Dose Huevos, Por Favor

Did you know that Dose is still around?

Remember Dose? It was the daily tabloid for the "urban, intelligent, and fun 18-34 year old" that was launched in 2005 by the CanWest media conglomerate. It offered a mix of irreverent news coverage, smartassy editorial and tons of celebrity coverage, along with Chingy ringtones. They spent a lot of money out of the gate on flashy dispenser boxes on every major intersection in Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal, and lavish expenditures on TV and print advertising, making Charles Foster Kane-like predictions that they would lose 5 to 6 million dollars in their first year of publication. But Kane said his papers would go bankrupt in 60 years; Dose stopped publication in the middle of its second (was that why it was called Dose - as in uno, dos?)

And just like how when George H.W. Bush ended his memoirs on that Simpsons episode by saying he had accomplished everything in his first term and didn't need to be re-elected, when Dose announced the end of their newspaper operations, they sent out a press release saying “in this very competitive newspaper market, we feel the printed publication will not produce the financial results we expect over the long term, however, we see a growing product in the Dose online and mobile offering which we will continue to develop.”

I forgot all about Dose until today when I found a link to their on-line operations. They're still around. And apparently "what didn't kill them made them stronger". So how mighty is Dose now that it's Dose.ca? Is the news even more irreverent? The editorial even more ballsy? Not sure - when I went to the site I was hit between the eyes with a pop-up window for Molson Canadian Cold Shots (little bullets filled with beer - bad news for the 18-year-old targets in most provinces: you're not old enough), and the top story in their amped-up 'Celebrity' section: how Maggie Gyllenhaal is Tinseltown's Latest Yummy Mommy. There is a link to news (all stories off the wire services) and no editorial to speak of. And ChavMillionaire ringtones for the downloading.

Wake me up in sixty years, Mr. Bernstein.