Dot-com company
Encyclopedia
A dot-com company, or simply a dot-com (alternatively rendered dot.com or dot com), is a company that does most of its business on the Internet
, usually through a website
that uses the popular top-level domain
, ".com
" (in turn derived from the word "commercial").
While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with this business model that came into being during the late 1990s. Many such startups
were formed to take advantage of the surplus of venture capital
funding. Many were launched with very thin business plan
s, sometimes with nothing more than an idea and a catchy name. The stated goal was often to "get big fast", i.e. to capture a majority share
of whatever market was being entered. The exit strategy
usually included an IPO and a large payoff for the founders. Others were existing companies that re-styled themselves as Internet companies, many of them legally changing their names to incorporate a .com suffix.
With the stock market crash
around the year 2000 that ended the dot-com bubble
, many failed and failing dot-com companies were referred to punningly as dot-bombs, dot-cons or dot-gones. Many of the surviving firms dropped the .com suffix from their names.
One of the biggest mistakes early dot com businesses made was that they were more interested in attracting visitors to their website but not necessarily winning them over to customers. Early e-commerce thought the most important factor was to have as many visitors as possible gather to their website and this would eventually translate into profits for their business. This was not necessarily the case and businesses failed. Early dot com businesses also failed to take the time to properly research the situation before starting their businesses. There are many factors that come into play when starting a new business. Research needs to go into the product the business is actually trying to sell. The business also need to research price of their product. They need to be competitive with the cost of their product compared to their competitors. Early businesses failed to research how they promoted their product. If they decided to advertise their product only through the cheapest avenues (i.e. banner ads, radio), then most likely they would not get the amount of consumers they would if they advertised through more popular means.
There are thousands of failed companies from the dot-com bubble
of the late 1990s. Here are a few of the largest and most famous.
Top 10 dot-com flops CNET.com
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, usually through a website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...
that uses the popular top-level domain
Generic top-level domain
A generic top-level domain is one of the categories of top-level domains maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority for use in the Domain Name System of the Internet....
, ".com
.com
The domain name com is a generic top-level domain in the Domain Name System of the Internet. Its name is derived from commercial, indicating its original intended purpose for domains registered by commercial organizations...
" (in turn derived from the word "commercial").
While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used specifically to refer to companies with this business model that came into being during the late 1990s. Many such startups
Startup company
A startup company or startup is a company with a limited operating history. These companies, generally newly created, are in a phase of development and research for markets...
were formed to take advantage of the surplus of venture capital
Venture capital
Venture capital is financial capital provided to early-stage, high-potential, high risk, growth startup companies. The venture capital fund makes money by owning equity in the companies it invests in, which usually have a novel technology or business model in high technology industries, such as...
funding. Many were launched with very thin business plan
Business plan
A business plan is a formal statement of a set of business goals, the reasons why they are believed attainable, and the plan for reaching those goals. It may also contain background information about the organization or team attempting to reach those goals....
s, sometimes with nothing more than an idea and a catchy name. The stated goal was often to "get big fast", i.e. to capture a majority share
Market share
Market share is the percentage of a market accounted for by a specific entity. In a survey of nearly 200 senior marketing managers, 67 percent responded that they found the "dollar market share" metric very useful, while 61% found "unit market share" very useful.Marketers need to be able to...
of whatever market was being entered. The exit strategy
Exit strategy
An exit strategy is a means of leaving one's current situation, either after a predetermined objective has been achieved, or as a strategy to mitigate failure. An organisation or individual without an exit strategy may be in a quagmire...
usually included an IPO and a large payoff for the founders. Others were existing companies that re-styled themselves as Internet companies, many of them legally changing their names to incorporate a .com suffix.
With the stock market crash
Stock market crash
A stock market crash is a sudden dramatic decline of stock prices across a significant cross-section of a stock market, resulting in a significant loss of paper wealth. Crashes are driven by panic as much as by underlying economic factors...
around the year 2000 that ended the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
, many failed and failing dot-com companies were referred to punningly as dot-bombs, dot-cons or dot-gones. Many of the surviving firms dropped the .com suffix from their names.
