Airbnb is offering a sleepover at the last Blockbuster | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb is offering a sleepover at the last Blockbuster

buzzfeed.com

60 pointswallflower21 comments

This is one of the marketing stunts that really hit home for me. My memories of going to the video store as a kid are some of the most vibrant early memories. I wonder if kids today will have the Netflix or Dinsey+ UI burned into their memory the same way, or if they're exposed to so much content it will all be a blur

I never cared much about movie rentals as a kid, however growing up in the late 1980s one of my favorite things was renting NES games from local video rental stores on the weekends (they all got into NES rentals pretty quickly).

There was always a bit of a thrill looking for a new game to play through. Each game experience back then seemed remarkably original, like new gaming territory was being traversed for the first time. Going from Ninja Gaiden to Little Nemo to DuckTales to Mega Man and so on.

The only thing better was the massive wall of games at Toys R Us. Originally they displayed the boxes on the wall (they later switched to a lame slip of paper). I vividly remember Zelda's gold box leaping out from everything else.

What was particularly fun for me as a kid, regarding video game rentals, was that consoles like the N64 and SNES had saves on the cartridge and sometimes you'd pick a game with a save slot where someone already unlocked a huge chunk of the game. Hitting the "jackpot" with a cartridge that had everything unlocked made the game even more fun. Suddenly that one level I was stuck on in Donkey Kong Country has been passed and I'm on to checking out other levels..

Wow, I hadn't thought about that wall at toys'r'us in ~25 years, and that excitement just flooded into my brain reading this. But also, it made remember Funcoland, damn, even the smells came back to my brain. Thank you!

What a waste of a killer brand. Would love to see them resurrected.

Edit: to clarify, I mean seeing the Dish Blockbuster logo on the .com. Feels like a wise entrepreneur could turn that business around for the nostalgia crowd (myself included).

Funny, I was just searching for an Airbnb in Bend, OR a couple weeks ago, and they were all bizarrely expensive, like from $600 to thousands of dollars a night.

Tech/HNW crowd fleeing Bay Area/Seattle for space. I know of a few well-funded startups that have essentially relocated to Bend area (broken commercial leases in Bay Area and major employees/management moved to Bend).

It's a surprisingly popular tourist spot with not a lot of residents/availability; at least that's what I gathered while I was touring the place. Try camping, it's Oregon!

What a weird promotion. I guess Airbnb approached Blockbuster about this, and is paying them? I can't imagine Blockbuster would have any desire for this kind of advertisement for their own sake.

> What a weird promotion. I guess Airbnb approached Blockbuster about this, and is paying them? I can't imagine Blockbuster would have any desire for this kind of advertisement for their own sake.

I don't think there's really such a thing as "Blockbuster" anymore. IIRC, this location is a franchisee that outlived the franchise itself.

I did see that a verified Blockbuster Twitter account briefly came out of retirement this month -- don't know who would be operating that anymore, as I doubt they have a social media manager...

https://twitter.com/blockbuster/status/1293318870074302467

I drove past this BlockBuster last year while visiting Bend for a concert. I didn't go in because we were late for the show, but it tripped me out and had to double-take. Bend is a humble little town that's a bit touristy, but of all places to have a BlockBuster, this would be the place.

The last Blockbuster is offering a sleepover on Airbnb, not the other way around.

It's only 4 dollars a night! It's a no brainer if you are a nomad short on cash.

This makes me think they should have pivoted Blockbuster to a hostel / low cost hotel experience. Could have small rooms / shared baths that center around a living room where you can do movie night with other guests. I would be a customer.

I guess this is how they're preparing for the IPO?

Airbnb is looking for cheap publicity and buzzfeed is looking for an easy article.

Sounds like a win-win to me. Actually, win-win-win, because I think this sounds like a pretty cool excursion.

Can't wait for a sleepover, which implies several people, in a closed room. Just them, me and covid. What a great idea.

Eh, it's limited to 4 people per night, and they are doing extra cleaning and sanitizing to keep things safe. What more can you ask? How is that any more dangerous than the same 4 people spending the night anywhere else? Or, even, those same 4 people hanging out at the store during the day for, say, 12 hours? As the listing itself says:

> Keeping our customers (and now our guests!) comfortable and feeling at home is our priority. You’ll have the store to yourself from check-in to check-out, and it will be cleaned prior to your arrival in accordance to Airbnb's Enhanced Cleaning Protocol which is informed by recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Plus we’ll provide you with a pack of face coverings, disinfectant wipes, and endless hand sanitizer!

See https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/44577127?source_impression_id=p...

Over the last few days I've seen several front page articles on SEO pop up on HN.

It is almost too meta for my brain on Friday afternoon to see a !@$@! buzzfeed article on HN that is lightly chronicling AirBNB's amazing publicity stunt.

Which is, even as you read it now, generating untold fathoms of sweet, sweet SEO link juice and domain authority.

THAT is how you SEO!

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