details and examples of these features in action can only be used once you break out the plastic. I might be willing to sign up if I could at least see screenshots or download a trial of the exclusive Blogcast software mentioned in the feature details of all three plans. 

With all the prehype surrounding this site, one would have expected it to launch with more information for those in the tour phase of the site. Where is the advertised community atmosphere? You can’t have a community without people, and you can’t start a community promising that there is a community, when there is no community. Why should I join to be part of a community of one?

So sorry, BlogTV, I’m not ready to reach for the credit card yet, however I’ve bookmarked the site and will check back in a couple weeks to see if it’s more fleshed out and ready for a complete review at that time. In the meantime, I wish them good luck — because in its current launch state they’ll need it – competing with the zillion other hosting companies and Typepad which offers 3 GB traffic a month for their Pro service, unlimited number of blogs, and is $10 less per month.

• Two axes fall: Justin from RCA and Blogshares calls it quits
• Bloghosts bloggers needing a new home
• Hmm selected Blog of the Day at eponym [site news]
• Some bloggers worry too much about traffic
• Why some popular blog programs are total shit
• Reporter vs. Doer