"With television stepping on us every step of the way, we never had a chance." -keen.com execs
Yet another .com company is struggling to survive after it's attempts to finance a second round of financing was stonewalled by what it calls "Blatent, bullying attempts by the television industry to kill us."

keen.com, a live questions/answers site has been struggling ever since ads discouraging consumers from visiting the site began appearing on buses and benches in the San Francisco Bay Area. The ads, which warned consumers to "Stay away from keen.com" were only signed "TV"

"At first, we weren't sure what to make of them." admitted on keen.com exec. "The ads suggested consumers stay away from our site. Why? We're a live Q&A site, not a company that streams original programming to the web. We're not even in TV's same space, for content or advertising.

One venture capitialist we spoke to admitted that his company pulled out of a financing deal after the ads, which appeared on a bus near where he lives, began to take on a more menacing tone.

"No more live Q&A at keen.com!" he recalls on ad reading. "It said something about this being my 'final warning.' Was it a coincidence that the ad appeared on a bus that I took to work everyday, the very work where I was about to orchestrate a 21 million dollar round of financing for keen.com? I don't know, but I have a wife and 2 kids to think about. I ended up nixing the deal."

Since the threatening ads appeared, keen.com registrations have dropped 60%. Consumer surveys showed that people liked televison, and didn't want to do anything to "upset it."

Above:Threatening messages have kept most
consumers away from the keen.com site.

"I can live without food and water, but you better not take away my Who Wants To Be A Millionare, Buster" commented on woman. "If TV wants me to stay away from keen.com, I'll stay away. Just don't cancel my show!"

Adding to keen.com's woes is the growing list of people unsubscribing from their service, either our of concern, or fear, that TV might go away, or what TV might do to them if they don't stop going to the site. Keen.com was hit by so many "Please unsubscribe me!" e-mails that it had to put an automated link so that users could unsubscribe themselves.

Of course, without any consumers, or money to attract new ones, one has to wonder just how "keen" keen.com's chances are of staying in business.

TV, we love you!