F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts

Kaplan, Philip J.

ISBN 10: 0743228626 / ISBN 13: 9780743228626

Published by Simon & Schuster, 2002

About this Item

nice hardcover first edition only minor wear seen. Seller Inventory # 006438

Bibliographic Details

Title: F'd Companies: Spectacular Dot-com Flameouts

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 2002

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Good

Edition: 1st Edition.

About this title

Synopsis:

A humorous, biting look at dot.com mania and disaster by the president of PK Interactive offers an insider's perspective on the waste, greed, and stupidity of more than two hundred e-commerce failures, featuring cynical profiles, colorful anecdotes, and facts that offer an intriguing guide to how not to run a business.

Review:

The graveyard of dot-com disasters is overflowing with grandiose ideas gone spectacularly bad, and Philip J. Kaplan's F'd Companies offers an unapologetically acerbic opinion on dozens of the most outrageous. Kaplan, a programmer turned consultant whose own online dreams began when he launched a bulletin board system for pirated game software back in 1989, pulls no punches as he bluntly dissects Web failures that remain dazzling for their pretentious plans and audacious executions. There are big names like Webvan ("a classic example of PAYING more for products than they were SELLING them for") and Go.com (a "portal to nowhere"), but most here are less well known despite similarly burning through cash like a cyber-brushfire. In language far more explicit than his softened-for-the-bookstore title, Kaplan skewers the likes of Iam.com (which lost $48 million trying to convince models and actors to post their portfolios on the Net), OnlineChoice.com (which spent $20 million to learn consumers weren't interested in group buys of electricity and other utilities), HeavenlyDoor.com (which sunk $26 million into a site peddling caskets and burial plots), and Eppraisals.com (which dropped $15 million on an effort to sell online evaluations of antiques). The result is consistently profane, frequently hilarious, and usually right on target. --Howard Rothman