101 Dumbest Dot-Com Moments 143
brennan73 writes "eCompany.com has posted an article called "Boo! And the 100 Other Dumbest
Moments in e-Business History". There's some pretty good stuff in there, but I particularly enjoyed revisiting the predictions of how sites like BBQ.com were going to change the world. My personal favorite quote, from Henry Blodget of CIBC Oppenheimer: 'Unlike with other famous bubbles ... the Internet bubble is riding on rock-solid fundamentals, perhaps stronger than any the market has seen before.' Um..."
Re:The reason these companies failed.. (Score:1)
Re:Any transition point will see 000's of failures (Score:1)
Thanks for clearing that up. I'll reiterate my recommendation of Standage's book. Given your bibliophillic tendencies you'll likely find it a quick easy read.
As to the nature of the kinds of communication possible over the web I think my mileage does vary from yours. The popularity of discussion boards such as Slashdot and the like may seem different. But perhaps only if you've never used a web browser to scan Usenet newsgroups. Otherwise they are quite similar (flamewars, respected authors/posters, lunatics and goat sex etc.).
About the only big change in telecom I have seen is the dissappearance of public pay telephones to be superceded by the ubiquitous wireless phone (cell, PCS, etc.). However I know of several contemporaneous World War II films that showed GI's using Motorola built walkie talkies in the 1940's. In the late 60's/early 70's you could catch Steve McGarritt using such bulky walkie talkie inspired (no doubt Motorola built) wireless phones on Hawaii Five-Oh. The relative inexpense and subsequent ubiquity of today's cell phones is something of a cultural phenomenon. But does the term revolution truly apply to it? I just do not think so. I think revolution is a hackneyed marketing buzzword. Your opinion may differ.
What makes you so sure? (Score:5)
Everybody expects e-business to stay, and I personally hope against hope that it's true. In fact, I've practically mortgaged my future on the idea that it's true. But y'know, the sad thing is that we can't take that statement for granted any longer. Even the really good business models seem to be failing. We still have Amazon, Paypal and E-Bay? Are you sure you'll be making that same statement a year from now?
One of my favorite vendors of choice has been outpost.com and this morning's news says they probably aren't long for this world. I guess I should have foreseen that they were one of the FC's. But HOW? On Monday morning everyone says THEY understand what happened, but Friday afternoon all we have are bold predictions.
Has there ever been a similar time in business history, where an entire market segment arrived, evolved, and 99.4% perished in the space of less than a decade?
Fucked Company is a lot of fun for those who weren't fucked, and reporting on the end of a cycle is just as important as reporting on the exciting beginning of it. I just hope that at the end of this downturn we have something to work with.
We all have to acknowledge that the net *still* requires the buy-in of the general public, who aren't like us at all. Some of them are even getting tired of $20/month dialup. The blue chip net stocks are dying. There doesn't appear to be any benefit to being online. Nobody can prove that the whole thing isn't a fad. Almost everyone has had to throw their assumptions out and start over.
In uncertain times, certainty about the future is dangerous.
Re:What makes you so sure? (Score:2)
But, more to the point, there will always be work for people who fill that same economic niche, and I think there is a niche there now.
And yes, there have been times like that, it depends on external history, and you're exaggerating greatly. Prohibition, cocaine, and stuff like that are good examples. Even the stock market (NASDAQ and tech stuff) hasn't gone down by more than 60% since its peak; certainly not 99.4%
And of course they're tired of $20/month dialup; that's because dialup is slow. They're getting cable modems or DSL. They're all addicted to e-mail, have websites, and have favorite websites. Some of them are on lists, and some of them use chat programs. And I'm not even talking about the geeks I know here...
Oh. Nice post, and I have to ask: why are you still here? If there's any has-been site that should be mentioned here, it's SLASHDOT.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Bah. (Score:3)
Note the structure in each of these "dumb moments".
Person x starts company y. Blah blah blah. Then, n months later, company y dies horribly.
Ooo, big surprise. Then you just pick, like, 50 people and companies, and a couple of anecdotes about each one, and figure out how long that n months is until the market collapsed. Whee, I'm a journalist now!