List of well-known failed dot-coms
In the late 1990s (as well as today) many businesses were interested in investing in the Internet to expand their market. The Internet has the ability to reach out to consumers globally as well as providing more convenient shopping to the consumer. If planned and executed correctly, the Internet can greatly improve sales. However, there were many businesses in the early 2000s that did not plan correctly and that cost them their business.One of the biggest mistakes early dot com businesses made was that they were more interested in attracting visitors to their website but not necessarily winning them over to customers. Early e-commerce thought the most important factor was to have as many visitors as possible gather to their website and this would eventually translate into profits for their business. This was not necessarily the case and businesses failed. Early dot com businesses also failed to take the time to properly research the situation before starting their businesses. There are many factors that come into play when starting a new business. Research needs to go into the product the business is actually trying to sell. The business also need to research price of their product. They need to be competitive with the cost of their product compared to their competitors. Early businesses failed to research how they promoted their product. If they decided to advertise their product only through the cheapest avenues (i.e. banner ads, radio), then most likely they would not get the amount of consumers they would if they advertised through more popular means.
There are thousands of failed companies from the dot-com bubble
Dot-com bubble
The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...
of the late 1990s. Here are a few of the largest and most famous.
- AmCy.com: American Cybercast was the publisher of pioneering episodic sites TheSpot.comThe SpotThe Spot, or thespot.com, was the second episodic online story , after an earlier experiment by AOL's QuantumLink Serial, and pioneered the underwriting of bandwidth and production costs by offering paid advertising banners on the web pages and product placement within the journal entries...
and EON4.com, with backing from Intel and Softbank. The company's collapse is documented in the book "Digital Babylon: How the Geeks, the Suits, and the Ponytails Fought to Bring Hollywood to the Internet." - boo.comBoo.comBoo.com was a British Internet company, founded by Swedes Ernst Malmsten, Kajsa Leander and Patrik Hedelin, which went bust following the dot-com boom of the late 1990s....
- Broadband SportsBroadband SportsBroadband Sports is a social media and video sharing website focused on extreme sports. The Broadbandsports.com domain and "Broadband Sports" name was originally founded in 1998, later becoming a high-flying dotcom-era network of sports-content Web sites that raised over $60 million before shutting...
: A network of sports-content Web sites that raised over $60 million before going bust in February 2001. - Cyberian OutpostCyberian OutpostCyberian Outpost was an online vendor of discount computer hardware and software, and was one of the first successful online retailers. CybOut was founded in 1994 by Darryl Peck and announced its IPO in 1998 . After its stock reached a high of $60 in 2000, Cyberian Outpost fell victim to the...
: Founded in 1994 and one of the first successful online retailers. Controversial marketing campaigns. Acquired by Fry's ElectronicsFry's ElectronicsFry's Electronics is a big-box store and retailer of software, consumer electronics, computer hardware, with in store computer repair and custom computer building services and household appliances with a chain of superstores headquartered in Silicon Valley...
in 2001. - CyberRebate: Promised customers a 100% rebate after purchasing products priced at nearly ten times the retail cost. Went bankrupt in 2002, leaving thousands of customers holding the bag. The bankruptcy was settled in 2005 and customers received about eight cents on the dollar from their original rebates.
- DigiScents: Tried to transmit smells over the internet.
- E-Loft.com: A paneuropean portal for university students, covering Italy, Germany, UK, Spain and France.
- Excite@HomeExciteExcite is a collection of Internet sites and services owned by IAC Search & Media, which is a subsidiary of InterActive Corporation . Launched in 1994, it is an online service offering a variety of content, including an Internet portal, a search engine, a web-based email, instant messaging, stock...
: Excite, a pioneering Internet portal, merged with high-speed Internet service @Home in 1999 to become Excite@Home, promising to be the "AOL of Broadband" and partnering with cable operators to become the largest broadband ISPInternet service providerAn Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
in the United States. After spending billions on acquisitions and trying unsuccessfully to sell the Excite portal during a sharp downturn in online advertising, the company filed for bankruptcy in September 2001 and shut down operations. - Flooz.comFlooz.comFlooz.com was a dot-com venture, now defunct, based in New York City that went online in February 1999, promoted by comic actress Whoopi Goldberg in a series of television advertisements...
