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The Almighty Buck Social Networks

Remember RadioShack? It's Now a Crypto Company with Wild Tweets (msn.com) 78

Posted by EditorDavid from the memories-of-the-80s dept.
"Gen Z may not be familiar with the RadioShack of their grandparents, but they're getting to know its replacement," writes the Washington Post.

"The 100-year-old retailer reintroduced itself on Twitter this week with a stream of often-profane tweets — some since deleted — filled with crude comments and drug references." Variations of, "What in the world is going on?" peppered the comment threads, but a glance of the company's Twitter profile partly held the answer: RadioShack is no longer the electronics store Americans ran to for generations, but rather an online cryptocurrency company that also happens to sell batteries.

"It's our voice, a new voice, one for the people," said Abel Czupor, the chief marketing officer. "RadioShack's audience used to be only an older demographic, but as times have changed and e-commerce has taken over, the old voice of RadioShack is no longer relevant."

Following a decade of decline, RadioShack was delisted by New York Stock Exchange in 2015. In its struggle to find a brand identity, the chain filed for bankruptcy twice, and went from having roughly 5,200 U.S. stores in 2014 to about 400 when private equity firm Retail Ecommerce Ventures (REV) purchased it in 2020. REV was formed by Alex Mehr, the co-founder of online dating site Zoosk.com, and Tai Lopez, an online influencer known for coaching about his lavish lifestyle. They launched RadioShack Swap, a decentralized crypto exchange platform that allows users to swap coins or tokens, a format that comes with more flexibility and lower transaction fees than trading... In a May statement, the company reported trading volume of $40 million, with a daily average of $500,000 to $2 million....

Yet with its latest marketing strategy on Twitter, the reactions were mixed. One day the platform itself "randomly shut down our account and locked us out." Czupor said, though some tweets were later restored.
The new RadioShack tells the Post that "Sales have actually grown since we started upping our Twitter game over the past several weeks." And the founder of social media marketing consultancy Flying Hare Social told the newspaper that RadioShack's tweets may help them gain visibility — because "Everybody who's interested in crypto is interested in this kind of humor."
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Remember RadioShack? It's Now a Crypto Company with Wild Tweets More

Remember RadioShack? It's Now a Crypto Company with Wild Tweets

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  • The abridged version (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @02:40PM (#62668372) Homepage

    Well liked brand bought by mouthy scammers with too much money and no brains. I guess it's the 2020s version of Atari.

    • Well liked? Radio Shack has been a hollowed-out shell since the turn of the century. "You've got questions, we've got blank looks." Granted, they appear to burrowing into a new subbasement with this.

      • Re: The abridged version (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @03:10PM (#62668442) Homepage

        I know a lot of people here think nothing of any note existed or happened before they were born but back in the 70s and 80s tandy/radioshack was a big deal.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          Radio Shack really died when they merged with Tandy. Possibly Tandy did also, but I'm less familiar with them.

          • Re: The abridged version (Score:4, Informative)

            by dcw3 ( 649211 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @04:39PM (#62668560) Journal

            Tandy bought them in 1962, long before they declined.

          • Radio Shack really died when they merged with Tandy.

            Wikipedia: Adam Osborne described Tandy as "the number-one microcomputer manufacturer"

            Possibly Tandy did also, but I'm less familiar with them.

            You don't say.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by HiThere ( 15173 )

              Yes, but microcomputers were not what made Radio Shack. And I never considered them the number-one microcomputer manufacturer, though they were up there in the leaders.

              But what made Radio Shack was components. When component sales started tanking, they started dying. The TRS-80 was never as good as either Apple ][ or Atari or ... well, 3 or 4 others. They had more sales than many because of their distribution, but ...
              I'm surprised, though, that they weren't more successful with their Heathkit sales. I

              • CB and HAM was their original bread and butter. Hence the name of the store. TRS-80 was a really odd bird but most schools had them as their computer lab. I remember 8 of them linked by serial cable and they all shared the teachers Floppy disk drive. They were, however, well suited to interface over HAM. I am sure that was not coincidence.

              • I never considered them the number-one microcomputer manufacturer

                Irrelevant. They were.

                • Re: (Score:2)

                  by HiThere ( 15173 )

                  By what standard? Not quality, and I don't think quantity, either, though I really don't consider that a decent measure. After the S-100 bus computers I think the top two were (for a long time) Apple and Atari. When I first went looking to decide what computers the place I worked for should buy, RadioShack didn't even make the first cut. We eventually went with a Molecular Computer running a variant of CP/M (NOT MP/M) that could handle multiple users simultaneously. Apple and Atari lost out because the

              • No matter what the problem was with a TRS-80, taking it apart and putting it back together again fixed it. Cheap bastards didn't gold-plate their contacts, which corroded after a few months and made poor contact. Since you always cleaned them when you put it back together (maybe you changed a component...) you had fixed it. Miraculously. You felt good about yourself and your diagnostic skills.

                Until the next time...