What is more interesting is, instead of stupidly gloating, to note which companies are still *in* business and why, rather to glibly talk about the failure of e-business. Some companies are making money, or have viable business models. Ok, so pets.com is dead. Oh darn. But look, we still have Amazon.com, Paypal, and E-Bay!
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
#59 (Score:3)
That just sums it all up, doesn't? Raise your hand if you worked for a company like that. :-)
Re:This guy's like Kreskin... (Score:1)
Junk bonds are not in fact junk, if by that you are using the everday American interpretation of that word. It makes one think twice about the meme theory to realize that for 50 years or so financial professionals refused to deal with lower-grade bonds simply because they had been labelled with that term.
It was the realization that "junk" bonds were really quite valuable once the correct math for valuation of risk were applied that unlocked the financial restructuring of the US in the 1980s (and incidently made a few people disgustingly wealthy). We in the US have been reaping the beneifts of that restructuring ever since, although we may be running out of gas here finally (2001).
sPh
Re:Any transition point will see 000's of failures (Score:1)
Given that I have worked in the electric utility, telecommunications, and information management industries, and that I have over 500 books on the history of technology in my collection (publication dates ranging from 1500 - 2001), yes, I would say that I do know a little bit about those things. Never as much as I would like, though.
I also have a limit on the amount of time I can spend composing Slashdot posts during my lunch hour (unlike, say, Jon Katz), thus leading me to be less clear or complete than I would like ("if I had more time I would write less"). Sorry if I what I wrote wasn't clear to you, but I think my meaning was there.
And while I certainly believe that there is actually very little new under the sun, the kind of communication that is occuring today over the web is different from what has gone before. That's my opinion; YMMV.
And to the previous poster: (i) 000 is a common accounting abbreviation for "thousands" (ii) Slashdot has a limit on the length of a post's title.
sPh
Any transition point will see 000's of failures (Score:5)
Electronic communication is in its infancy, and it may well be a transition point similar to the arrival of the steam engine and electricy (MAY be). During any transition point there will be chaos, fortunes, and failures. That's the nature of evolution.
What does concern me a bit is that this time government may be large and well-organized enough to be quash the chaos on behalf of the vested interests. (can you say DMCA? RIAA?) That could stop any possible transition in its tracks.
sPh
Re:We told you so (Score:1)
Yeah... I got a question. Actually two.
"So what do you want? A cookie?"
Your prediction might have been a little more earth shattering if it had been made back in like '97 or '98. That's kind of like waiting till the fourth quarter to make a prediction on who's going to win.
Re:Adverts were never the soundest ideas... (Score:2)
This is BS! There are plenty of dot coms that brought in millions of dollars in advertising. The biggest problem ad-based dot coms had was 1) spending too much money and 2) expecting to always be able to raise more money.
Let's look at Digital Entertainment Network. They raised something like $100 million, and were blowing $50,000 per video episode, for a burn rate of something like $10 mil/month. The truth is, they could have spent $1000 per episode and gotten similar results using cheap cameras and cheap talent.
On the advertising side, DEN had a $10 million dollar advertising contract with people like Pepsi and Ford. Had they kept their burn rate to below their advertising pay-in, they would have been fine. And, I argue, that keeping it "real and small" ala early Slashdot would have lead to their content being more user-centric instead of more tv-esque.
iCast repeated the same mistake. Pseudo, which started in a much more controlled way, spiralled out of control in an attempt to go public (again, chasing the "easy money" that turned out not to be so).
Of course, I myself chased after the "easy VC money" after raising an initial angel round, so I understand why they did it...
Early Slashdot also had a big advantage - a highly targetted tech audience, which resulted in higher CPMs than a "consumer" site. Also a smart idea
Re:#105 (Score:2)
Hah, that was a hillarious night. Great quotes: "Is everyone drunk yet?" "Drink More" "IPO money needed to be spent" "Who here voted? Who lied?"
Other Candidates.... (Score:3)
Microsoft Outlook and the plethora of viruses it spreads.