: a service touted as "e-currency" launched at the height of the dot com boom in the late 90s and subsequently folded in 2001 due to lack of consumer acceptance and a basic lack of necessity. Famous for having Whoopi GoldbergWhoopi GoldbergWhoopi Goldberg is an American comedian, actress, singer-songwriter, political activist, author and talk show host.Goldberg made her film debut in The Color Purple playing Celie, a mistreated black woman in the Deep South. She received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress and won...
as their spokesperson. - Kozmo.comKozmo.comKozmo.com was a venture-capital-driven online company that promised free one-hour delivery of "videos, games, dvds, music, mags, books, food, basics & more" and Starbucks coffee in several major cities in the United States. It was founded by young investment bankers Joseph Park, Yong Kang and...
: delivered small goods (like a pint of ice cream) via messenger courier in under an hour to anyone in their service area. They charged normal retail rates and did not charge a delivery fee. They thought they could make up the difference by avoiding the expense of a retail storefront and on volume. - theGlobe.comTheGlobe.comtheGlobe.com was an internet startup founded in 1994 by Cornell students Stephan Paternot and Todd Krizelman. A social networking service, theGlobe.com made headlines by going public on November 13, 1998 and posting the largest first day gain of any IPO in history up to that date...
: Broke the record as the company having the largest percentage change in its stock price on its first day of trading. CEO Stephan PaternotStephan PaternotStephan Paternot is a film producer, author, and IT entrepreneur, mostly known as the founder of theGlobe.com, one of the first social networks, during the late nineties dot-com bubble.-Biography:...
was famously filmed dancing in a Manhattan nightclub wearing plastic pants. Limped along in various forms until an anti-spam lawsuit forced its closure in 2007. - Kibu.com: Online community for teen girls, founded in 1999 and backed, among others, by Jim ClarkJames H. ClarkJames H. Clark is an American entrepreneur and computer scientist. He founded several notable Silicon Valley technology companies, including Silicon Graphics, Inc., Netscape Communications Corporation, myCFO and Healtheon...
. Although traffic to its website had begun to materialize, kibu.com abruptly closed its doors 46 days after a launch party in San Francisco, in October 2000. It had not run out of its $22 million in venture capital, but company officials concluded, "Kibu's timing in financial markets could not have been worse." - Pseudo.comPseudo.comPseudo.com was a website for live audio and video webcasting. Founded in late 1993, its parent company Pseudo Programs Inc. filed for bankruptcy following the end of the Dot Com Bubble in 2000. Its assets were purchased by INTV in 2001...
: One of the first live streaming video websites. Pseudo produced its own content in a SoHo, NYC studio and streamed up to 7 hours of live programming a day from its website in a format divided into channels by topic. - Ritmoteca.comRitmoteca.comRitmoteca.com was an online music store and early pioneer in the online downloadable music space. Founded in Miami, Florida in 1998 during the Dot-com bubble by Ivan J...
: One of the first online music storeOnline music storeAn online music store is an online business which sells audio files, usually music, on a per-song and/or subscription basis. It may be differentiated from music streaming services in that the music store offers the actual music file, while streaming services offer partial or full listening without...
s retailing music on a pay-per-download basis and an early predecessor to highly successful iTunesITunesiTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
business model. Pioneered the digital distribution deal as one of first companies to sign agreements with Universal Music GroupUniversal Music GroupUniversal Music Group is an American music group, the largest of the "big four" record companies by its commanding market share and its multitude of global operations...
, Sony Music EntertainmentSony Music EntertainmentSony Music Entertainment ' is the second-largest global recorded music company of the "big four" record companies and is controlled by Sony Corporation of America, the United States subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corporation....
, Bertelsmann Music Group and Warner Music GroupWarner Music GroupWarner Music Group is the third largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry, making it one of the big four record companies...