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by msauve ( 701917 )
              >Adam Osborne

              'nuff said. He published some useful books on microprocessors, but didn't know much about manufacturing or marketing.
              • Because someone you don't think much of said it, it couldn't have been true?
                At one time they were one of the most important PC manufacturers and everyone knew it. It wasn't some amazing statement.
          • Funny, here in the Netherlands, the Radio Shack stores were called "Tandy". People were somewhat familiar with RS as a brand, but the Tandy stores were well-known.

        • Senior Moment... (Score:4, Funny)

          by N_Piper ( 940061 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @03:36PM (#62668500)
          He meant since 2000 when he said "turn of the century" you have to say "turn of the previous century" if you mean ~1900 now. Don't worry all us graybeards get confused sometimes.
        • They lost their way around the time of the VCR. I used to joke that radio shack was the ONLY electronics company that wasnt given access to the crashed UFO technology. Everyone else was selling sleek looking components and radio shack kept marketing shit with adhesive laminate wood grain on it. By Early 90s it was tanking. Then it just became a store selling cell phones. Remember their pocket DTMF device, incase you were at a rotary phone? Remember how you could swap out a chip and play the sound a payphone

        • Yes, they were, but that faded long before this little dust-up. As a side note, I'll just let you know that the '70s were not before I was born.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      Oh, I don't know about lack of brains; it could be they're counting on clients having a lack of brains. They're late into the game but maybe they can appeal to a segment of people who have been living with crypto FOMO for a few years and had no idea what to do about it.

      Anyhow, they've got a C-suite position for marketing. That tells you all you need to know.

    • Not sure of Alex Mehr is an outright scammer although Tai Lopez definitely is, or at least he's a conman. Mehr is more into buying up what used to be big brands at fire-sale prices and making money off that.

  • Let's turn that around (Score:5, Informative)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @02:41PM (#62668376)

    "... the old voice of RadioShack is no longer relevant."

    The new voice of RadioShack is even less relevant.

  • What they have done to the Radio Shack 'brand' is worse than the Magnavox, RCA, and Westinghouse brands being printed on cheap junk.

    It's like buying the Apple trademark and printing it on toilet paper.
  • Somebody just bought the name. The same thing happened with Intelevision. A lot of old, dead brands are being bought up in order to run various forms of scams and schemes.

    If you're over 40 and you have any money watch out somebody out there is trying to scam you out of it guaranteed. Remember age-related cognitive declines a thing and it can happen to any of us.

    • Re: No it's not (Score:4)

      by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @03:13PM (#62668452) Homepage

      Newsflash foetus , most of us in our 40s and over are a lot more savvy than naive kids who believe any slick shark with an instagram and tiktok account.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by linuxguy ( 98493 )
        As a 50-year old, I shake my head every time I see young kids throwing their money at the new get rich quick NFT or crypto scheme. There are some old geezers getting caught up in these scams, but it is mostly a young kids game. Cognitive decline is kicking in way early these days it appears.

      • Until you look at the comments under any politically sensitive post on /. and see everyone squabbling like screaming toddlers, that is.

        Nothing gets better. Ever. Even with age.

    • Age doesn't matter, having money doesn't matter, someone is always out to try and scam anybody even you.

      -Look up from that phone, you are about to walk into a... eh never mind.
      • Or Just be a sarcastic, cynical, bastard like me. Im always convinced someone is either trying to scam me, or they are idiots that got scammed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by msauve ( 701917 )
      You obviously didn't even read to the end of the summary, where it pointed out they're marketing to middle school pre-pubes: "Everybody who's interested in crypto is interested in this kind of humor."

  • I don't find the link with the "old" Radio Shack.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by suss ( 158993 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @03:00PM (#62668408)

    ... very Realistic.

  • Kids think they invented it (Score:3)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @03:04PM (#62668426) Homepage Journal
    Radio shack was for the makers and key to the right to repair. How many times did we go and get a replacement vacuum tube for the old stereo amplifier

    Radio shack was a convenience store for geeks. There may be no other store in a town that let kids build something they saw in a magazine.

    • Re: Radio Shack had the last tube testers around (Score:5, Informative)

      by jhecht ( 143058 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @03:24PM (#62668476)
      Back in the heyday of vacuum tube radio and television in the 1950s, neighborhood repair stores would have tube testers because lots of people had vacuum-tube electronics, tubes didn't last long, and in those days people couldn't afford to throw out a TV set. You opened the back of the TV or radio, pulled out all the tubes (making sure something inside the set showed where each tube belonged) and tested them, then bought whatever replacement tubes were needed. The repair stores usually were in walking distances and I was doing it by the time I was in my teens, if not before. When transistor sets came out, the long lifetime of the transistors was a big selling point, and pretty soon the tube testers started fading away, and for a long time Radio Shack was the only store around in most areas that still had a tube tester.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by fermion ( 181285 )
        Believe me when you had a good amp you kept it radio shack had the tubes

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by BenBoy ( 615230 )
        This and its parent post ... I think a lot of people posting here remember the old lady in her dotage; I too used to take that bag of carefully labeled tubes to the local Radio Shack (within walking distance) to find out what was going wrong with my TV/radio/etc. Right to repair was a given. And the place didn't have to decline the way it did; they pointed toward consumer goods when they could have been the spearhead of a maker revolution. On some alternate planet, they rule the place.
  • Remember Woolworth's? They are a crypto company now also. For every cryptobit you buy, you get a free hamster.