Amazon patenting One-Click shopping and therefore triggering a boycott by the geek contingent.
AOL Buying nullsoft and then watching as Justin Frankel creates Gnutella and tells the world how to hack AIM.
Some guy in ireland creating the first (free and open source too) mp3 radio software then not telling anyone about it.... 18 months later shoutcast launches and within days there are thousands of channels
They didn't mention my favorite (Score:4)
Re:Any transition point will see 000's of failures (Score:2)
Yup, it just looks like the railroad craze in the 1850's...
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Re:Any transition point will see 000's of failures (Score:1)
Re:Bah. (Score:1)
Go right ahead and write about it. But why attack the authors of that article for writing what they wanted instead of what you wanted? That's childish.
#93 Y2K Hysteria? (Score:1)
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Delphis
Re:I like the NBCi "Quick-click" commercials (Score:2)
Of course, even after flushing millions of dollars into NBCi, NBC execs were too stupid to spend any airtime marketing the thing until the realized that their portal was one step from death a couple months ago. Now there's a flurry of ads, never mind that they are shutting the thing down.
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Re:After the Schadenfreude... (Score:1)
#104 (Score:2)
C-X C-S
Re:The reason these companies failed.. (Score:1)
Sure they did. The business plan was "Find gullible investors and milk them until they wise up or run out of money."
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My nominations from Slashdot History: (Score:5)
The winner, in my book:
http://slashdot.org/articles/98/11/06/166258.shtml [slashdot.org]
The oldest story on Slashdot that can still be accessed:
http://slashdot.org/articles/older/00000004.shtml [slashdot.org]
(I find particulary amusing the comments by Rob Malda... I think that would be the first slashdot troll ever)
Re:My nominations from Slashdot History: (Score:2)
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Buy.com what? (Score:2)
Anyone know what they're talking about?
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Scooped... (Score:2)
Re:102 (Score:2)
How Amazon might survive. (Score:1)
Even if this doesn't turn out to be Amazon's main business, it would be a great way for them to staunch their gushing cash hemmorhage. Unfortunately it might mean that other companies would license the one-click patent from them, and then loyal /.'ers would have to boycott a slew of potentially cool businesses. This assumes that the boycotters (of which I am one) decide to be consistent about their principles instead of confining their malice to Steve Bezos.
-N
Re:Bah. (Score:2)
Bah yourself! This story _is_ very amusing. I don't give a damn about the methodology, it's not like this is Science, it's just a list of amusing things. They could publish a list of stupid things done by TV journalists, would you respond with "actually most tv journalists take their job very seriously blah blah"? Your last point "what is more interesting" misses the point. This article is not a survey of the whole internet, it's a post-mortem on some shuttered corners of it. If you want to know about current healthy businesses, just move on, nothing to see here!
Personally I know full well about the successful web businesses etc, so do a lot of people. The point is, this article was an amusing look at those _other_ guys, a lot of whom made a lot of fuss and bother and brought themselves to our attention back before they failed. I found it much more interesting than "Ebay still here, making money, so is Amazon. MSNBC check, AOL check.... zzzzzzzz".
#104 (Score:2)
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Re:AutoGoogler is better than "Quick-click" (Score:1)
One (nonsense) word: (Score:1)
More words, actually: looks like Kozmo is leaving the building. Wonder if I can pick up a cheap gross-out-orange scooter and some cool messenger bags from them?
Yes, I'd like to have local delivery service for things orderend by phone / web / telepathy, but Kozmo ain't it. Want some cat litter by mail? ("We may lose on each sale, but we make up for in volume
timothy
Re:The Dilbert Perspective =) (Score:2)
-Chris
Re:Lighten up... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Other Candidates.... (Score:5)
Amazon.com loses money on every item they sell, so the "geek boycott" actually is SAVING them money, pushing the company towards profitability.
Do you want to hurt Amazon.com? I mean really hurt them? Then you should buy everything you that you possible can from them. Amazon lost a BILLION dollars last year. With the combined purchasing power of all the geeks on Slashdot, we could make this two billion dollars and really drive them into the ground!