. - Yadayada.com: Founded in 1999; Internet browser and portal technologies for the first generation of wireless PalmPilotPalmPilotThe PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc...
and HandspringHandspring (company)Handspring was a maker of Palm OS-based Visor- and Treo-branded personal digital assistants. It was run by Jeff Hawkins, Donna Dubinsky, and Ed Colligan, the original inventors of the Palm Pilot and founders of Palm Computing, after they became unhappy with the direction in which 3Com was taking...
organizers, and KyoceraKyocerais a multinational manufacturer based in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. The company has diversified its founding technology in ceramic materials through internal development as well as strategic mergers and acquisitions...
smartphoneSmartphoneA smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
devices, competing with OmniSky (also defunct) and AvantGoAvantGoAvantGo was a Web page / file synchronization service for personal digital assistants and smartphones. The system consisted of a browser client software running on the device, a synchronization server, and an Internet-connected PC to transfer Web pages into the mobile device...
. The name of the company came from a Hindi phrase (its CEO was of Indian origin), and not as was widely reported from the similar phrase "Yada yada yada" made famous by a SeinfeldSeinfeldSeinfeld is an American television sitcom that originally aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, lasting nine seasons, and is now in syndication. It was created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld, the latter starring as a fictionalized version of himself...
episode (although the similarity certainly helped marketing). The business plan specified 12x as many sales as actually occurred in the first 12 months of operations. The cheap plastic, easily breakable HandSpring devices, sold directly by YadaYada via a reseller agreement, accounted for 96% of support calls vs. the magnesium cased Palm devices, despite the latter's market predominance at the time, and the resulting consumer discontent resulted in many returns and canceled contracts. The company's CEO was also CFO and embarked without oversight on disastrous, expensive marketing campaigns, such as planned Super Bowl ads without basics like a target market. 90%+ of all sales were within the Manhattan area, and the 3GL networks needed to expand the service failed to materialize after the telecom market meltdown in 2000–2001. The most-hyped feature of the service was a public bathroom rank-and-search service, available in Manhattan only, which allowed users to rank bathrooms by several factors such as cleanliness, appointment, etc., and provided directions to such bathrooms based on the user's location. The company laid off practically all workers in 2001, and shutdown formally shortly afterwards. Its CEO was rumored to have fled to Canada to avoid the IRS and lawsuits filed by a few disgruntled employees who were terminated with no severance despite existing written employment contracts. The URL is now in use by another, unrelated company. - Zap.com: an internet media venture founded by Zapata Corporation, a fish protein company intent on monetizing its domain nameDomain nameA domain name is an identification string that defines a realm of administrative autonomy, authority, or control in the Internet. Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System ....
.
Top 10 dot-com flops CNET.com
Acquisitions
| Acquisition | Bought by | Price | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hotmail | Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... |
$400,000,000 | December 1997 |
| Internet Movie Database Internet Movie Database Internet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million... |
Amazon.com Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and... |
1998 | |
| Viaweb Viaweb Viaweb was a web-based application that allowed users to build and host their own online stores with little effort and technical expertise, directly from their own web browser. The eponymous company was started in July 1995 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell. Graham claims that... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$49,000,000 | June 8, 1998 |
| Netscape Communications | AOL AOL AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services... |
$4,200,000,000 | 24 November 1998 |
| GeoCities GeoCities Yahoo! GeoCities is a web hosting service, currently available only in Japan.GeoCities was originally founded by David Bohnett and John Rezner in late 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet . In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to place their web pages... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$3,570,000,000 | January 28, 1999 |
| Broadcast.com Broadcast.com Broadcast.com was a web radio company founded as "AudioNet" in September 1995 by Chris Jaeb. Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban later led the organization to hugely capitalize on the Dot-com bubble and be sold to Yahoo.com.-History:... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$5,700,000,000 | April 1, 1999 |
