Ah, ZippoTricks closure panic revealed
4th September 2003 by Simon
There’s been a lot of discussion and concern about the closure of the ZippoTricks.com Web site. If it’s passed you by, I’ll give a brief recap, pressure started in June by the US National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) was increased by an article in a Boston newspaper and the involvement by a number of politicians, to built to a point where the Zippo Tricks site was closed down.
From the traffic I’ve seen on this site (peaking at over 6,000 hits/day) and the comments that readers have been left here, there is a real desire learn tricks with Zippo’s and people feel patronised that a decision not to ‘expose’ them to the danger of fire has been made on their behalf. All of this left me wondering why Zippo, who owned the ZippoTricks domain, made such an unpopular decision.
It all came into focus today. After 71 years of making lighters, Zippo announced that they’ve made their 400 millionth lighter - clearly they didn’t want any controversy to tarnish this event for them. It looks like they’ve spend big on this celebration - they’ve provided the press with a video EPK (Electronic Press Kit) to cut into a news item, sparing the TV station the expense of sending a crew, there was a parade with a Zippo car, etc. (Watching the video [NB, BB], I was amazed to see how manual the process of making the lighters actually is).
It strikes me as strange that, through their actions, Zippo alienated their online fans. The UK press didn’t cover this story, but I’d be interested to hear if the US reporting of this was touched by either the closing of the Zippo Tricks site or any reference of how ‘dangerous’ Zippos can be.
- Possibly related posts -
- Zippo tricks
- ZippoTricks disappears, archive.org fascinates
- ATM “Panic PIN” idea on Half Bakery
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is there any site where i can learn zippo tricks
taking zippotricks.com out of our lives is almost as bad as taking the pledge out of our schools.
i know this is old as hell, but if you come across this in a google search or something (like i did)
go to www.lightertricks.com
if that’s blocked for you, go to
www.lightertricks.com/index1.html
none of them open up…they r blocked….!!!!!
plz plz plz tell some guuuuud site…..
[…] Can you believe that three years ago the web site ZippoTricks.com was shuttered under pressure from the US National Fire Protection Association? What horseshit. […]