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Re:The reason these companies failed.. (Score:1)
JOhn
Re:Ars Technica (Score:1)
Re:Ars Technica (Score:1)
:)
The buy.com commercial (Score:2)
My favourite was 11 anyway.
The reason these companies failed.. (Score:4)
It's the same reason why I refuse to buy ANYTHING, other then things like CDs, online -- the return process is awful.
That's just my opinion, however.
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CitizenC
The Dilbert Perspective =) (Score:5)
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CitizenC
Why click on just a word? (Score:1)
(Apologies to M. Twain.)
So do I click on each word in "lightning bug" or just mentally add the results of the two different clicks?
Does it actually exist? (Score:1)
Re:A first! [OT] (Score:1)
After the Schadenfreude... (Score:2)
The eCompanyNow article was something of a cute encyclopedia of some of the greatest excesses witnessed in the midst of the tech bubble. I enjoyed reading it, and laughed out loud at seeing so many portraits of hubris and foolishness in so compact a setting. But it makes for ironic reading, considering the origins of the magazine itself.
eCompanyNow was a rag brought into existence by Time, Inc. for the express purpose of soaking up a fair share of the funnymoney dotcom advertising dollars being generated by the mania itself. But the timing was less than opportune, since they came to market in May of 2000, as the bubble had already begun its rapid deflation. The dotcom advertising budgets that had led magazines like "FastCompany" and "Business 2.0" to swell to the size of phone books were suddenly gone, and as a result, the new economy magazines have all found themselves in a perpetual state of whithering, many looking anoxeric compared to their 1999 selves.
Not all new media rags were guilty of contributing to the bubble. Some were actually attempting to do a public service by reporting on the bubble as a genuine problem that was undermining both the common sense of the investing public, and the morality as well.
"Red Herring" was somewhat lonely as tech rags go, as they constantly decried the ever-inflating bubble in 1999, even at the risk of alienating the dotcoms that were advertising in their magazine.
Consider this prescient story [redherring.com] from October of 1999, called "Internet bubble popping American business ethics?". I admired Redherring enormously for continually bringing the bubble to the attention of their readership in the midst of the madness, when so many other tech/stock rags didn't have the stomach or brains to do the same. It takes guts to tell your readers that they are delusional and your advertisers that they are doomed, but Redherring did as much when the mania really got overwhelming.
Now, "f-ckedcompany" [fuckedcompany.com],"downside.com" [downside.com]
But one has to wonder, how long can the gleeful celebration of the death of stupid dotcoms last? Like vultures surviving off of the carcasses of dead and dying animals in the midst of a sudden drought, after a while, you've picked the bones clean, and there is nothing left to eat.
Kicking the recently humbled dotcom stars I guess is to be expected, but it will itself become tiresome. And then what will fuel the existence of those sites that were created solely for the Schadenfreude? Will they fail and be mocked by a 2nd generation version of themselves? Or simply forgotten? (I suspect they'll be the last to die before a new phase begins.)
And what will become of "eCompanyNow"? Soon they have have no more companies to mock, and no more advertisers to subsidize the mockery. Consolidation is already whittling the new media magazines down to a precious few, and I believe I've heard rumors that "eCompanyNow" will be merged with "Business2.0" and renamed "Business2.0". I hardly care what happens to either, given the fact that both are predicated in their very names on the myth we now have watched vanished before our eyes. There is no "Business2.0" model- that was the lie that we were being sold in the midst of the mania. There is no "eCompanyNow" model to embrace. We're back where we started, looking to the "Fortune" and "Forbes" magazines that preexisted the latest bubble and the "RedHerrings" that decried it for wisdom about what is coming.
FIN.
Re:My nominations from Slashdot History: (Score:2)
Check out #99 (Score:2)
Ha ha, stupid eCompany! Oh, wait, who's publishing this list again? oh yeah, it's eCompany.
