You think Food Network would get this Web thing

Food Network has one of the more sophisticated Web operations, but it's also an example of how even the good can go bad.

Case in point, "Restaurant Impossible." Yeah, I admit I tune in every week. I spent a few years over a hot stove in the restaurant biz, so I identify.

Usually at the end of an episode, they tell you how a restaurant is doing a few months down the road. But tonight, at the end of one on the Valley View restaurant, the message was to to go http://foodnetwork.com/ri to find out how the restaurant did.

OK, I'm game and have the laptop open, so I head online to the Valley View episode. Nada. Oh, there's the usual marketing copy, a couple of recipes, but nothing else.

So I click around. Lo and behold, none of the episodes tells you how things turned out. But that's a key part of the show, to my mind. What worked and what didn't?

First rule of marketing: If you promise customers something, it probably should be there when they get there. You'd think FN could do better.

Update: Found a March 14 update to an old FN blog post saying the restaurant had closed. Still nothing, however, at the actual episode site. Now, if someone wanted information, where do you think they'd go, the blog or the show's episode site?

Update: I see that on March 14, Robert Irvine, the show's chef/host tweeted: Hey guys going to the website at food http://network.com/RI is a new food network directive not mine sorry folks. So, Food Network, if you are going to direct people there, maybe you'd better keep the site updated, eh?

Update: The network now seems to have it together and is producing regular updates on the FN blog and bringing them over onto the Restaurant Impossible site.