It appears that Vespaquest and Vespaway have both been shut down, either because PiaggioUSA and CooperKatz were embarrassed by bad press, or too disorganized to pay hosting or domain fees.
I want to make it very, very clear that even though I find perverse joy in Piaggio’s dismal marketing failures;
- I’d find even more joy if they did something right. (I’ve seen the new MP3 print ads, and they’re fantastic, I hope they make the most of that opportunity.)
- It’s 100% inaccurate to call the blogs “failures” (as I have) because both were entirely successful, despite Piaggio’s lack of involvement. A child abandoned by her parents that ends up going to Harvard is not a failure, but the parents deserve none of the credit. The blogs were raised by wolves, Crystal and Neil specifically, and they did a really amazing job. I looked forward to both sites daily. Crystal’s Girlbike is among the best scooter sites out there, and I check it religiously. In the past, I’ve credited them with “making the most of what they had to work with,” which sounds negative, but it was meant as a compliment, they did a lot for Piaggio for just about nothing in return.
- Both blogs were important resources that should have remained on the web. Even though the most recent post on each was a bit embarassing for Piaggio, the other 99.9% of the content was good stuff, and good marketing for Piaggio. The content will be missed, and I hope Crystal and/or Neil can repost it on their own sites, or otherwise make it available once again (It’s still cached in Google).