This was the real problem with the internet "boom" and the ensuing stock market bubble -- totally incompetent people were offering market advice, and investors were actually taking it. eCompany isn't investment news, it's a Netscape portal toy publication. The thing that makes me sick is that the investment advice is so patently horrible that they even have the audacity to mock it outright in their own publication.
Of course this isn't the first time people have gotten burned by chasing a "sure thing" stock tip from some essentially anonymous source. "Let the buyer beware," I guess. And no, I'm not bitter; I didn't personally invest in any of the issues on eCompany's little list. It's just that I know a lot of retirees who have essentially lost their shirts following investment advice like this, and from more allegedly "reputable" places, too, like cnnfn and cbs marketwatch.
What it really goes to show, I guess, is the real watermark of the internet: irresponsible journalism. With all this hype, and columnists essentially a commodity, who has time to check facts?!
Hamsterdance is E-Business? (Score:1)
This article is a complete waste of bandwidth. They claim one of the dumb "E-Business" moments was the hamsterdance. It may have been one of the dumbest and pointless internet moments, but it had nothing to do with e-business.
Unless hamsterdance.com formed a strategic alliance with Real Hamster that I haven't heard about.
Re:The reason these companies failed.. (Score:1)
When I would point out the "plan" was just a bunch of hot air I would get either blank stares or be told flat out that market cap was what mattered, not profit or revenue. Year after year I was flabbergasted at the comic business models that would get VC.
Of course since they were paying me big bucks it didn't seem prudent to quit in disgust. Maybe I was part of the problem. [shrug]
The one dot com that did have a plan was a fantastic success. The owner retired with 160 million in his pocket. I was a short timer and only cashed in for 50K, but one of my friends got 250K after doing tech support for 2 years.
My current employer is doing fine. I'm making lots of money. From where I sit the Internet is doing quite well.
Jon Sullivan
Please explain pregnant 'Um...' (Score:1)
The quote it seems to be directed at seems to support the view of most tech folks.
To compare the 'internet bubble' with, say, the tulip bubble suggests there is a lot more valuable value added service with internet services than tulips. You buy a $10,000 tulip bulb and you are just making other rich idiots jealous. Making it easy for lazy-lovin' consumers to do less for more results sounds like a better business plan to me.
Yet another story that... (Score:1)
Re:AutoGoogler is better than "Quick-click" (Score:1)
Damn damn damn. I thought I'd fixed it for IE 5 Win, but I was wrong. Thanks for catching that. The best fix (IMO) would be to put .text after createRange()
I usually use the most compatible browser around [webreview.com], so I sometimes fail to catch the annoying quirks [google.com] in IE 5 Win. For example, IE 5 Mac supports the Netscape-style getSelection() instead of Microsoft's object stuff, and supports navigator.plugins instead of the equivalent goop in VBScript.
AutoGoogler is better than "Quick-click" (Score:5)
Strip out any spaces and save this in your browser's Favorites bar. Hilite some text, click the bookmark, and get the most relevant hits on the planet.
javascript:q=(document.getSelection)? document.getSelection(): document.selection.createRange(); if(!q)q=prompt('Search:',''); if(q)location= 'http://www.google.com/search?q='+escape(q);Also, AutoGoogler doesn't send a continuous feed of click data back to a multinational corporation's marketing department. Your choice.
Lighten up... (Score:3)
The jury's still out on Amazon, in my book. They still bleed cash like a gusher, and until they actually turn a few quarters of positive results, I'd still bet on an eventual collapse.
Re:AutoGoogler is better than "Quick-click" (Score:1)
#103 (Score:5)
Oh no! (Score:1)
Re:AutoGoogler is better than "Quick-click" (Score:2)
javascript:q=(document.getSelection)? document.getSelection(): document.selection.createRange(); if(!q)q=prompt('Search:',''); if(q)location= 'http://www.google.com/search?q='+escape(q
Re:Bah. (Score:1)
Do we have to go there again? The profitable companies sell pr0n.
It will be a sad day when RedClouds [redclouds.com] goes under. -Tell 'em Igor sent ya!
