[thelist] The Bigger They Are ... a $22 Million Internet Disaster

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Mon Oct 2 23:47:17 CDT 2000


just re-read this... there's a rant below, and it uses bad words... 
and it's short (for me) only cuz my connection is getting wonky... 
anyway, on to the rant...

$22 million?  < 3 months?  hmmmm... there's an audit waiting to 
happen...

and to have the audacity to post their resumes to 
http://kibupeople.com/?  if anything, you'd think they would want to 
*remove* kibu from their resumes... i have a new "Objective" 
statement for their resumes: "To not blow another $22 million on 
some idea already known to be flawed."  then i might give 'em an 
interview...

i love this crap... it's like boo.com... these self-important hacks 
burn through other people's money with no solid business model, 
blame business conditions for their demise, and then proudly 
display their failure as if it were a badge of honor... and look at the 
tasks they have listed for 46 days of work... "reading Tarot cards 
and dream analysis ... Interacted live with Kibu's audience at ... 
storefront in Ghirardelli Square..."  *that's* a job... and at prime real-
estate, too...

"We blew $22 million on a dot-com start-up... We kick ass."

and then NPR interviews losers like that... and every other media 
outlet trying to "report" the same crap that three years ago they 
claimed was a porn-infested, insecure wasteland...

ok, there's a bigger rant here... NPR broadcast a story today about 
how the ecomm dot-coms *learned* something from last year after 
shipping fiascos, lack of return policies, and general mayhem... 
they say their buzzword this year is "fulfillment"...

i have a question: Where the fuck have you been?

you mean, we should, like, *ship* things to people after we take 
their money?  and on time for a holiday, too?  crap, that wasn't our 
goal, we just wanted to get their money and cash out before the 
windows on the Beamer defrosted...

i mean, c'mon, guys... what's the "new" business model on the 
internet?  what's so frigging unique about selling scarves on the 
internet that you find every possible way to fuck it up, and then 
claim that the business model is still "discovering itself" ? ...that's 
a euphemism for whacking off -- and in this case, over piles of 
money from uneducated investors and hornswaggled customers...

i have an idea, why not hire someone who's worked at places who 
do what you do?  what?  nobody knows this stuff?  new industry?  
i'm sorry, how long has LL Bean been selling through a catalog?  
for christmas?  and over a phone as well (they have to pay *people* 
to do that, at less that $22mil)?  or any number of the other 300 
catalogs i get every day in my mailbox?  nothing new here, folks, 
same old shit, different way of flipping pages is all...

yeah, kibu didn't sell stuff... three months ago they thought an 
advertising model would sustain them... as it's done for... who?  oh 
yeah, fuckedcompany.com... the guy with a day job and more 
page views per day than playboy...

> From: "James Aylard" <aylard at 2xtreme.net>
>
> 	I imagine this story is making the rounds in various places across the
> Internet: kibu.com cost US$22 million to build and lasted two-and-a-half
> months before crashing and burning. Ouch! Interestingly, Netscape co-founder
> Jim Clark was in on the action. For the details:
> 
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20001002/aponline205513_000.ht
> m




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