| Thawte Thawte Thawte Consulting is a certificate authority for X.509 certificates. Thawte was founded in 1995 by Mark Shuttleworth in South Africa and is the second largest public CA on the Internet.-Origins:... |
VeriSign VeriSign Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code... |
$575,000,000 | December 1999 |
| Network Solutions Network Solutions Network Solutions, LLC is a technology company founded in 1979. The domain name registration business has become the most important division of the company. As of January 2009, Network Solutions managed more than 6.6 million domain names.-History:... |
VeriSign VeriSign Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Dulles, Virginia that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc and .tv country-code... |
$21,000,000 | 2000 |
| eGroups EGroups eGroups.com was an email list management web site. The site allowed users to create their own mailing lists and allowed others to sign up for membership on the list. The web site provided archives of the messages as well as list management functionality. Each group also had a shared calendar, file... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$432,000,000 | June 28, 2000 |
| AllBusiness.com AllBusiness.com AllBusiness.com, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dun & Bradstreet, provides business information and resources for small businesses, those companies with fewer than 500 employees... |
NBCi | $225,000,000 | March 2000 |
| HotJobs | Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
December 27, 2001 | |
| CDNow CDNOW CDNOW.com was an online retailer. The company was founded in February 1994 by twin brothers Jason Olim and Matthew Olim of Ambler, Pennsylvania... |
Amazon Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and... |
2001 | |
| PayPal PayPal PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders.... |
eBay EBay eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide... |
$1,500,000,000 | October 3, 2002 |
| Inktomi Inktomi Inktomi Corporation was a California company that provided software for Internet service providers. It was founded in 1996 by UC Berkeley professor Eric Brewer and graduate student Paul Gauthier. The company was initially founded based on the real-world success of the search engine they developed... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$235,000,000 | March 2003 |
| Pyra Labs Pyra Labs Pyra Labs is the company that coined the word Blog, creating the service Blogger.The co-founders were Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan, and the company's first product, also named 'Pyra', was a web application which would combine a project manager, contact manager, and to-do list... |
Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
2003 | |
| Overture Services, Inc. Yahoo! Search Marketing Yahoo! Search Marketing is a keyword-based "Pay per click" or "Sponsored search" Internet advertising service provided by Yahoo!.Yahoo began offering this service after acquiring Overture Services, Inc.... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$1,700,000,000 | July 2003 |
| Keyhole Inc. Google Earth Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographical information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a Central Intelligence Agency funded company acquired by Google in 2004 . It maps the Earth by the superimposition of images obtained from satellite... |
Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
2004 | |
| Kelkoo Kelkoo The website Kelkoo is a European price comparison service founded in France in 1999, allowing customers to find information on products they want to purchase, including price and seller information. It was bought by Yahoo! in 2004... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
March 25, 2004 | |
| Picasa Picasa Picasa is an image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, plus an integrated photo-sharing website, originally created by Idealab in 2002 and owned by Google since 2004. "Picasa" is a blend of the name of Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, the phrase mi casa for "my... |
Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
July 2004 | |
| Oddpost.com | Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
July 9, 2004 | |
| Lycos Lycos Lycos, Inc. is a search engine and web portal established in 1994. Lycos also encompasses a network of email, webhosting, social networking, and entertainment websites.-Corporate history:... |
Daum | $95,400,000 | August 2, 2004 |
| Upcoming.org Upcoming.org Upcoming is a social event calendar website that launched in 2003, founded by Andy Baio. On October 4, 2005, Upcoming.org was acquired by Yahoo!.- Features :... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
October 5, 2005 | |
| Skype Skype Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system... |
Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions... |
$8,500,000,000 | May 10, 2011 |
| Ask.com Ask.com Ask is a Q&A focused search engine founded in 1996 by Garrett Gruener and David Warthen in Berkeley, California. The original software was implemented by Gary Chevsky from his own design. Warthen, Chevsky, Justin Grant, and others built the early AskJeeves.com website around that core engine... |