Re:My nominations from Slashdot History: (Score:1)
http://slashdot.org/features/98/11/09/1124 251.shtm l
Re:Scooped... (Score:2)
http://www.nerdperfect.null/display.np?sid=543
for users of OpenDNS.
http://www.nerdperfect.com/display.np?sid=543
for users of legacy DNS.
Claim your namespace.
Re:#59 (Score:2)
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
Re:Adverts were never the soundest ideas... (Score:3)
That is, company A and B advertise on each other's site, but both A and B derive their income entirely from advertising revenue... which only moves money around, doesn't make more. Since expenses are non-zero, and even the cost of moving the money around is non-zero, it's just a recipe for disaster.
I always wondered where the traditional advertisers were. Brand name recognition, like Coke or Pepsi, is the only thing web advertising is REALLY good for. People can only read one page at a time (even if they have several windows open) and are, in general, looking for a piece of information. Click-through advertising relies on the reader to disrupt their search and chain of thought.
I don't know anyone who would impulse buy a web server, which is what click-through really measures. Checking revenue before and after advertising is introduced is probably the best way to determine its success... unless nobody wants the service you are offering, which would cause TV advertising to fail miserably as well.
And if I punch the stupid monkey, I'm going to need to buy a new monitor. But, hey! This is the web! When I need something, I'll go find it! I don't need to be advertised to about it!
The ultimate point is - advertising in interactive media cannot divert the users attention away from the task they originally arrived at the site to complete. The Web is not TV, if you need a cliche.
Advertising is not yet powerful enough to cause everyone who sees/hears the ad to spontaneously buy the product. From that perspective, the dotcom crash is actually a victory for capitalism - the consumers have chosen, and no amount of marketing could change that.
#55 (Score:1)
To tell the truth, I don't see how this is a dumb moment in e-business. Ignoring the fact that I really liked the movie (I thought the acting was pretty god, and the plot, while unlikely, was mostly believable), it didn't have anything at all to do with ebusiness. It was more along the lines of an inside joke about the open source movement, with a little BillGatus bashing on the side.
Methinks whoever writes this list/e-zine/magazine needs to actually do research before throwing non-sequiturs on the pile...
20/20 Hindsight... (Score:1)
Oh, yes, we're laughing now at all of these extraordinarily dumb ideas.
Diffidently, though, I remind you all that they didn't seem like stupid ideas at the time. Some of the mistakes listed were self-inflicted, but not all of them. Some of them were simply ideas that didn't pan out -- they don't always.
Now, the Digital:Convergence's CueCat... that one, I'll agree, was a monumental waste of money. However, lambasting the investors in a company that had a fugitive as a CEO? That's hitting below the belt.
Here's one for you... (Score:1)
Re:For every .bomb (Score:1)
102 (Score:4)
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Re:My nominations from Slashdot History: (Score:2)
Bill Gates Eats Cow Feces
by Rob Malda on 11:12:00 10/06/1998
http://www.cs.hope.edu/~malda
This maybe pure heresey, but I'm pretty sure that would explain why he is ugly and stupid and smells bad.
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Dot-Dot-Bomb? (Score:5)
Hmm, wouldn't that be pronounced "Dot-dot-bomb" and "dot-dot-fortune"?
My personal favorite pronounciation is Digital:Convergence: "digital colon convergence"...sounds like a new digital ass-interface...
We told you so (Score:2)
Here's what I wrote one year ago, the day Downside went online:
4.14.2000 - Today begins the Second Great Depression
Any questions?
f*uckedcompany.com (Score:3)
This message was encrypted with rot-26 cryptography.
For investors (Score:2)
Snake oil salesmen use some of the same techniques to seperate people from their money. Yes, some actually had a good idea but the SNR was rather on the noise side then too.
DanH
Cav Pilot's Reference Page [cavalrypilot.com]
Ice Cream Source (Score:2)
Re:Other Candidates.... (Score:2)
The effects of which were dramatic in their insignificance.
Re:I like the NBCi "Quick-click" commercials (Score:2)
Looks like the dumb dot-com moments keep on coming.
