GeddonGear.com is a satirical site offering a 2012 post apocalypse superstore.
Title
Geddon Gear - your post apocalyptic super store (http://geddongear.com)
Description
Geddon Gear is a website that claims to be the "official sponsor of the 2012 Apocalypse". Geddon Gear Claims to be doing market research prior to opening up a chain of global superstores to serve survivors of an upcoming Apocalypse. The site showcases many unique and humorous products like a GPS device that works without satellites with the predicted 2012 Apocalypse as the backdrop. They provide an interesting twist on commercial propagation methodology currently in use by sites such as ThinkGeek, Woot, and others. Their website is registered under the domain http://geddongear.com
Excerpted from the website:
- At Geddon Gear, we believe that the end of the world does not mean you should abandon all hope. Geddon Gear will be the only store prepared to provide you with quality post appocalptic gear to help you cope and defend yourself from certain death.
Additional Information
From the site home page: "KABOOM! That's what the Mayans (pronounced May-ans) predicted on December 21st, 2012, will happen. Yes, some serious end of the world negativety is gonna go down. And when we found out about it, we believed!. But we're not going down without a fight, and neither are you, and that's why we give you Geddon Gear. It's almost everything you need to weather asteroid impacts, radiation fallout, mutant life-forms, aliens, or whatever. "
Business Model
The business model employed by Geddon Gear is especially relevant in bad economic times. It is based on the principales of cloud computing combined with a zero inventory / low cost mantra (Dignan 2008). The online retailer uses publishes articles of fictional post apocalyptic products and entices customers to purchase real products (T-Shirts, mugs, etc) that refernece their fictional products. Using available services from cafepress, they are able to provide product fulfilment without actually having any inventory (Weir 2009). Additional revenue is gathered from the onsite advertising.
Store
None of the featured products at Geddon Gear seem to be for sale, but visitors are enticed to visit the "Approved Gear" store to purchase a product themed souvenir. The site seems to be constantly adding new fictional products and solicits humorous responses and reviews from the public. There is also a video section which embeds a YouTube player linked to 2012/Mayan themed content.
Background
Geddon Gear appears to be owned by Idea Foundry LLC, but no real company information currently exists. The company history pages contains a fictional company history dating back to the dinosaurs and involves another fictional entity known as the Mayan Council. The site is the only known store to claim to open after the end of the world. It has gained a small cult following among those who feel the media hype around 2012 and the Mayan Calendar has gotten out of hand.Template:fix
Relation to Cloud Computing
Sites like Geddon Gear are popping up more and more and are proof the growing trend of cloud computing. New entrepreneurs are discovering that they can combine the services of many different vendors and prop up web sites with minimal infrastructure investment. Through creative mashups and pre-fab components they are able to reach specific markets in record time.
System
Software Geddon Gear runs on Office Live Small Business, Sharepoint Servers, and CafePress. It marks a new trend in combined services commercialism.
Network
Geddon Gear uses dedicated firewalls in front of all the servers. Geddon Gear has access to Microsoft's full backend support and backend infrastructure, as well as regulated bandwidth services
