This Is Not The Boo.com You Were Thinking Of
from the retreads dept
Back during the first bubble, perhaps the biggest example of dot com excess was boo.com -- a dot com company that wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in a very short period of time, and all they got out of it was a lot of hype for some glamorous founders and a fashion e-commerce site that was nearly unusable. That's why we were a bit surprised in early 2006 to hear that the site could be making a comeback. It seemed like another bit of evidence that the internet space was re-entering a bubble phase -- when companies tried to rebuild dot com flameouts from years past. In that story, it was promised that the new boo.com would show up by June of 2006, but that date came and went with nothing much to show. In November, there were suddenly new rumors that the site was about to come back, but there didn't seem to be much to substantiate those rumors. The latest is that the Financial Times is reporting that boo.com has been bought by an entrepreneur in the online travel space, who is launching a hotel booking site on the domain, along with all the necessary web 2.0 requirements (community features? check!). No, web travel booking has nothing to do with clothing -- but perhaps that's a good thing. The new investor seems to have bought the name due to the free publicity it will generate (including a post like this one) and the simplicity of the name. Of course, all the free publicity in the world won't help a site that isn't particularly useful -- so hopefully this latest reincarnation of the boo.com brand actually will have some substance behind it, rather than just hype.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Where's Miss Boo?!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Here's My Site
Maybe naked.com? - nope, already in use.
What's my website going to be if there's no more short words with great publicity? Help out a brother, please.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Not a bad site...
The site itself doesn't play well with Firefox, and I've not tried with IE. It seems cluttered and there appears to be no way to see all the reviews at one time. You have to click on an individual's review, and see other comments there, and then go back, click another reviewer, and see more comments... A bit annoying.
As a new site though, perhaps they'll welcome some constructive criticism.
EtG
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Hey, brother!
http://wwwdotcom.com/
lol
[ link to this | view in thread ]
My favorite long running 'f. u.' site is dedicated to Ernst who ran Boo (http://www.ernstmalmsten.com/) "Incidentally this domain is for sale, if Ernst or one of his many friends is prepared to settle my unpaid invoices this domain could be yours..." Niiice.
Unexpected site design and could be clever if we are allowed to share information based on locations. All that said, another community site for the web....(yawn).
Who knows, this could be the first internet 'Curse'. The curse of Boo! Lets see if they burn through $120 million...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Not sure yet
For a more comprehensive review see: http://www.dgfmedia.net/blog/2007/05/02/is-boocom-for-real/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
boo-hoo.com
Also, the "new" stuff today is not that new. Most of the web 2.0 concepts were developed BEFORE the 2000 crash - it just took several years to catch on. Internet growth is slowing. The one place where we might see growth is virtual worlds like Second Life and Kaneva - but we've been by this before as well (anyone remember "The Palace"?).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
boo boo
They're not the first ones though to start this type of site - check out minimalist www.fivetodo.com.
[ link to this | view in thread ]