Also of note: Of all the services offered by NBCi, what generated the most buzz was their pretty spokesmodel (reminiscent of the sock puppet spokesman for pets.com, which became their hottest seller).
Hey, now there's a model for bailing out NBCi.com... nude movies of the "pick a word, click it, get information" girl.
Re:They didn't mention my favorite (Score:2)
Re:For every .bomb (Score:2)
Keen.com (Score:3)
And they already wasted a good part of their budget on their TV ads decrying (what else in irony?) TV's. "People stop watching TV when they're on Keen.com." Which makes NO sense at all. Why would the TV be complaining? They should have some guy holding up man pages in pain.
Re:Buy.com what? (Score:2)
I quick-clicked all right... (Score:3)
Re:Bah. (Score:2)
company A gets 100 million in fuding and two weeks later spends 80 million in a givaway promotion... then they declared bacruptcy three months later. The point as I saw it was these people, for the most part, were not the sharpest business people.
Re:I like the NBCi "Quick-click" commercials (Score:2)
In my post, for instance, it underlines "Java", "QuickClick", "NBCi", and "Scientology". Clicking on an underlined word brings up a menu with a few links. For instance, "QuickClick"'s menu allows you to download it or go to the homepage. "Java" has links to the programming language, and "NBCi" has a menu two levels thick of news, stock info, analysis, etc.
For Scientology, it has two links, both to the Scientology magazine, Freedom [freedommag.org].
Looks like the Church beat me to the idea.
Re:AutoGoogler is better than "Quick-click" (Score:2)
javascript:q=(document.getSelection)? document.getSelection(): document.selection.createRange(); if(!q)q=prompt('Search:',''); if(q)location= 'http://www.google.com/search?q='+escape(q);
That is the coolest trick I've seen in a long time.
To do it in MSIE 5.5 (which may work in other browsers) I made a bookmark to a random page, and put it in the "Links" folder (which is, for me, the folder that contains bookmarks displayed in the Links toolbar). This caused the link to appear in the toolbar. I then right-clicked, selected Properties, and pasted the code into the URL box. It warned me a few times that "javascript" was not a registered program, then let me click OK. Presto, I can highlight a word, click the "AutoGoogle" Link, and I get a Google search, and I can click Back for the previous page!
I only wish you had posted sooner in the thread, so you could have gotten some mod points and more visibility. Maybe you'll get refered in a Slashback.
Re:Why click on just a word? (Score:2)
I like the NBCi "Quick-click" commercials (Score:3)
You may have seen it. The NBCi spokeswoman walks dramatically on stage. Hundreds are in attendance, all with their own muted terminals. The screen behind her shows a HUGE display. She introduces the concept ("See a word, click it, and get information"), the people are estatic.
Every detail is perfect and hilarious.
The spokeswoman is the anti-geek - attractive, female, thinks Java is a drink, lips as red as Valentine's Day. All marketing, doesn't understand a line of code of the QuickClick tech.
She has to have an exagerated gesture for everything. The motion for "clicking" is not pointing (that was used for "seeing"), but instead Jazz Hands, or the motion of throwing away a basketball.
The people at their terminals are blasted by light as their screens turn into spotlights, or perhaps microwaves digesting metal.
One poor guy is so excited, you can see him squirming, barely unable to take his eyes off his personal terminal to ask "Any word?" He climaxes the answer, "Yes, Any Word!"
They thunder into spontaneous applause. One guy lifts his arms and face to the ceiling, as if to say "Thank You, God!" or perhaps "All Praise to the CEO of NBCi.com!"
Unfortunately, NBCi is a little late for the dot-com buzz. Still, I giggle a little everytime I see this commerical, and the thousands of cultists who dressed in their best outfits for the unveiling of the new tech.
With Scientology in the air, it even gets more interesting - old LRH's learning tech hinges on the idea that all misunderstandings are over misunderstood words. When you don't get a new subject, it is solely because you didn't understand a word (not because the material is hard, or doesn't make sense, or the teacher is awful). You are encouraged to look up all the words you didn't understand, and then you will understand.