IAC/InterActiveCorp IAC/InterActiveCorp InterActiveCorp is an American internet company with over 50 brands across 40 countries headquartered in New York City... |
$1,850,000,000 | March 2005 |
| TheHomeBuyingCenter.com | Internet Leads Systems | $20,000,000 | 2007 |
| DialPad Communications Dialpad Dialpad Communications was an early pioneer in the Voice over IP industry that was founded in 1999 after spinning off from Serome Technologies in Seoul, Korea and moving to Santa Clara, California in the United States... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
June 14, 2005 | |
| MySpace MySpace Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors.... |
News Corporation News Corporation News Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster... |
$580,000,000 | July 2005 |
| Konfabulator | Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
July 25, 2005 | |
| dodgeball | Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
May 2005 | |
| Provide Commerce | Liberty Media Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by company Chairman John C. Malone, who owns a majority of the voting shares.... |
$477,000,000 | December 5, 2005 |
| Friends Reunited Friends Reunited Friends Reunited is a portfolio of social networking websites based upon the themes of reunion with research , and job-hunting... |
ITV plc ITV plc ITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom... |
$230,000,000 | December 6, 2005 |
| del.icio.us Del.icio.us Delicious is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded by Joshua Schachter in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005, and by the end of 2008, the service claimed more than 5.3 million users and 180 million unique bookmarked URLs... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
$15,000,000 | December 9, 2005 |
| Webjay Webjay - History :Webjay was a web-based playlist service launched in early 2004. Playlists consisted of links to Vorbis, MP3, WMA, RealAudio and/or other audio files on the web. Webjay users could create new playlists by copying from existing playlists, or by web scraping audio file links from external... |
Yahoo! Yahoo! Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,... |
January 9, 2006 | |
| Shopbop | Amazon.com Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and... |
February 27, 2006 | |
| SketchUp SketchUp SketchUp is a 3D modeling program marketed by Google and designed for architectural, civil, and mechanical engineers as well as filmmakers, game developers,... |
Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
March 14, 2006 | |
| Writely | Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
March 9, 2006 | |
| AME Info | Emap EMAP Emap Limited is a British media company, specialising in the production of business-to-business magazines, and the organisation of business events and conferences... |
$27,000,000 | July 4, 2006 |
| BuyCostumes.com | Liberty Media Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by company Chairman John C. Malone, who owns a majority of the voting shares.... |
$55,000,000 | July 26, 2006 |
| YouTube YouTube YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos.... |
Google Google Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program... |
$1,650,000,000 | November 13, 2006 |
| WebEx WebEx WebEx Communications Inc. is a Cisco company that provides on-demand collaboration, online meeting, web conferencing and videoconferencing applications... |
Cisco Cisco Cisco may refer to:Companies:*Cisco Systems, a computer networking company* Certis CISCO, corporatised entity of the former Commercial and Industrial Security Corporation in Singapore... |
$3,200,000,000 | March 15, 2007 |
| Backcountry.com Backcountry.com Backcountry.com is an online outdoor retailer that specializes in high-end outdoor recreation gear for skiing, snowboarding, rock climbing, kayaking, hiking, trekking, trail running, snowshoeing, and cycling.-History:... |
Liberty Media Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by company Chairman John C. Malone, who owns a majority of the voting shares.... |
May 8, 2007 | |
| Last.fm Last.fm Last.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m .... |
CBS CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of... |
$280,000,000 | May 30, 2007 |
| Homestead Technologies Homestead Technologies Homestead Technologies is the owner and operator of a paid web hosting service based in Menlo Park, California. It has existed in various forms since launching in 1998 as a free service... |
Intuit | $170,000,000 | November 26, 2007 |
| Bodybuilding.com Bodybuilding.com Bodybuilding.com is an American online retailer/manufacturer of sports supplements and nutritional products. Bodybuilding.com was founded in 1999 in Boise, Idaho by then 21-year-old CEO Ryan R. DeLuca In July 2006, Milestone Partners acquired a majority interest in Bodybuilding.com for an... |
Liberty Media Liberty Media Liberty Media Corporation is an American media conglomerate and the control is exercised by company Chairman John C. Malone, who owns a majority of the voting shares.... |
$100,000,000 | January 6, 2008 |
| CNET Networks | CBS CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of... |
$1,800,000,000 | May 15, 2008 |