SALON

Thursday, Jan 11, 2001 8:30 PM UTC

Finishing last in the race for dot-com riches

Could there be a worse time than now to publish a book revealing the secrets of Internet start-up success?

By

Topics: Business, Books,

For the past few months, even its biggest boosters have been forced to admit that the Internet gold rush was, for all its many virtues, a colossal scam. The dot-com racket operated on the tried-and-true greater-fool theory: As long as there was a greater fool waiting to pay even more for your EarwaxBegone.com stock than you did, the moola would keep rolling in. Well, there may be a sucker born every minute, but during the heyday of the Internet humbug there was a moronic dot-com born every second; and as a result of this numerical imbalance, the supply of greater fools suddenly dried up, leaving millions of speculators in EarwaxBegone.com and its ilk broke, bummed and too humiliated to even complain.

Which is why one Jonathan Aspatore, hapless author (with Alicia Abell) of the just-published “Digital Rush: Nine Internet Start-ups in the Race for Dot-Com Riches,” has provided such a valuable, cathartic public service. For Aspatore’s humiliation, unlike yours and mine (actually, mine is pretty public, since I work for a dot-com), is public. Only your caustic, sneering mate knows about the 1,000 shares of EarwaxBegone.com you bought last year at $45 a share and sold yesterday at $.34, but Aspatore will forever be known as the author of a book titled “Digital Rush: Nine Internet Start-ups in the Race for Dot-Com Riches” that was published in 2001.

My schadenfreudian slip may be showing, but I find this strangely comforting.

Published by Amacom, a company whose printing presses apparently do not come equipped with a “Stop” button, “Digital Rush” is a cheerful, boosterish book filled with advice you can take to the bank — where, if you have been paying close attention, you will withdraw all of your money and give it to an old woman in exchange for a handful of magic beans. “The time to be part of an online venture is now,” the mummified-sounding voice of Aspatore brightly exclaims on the very first page. Why? “There has never been a better time to raise money from financing sources such as venture capitalists.”

Actually, there have been better times than now to raise v.c. money for dot-com start-ups — during the crusades, for instance, or during those torrid years when dinosaurs walked the earth. But before quibblers can voice such objections, Aspatore moves on, revealing for those who run to read why dot-com stock options will help you take up permanent residence on a Caribbean beach. Stock in traditional companies, he helpfully explains, “is unlikely to be as active as that of an Internet company’s stock.”

Ah, “active” — such a flexibleword. And as you roll your wheelbarrow filled with Articles of Confederation-value stock options to the store to buy a candy bar, you will have ample time to ponder its many and varied definitions.

But the book’s truly defining moment occurs at the end of a gushing profile of a luxury-goods-purveying dot-com start-up rejoicing in the name Foofoo.com. After many chirpy pages extolling Foofoo.com’s dynamic business plan, filled with inspiring facts like “The Foofoo.com team spent six months coming up with their name” and descriptions of the “water-trickling, Zen-like, mind-calming fountain” featured in the company’s offbeat, creativity-inspiring “Living Room,” the following italicized postscript appears:

As of publication of this book, questions have arisen regarding the state of Foofoo.com and where they are heading, and the company’s officials have been unavailable, so far, for comment on these issues.

If this strangely evasive coda inspires in you a fleeting suspicion that Foofoo.com might have rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, you would be right. Perhaps calmed excessively by its Zen-like fountain, Foofoo.com rests in peace. It has taken up eternal residence in that place where the words “No Web site is configured at this address” appear when you type in the URL. It is an ex-Foofoo.

Whatever.

Coming soon: “The Charge of the Light Brigade: How Units in the Rear Still Have Time to Play a Decisive Role if They Hurry.”

Gary Kamiya is a Salon contributing writer. More Gary Kamiya.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 0 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
3066 points3067 points | 2430 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
1046 points1047 points | 561 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
153 points154 points | 60 comments
vote
New campaign compares gun control to anti-LGBT discrimination
31 points32 points | 11 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
30 points31 points | 15 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations