The Greatest Defunct Websites and Dotcom Disasters 192
NotableCathy writes "CNet has an interesting retrospective write-up documenting the most notable dotcom disasters and now-defunct Websites that were massive in their day, detailing what happened to them and what they led to. Nupedia didn't escape a slating (remember Larry Sanger's memoir?), or indeed Beenz, whose founder and CEO once said 'would become the universal currency, supplanting all others,' according to The Register seven years ago."
Please .... (Score:2, Insightful)
And the winner is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Jenni Archives (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:AllTheWeb.com (Score:3, Insightful)
However, the while google's search results were/are good, the key thing they twigged to earlier than most was how HUGE web advertising was, and how to monetise it. That could have happened in Norway with alltheweb, but it didn't.
When google filed IPO documents people finally understood how HUGE web advertising was.
--Q
Re:I miss Dejanews (Score:3, Insightful)
> was Usenet that contained the useful technical
> information we needed, and when Dejanews was
> the best way to get to it.
Noob. Getting a feed from someone was the best way, and second best was getting a login on a small machine that had the feed. Dejanews was the Harbinger of Death for Usenet.
Re:AllTheWeb.com (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:beopen (Score:1, Insightful)
Well isn't that great advice. Identify a market need, wait ten years to come to market and learn that someone else already executed nine years earlier?
I just can't understand the logic behind your advice. Things change quickly in business making it impossible to predict five to ten years ahead of time. You just can't plan for that, especially when you're not even in business yet.
The reasons new business fail is because they planned poorly (or not at all), couldn't adjust between what they expected and what they got (big revenues to big losses) etc.. It has nothing to do with long-term planning. That comes later.
Long term plans are only valuable if you've got the minerals to get yourself past day one.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mp3.com (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, now seriously, it was just an arse. Admittedly a rather stretched one, but I gather there must be _some_ demand for seeing that on a woman, judging by the whole category of porn and whole sites dedicated to it. I haven't heard of people reeling in shock after being exposed to almost seeing a <insert female pornstar>'s kidneys up her rear end after an anal scene. Or sometimes in the middle of it.
Seriously, it wasn't the most appealing or aesthetically pleasing picture out there, I'll grant that, but I just can't figure out the _horror_ some people claim to have experienced seeing it. It seems a rather disproportionate response. You'd figure that a simple, "hmm, how's this relevant to the topic at hand?" and hitting the back button would be enough for all practical purposes. Horror or shock? Erm, why?
Or was it just the implicit hint of homosexuality that gives the average male in some parts of the world the idea that he must seem properly outraged and horrified by it, lest someone might get the idea that he's gay too? Not trolling, just genuinely trying to figure it out.
Re:Thank God (Score:3, Insightful)
The Web is in a state where the Telephone was in the 1960's where people are comfortable using it for their day to day activites, and is difficult to remember a world without it.
Re:beopen (Score:5, Insightful)
GP was in part referring to the fact that businesses often expect revenues and profits to come much more quickly than they actually do and have not planned ahead for the initial stages of a start-up. For traditional small businesses, lack of sufficient capital is the main cause of failure for new businesses. I suspect that remains the case with web businesses, even if it sometimes could be more accurately described as over-valuing the worth of your product.
The factors you mention are factors in the failure of a business, and it was a nice touch that you mock someone for talking about planning 5 years ahead and then list poor planning as your first idea of why most businesses fail. Five years may seem like a lifetime to you and the world of tech, but a solid business plan will almost always hold up over that long of a period without a huge amount change. (If you need to make huge changes to your business plan every year, you're probably in your death throes - even for tech companies.) Moreover, a business shouldn't expect profits for at least the first two years of its existence. Five years is a pretty short deadline to expect to get out of start-up mode.
Of course, you can opt to say "It's the web" and then accelerate all of your deadlines by a factor of four. That worked well last time, and I'm sure it'll work well with Web 2.0.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
But it IS the recipe for getting a bogus patent, which in turn leads to tons of cash - for lawyers, anyway.
Re:Thank God (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I miss Dejanews (Score:3, Insightful)
AOL was the both the Harbinger AND Vector of Death for Usenet, long before Dejanews even appeared.
Wiki "Eternal september"
(And yes, I know that AOL cut off Usenet access, but google is now filling those shoes, so September drags on...)