The Church could directly license this "tech" for their own use. "Free will? What's that?" Click. "Being Clear enough to follow the teaching of LRH! I get it!" Further, the introduction of the "SciClick" tech would look a lot like the NBCi commerical, except that the spokeswoman would be replaced by David Miscavige in a sailor's outfit, with or without the lipstick.
One of the *many* problems w/ .coms (Score:3)
Urgh! These clowns should go back to selling used cars.
Re:#104 (Score:2)
It works great for porn... (Score:2)
Re:The reason these companies failed.. (Score:2)
One only to do a simply search to come up with thousands of people trying to set up an online business, mostly without success. It's easy to see which have a reputable name after experience of visiting many websites. But the average shopper is not a hardcore geek who wants to spend hours online. There is a huge distrust of online shopping from the general public simply because it is so easy to be conned, give out credit card details and never hear from them again. It's the worry of this that is causing companies to fail.
Unfortunately the internet and internet businesses have had extremely bad press as far as security is concerned- far worse than any mail order catalogue company has suffered.
I am more than happy to buy clothes and books online whenever I can- I'm somewhat restricted being under 18 and therefore only having an english debit card not accepted by most of the sites from which I wish to buy. The return process should not be a problem- no more than mail order catalogues. It is the stigma surrounding internet businesses and the lack of trust created by bad press that has caused so many companies to fail. Naturally some should due to poor business plans and management, however many of the businesses which have plummeted and failed are due to the huge hype originally surrounding them followed by the disappointment of the public that it's not quite so easy and simple as "one click", coupled with the poor publicity concerning safety of credit card details being given over the net.
What? They didn't mention fuckedcompany.com (Score:3)
I mean, it's great to read it and keep abreast of what tech industries are getting bent over that week. If you find out that it's blocked at your company's firewall, you know to start polishing your resume!
Ars Technica (Score:4)
"100 Dumbest moments in e-Business history - Posted 04/12/2001 - 1:19am EST" on Ars Technica.
"101 Dumbest Dot-Com Moments - Posted by Hemos on Thursday April 12, @12:44".
StanLee.Net - RIP (Score:2)
This reminds me of StanLee.Net, which died recently thanks to it's major share holder and "Consultant" Peter Paul. This bastard, friend to greedy shits all over America, sold most of the stock (reducing it below $1.00) and single handedly destroying Stan Lee himself and yet another attempt to bring comics to the Net.
This is more than a 90% reduction in the stock price, within 3 days (!).
From their desks in the "bullpen", employees gasped as they watched the stock drop like a dead donkey from the top of the Daily Bugle Building. No Spiderman webs to catch that fall.
______
jeff13
One thing about the Dot-Com Revolution (Score:4)
Adverts were never the soundest ideas... (Score:4)
E-business, however, is not the same as what we call the "dot com" model. The dot com model is content for advertising. E-business is a more robust form of catalogue and phone business, which has survived for years and years before computers could count to 257.
Now, the trick is to find a way for all these wonderful content sites to stay cohesive, to make online newspapers a boon rather than a drag on print sales. The trick is to survive the stupidity of the branded marketting boom and move into an application and content model that is condusive to magnificent content but also will pay the bills. The internet has spent the past three years selling its cow for the magic bean of advertising, but it only grew into a small cactus. It's up to us -- the internet users, internet industrialists and yes even us open software paranoids -- to find a way to make the web work. I think it's going to take a lot of sacrifice -- hosting houses are going to have to drop their costs and standards will need to be opened rather than closed. Users will need to be educated in a way that benefits the 'net, because for every user tricked by a "your browser is not optimized" bar is one more who is wary of the new economy. And methods of payment will need to be found that don't require micropayments, advertisements OR goodness-of-your heart donations.
har har har (Score:2)
Think about the marketing that could have been:
I mean Melanie is as sharp as they come.
Is this the authentic apology [antioffline.com] from George Bush to China?
Re:hindsight is 20/20 (Score:2)
Why people hate dotcoms (Score:2)
Re:My nominations from Slashdot History: (Score:2)