    • Remember Woolworth's? They are a crypto company now also. For every cryptobit you buy, you get a free hamster.

      But do they have a lunch counter?

  • Well, even back in the day most of what they sold was shit.
    Other than the raw components.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Depends on how far back you go. Prior to their merger with Tandy that had much good merchandise. (Well, they had junk, too, but everybody does.)

  • What kind of RadioShack is this? There are no free batteries.

  • When I was around 11-12 years old, I was getting into electronics. My parents would drop me off at a Radio Shack, when they went shopping in the same area of the RS store. It was great! The employees KNEW electronics, were usually ham radio operators, so they spoke the lingo. You could converse with them and they could offer suggestions and other advice. Travel forward to the few years before they closed. Stopped in one to get a 100uf 25 volt electrolytic capacitor for a power supply I was fixing. Asked
    • In 2006 i asked for a single pull single throw switch and they were clueless. I was 10 years younger then the cashier. Itâ(TM)s been dead for a long time. Corporate wouldnâ(TM)t hire a teenager with real electronic expertise because it was calculated as a summer job.
    • I feel super-lucky to have a store called Affiliated Electronics [affiliated...ronics.com] in town. It's like the old-school RS, without all the higher-end retail toys and crap. Bins and bins of components, parts, tools, and employees that can converse the lingo. They are the only store like that in the entire metro area, and all the various contractors go there for whatever.
  • They were the go to neighborhood store to find electronic components, tools and hobby supplies.

  • Looks legit (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I can tell these guys are professionals and aren't on drugs at all. Here, take my money. :/

  • From the summary (Score:5, Funny)

    by bjdevil66 ( 583941 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @04:06PM (#62668534)

    Everybody who's interested in crypto is interested in this kind of humor.

    I'm pretty sure that not everyone into crypto is an asshole, right guys?

    ...Guys?

  • Not just the store. Radio Shack became worthless decades ago but that's a GOOD thing because hobbyist electronic access has never been better. The internet kills another useless business and nothing of value is lost.

    Normals don't need Radio Shack any more and they've been dead so long this shouldn't even be "news" on Slashdot. If you want a small parts bench stock buy one with a few clicks and replenish without wasting fuel and time driving. If you miss going to the hardware store with your tubes to test t

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drnb ( 2434720 )

      Not just the store. Radio Shack became worthless decades ago but that's a GOOD thing because hobbyist electronic access has never been better. The internet kills another useless business and nothing of value is lost.

      My local MicroCenter is proving you wrong. Sometimes its better to drive to MicroCenter than wait a week for a package from Adafruit or SparkFun.

      • Not too mention Adafruit is overpriced. I wish I had a MicroCenter close by. I would much rather hand pick my microcontroller parts from a selection by hand. I miss shopping for electronic components.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          Not too mention Adafruit is overpriced. I wish I had a MicroCenter close by. I would much rather hand pick my microcontroller parts from a selection by hand. I miss shopping for electronic components.

          Its dangerous. You leave the store with 3x that parts you had planned (or needed) to get. :-)

          • Its dangerous. You leave the store with 3x that parts you had planned (or needed) to get. :-)

            - But that's half the fun!

  • Radio Shack has their place in computer history. Their TRS-80 Model 100, introduced in 1983, was a landmark, with many still being used today.

    • Actually, it was Kyocera that made the Model 100 (called the Kyotronic 85 in Japan). Radio Shack simply bought the rights to it and rebranded it as the Model 100. Yes, still an amazing Machine. I had one and used it right up until the mid-90's as a data terminal. Sadly, most have gone in the trash because people left the AA batteries in them (including me! Doh!).

  • Pepperidge Farm remembers.

  • In other words, Radio Shack has nothing I want to buy. Nothing's changed...

  • Not a bad plan (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LeeLynx ( 6219816 ) on Saturday July 02, 2022 @10:27PM (#62669012)
    There's a *huge* demographic that will buy whatever you are selling so long as you say offensive things on Twitter.
  • You took this away from us, why did you do that?
    It was one of the last brick-and-mortar places you could just walk into and walk out with at least some basic electronic components. Towards the end they even had some relatively interesting things, too. But, no, it all had to die and go away, and now you bring back this corrupted rotting zombie selling crypto?
    Someone please put some salt on the tongue of the Radio Shack zombie so it can go back to the grave.
  • Radio Shack of the late 70's to mid 80's was the shit! I could walk in and ask for any electronic component of any value (resistor, capacitor, transistor, etc..) and the sales people knew right where they were. But more importantly, they knew what these discrete components did! Fast forward to late 90's and early 2000's. Sales people were only interested in trying to sell you cell phones and had never even heard of a transistor.

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