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Overhype

by Mike Masnick

Wed, May 2nd 2007 11:51am





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.

10 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 2nd, 2007 @ 12:54pm

    umm... yes

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Ben Robinson, May 2nd, 2007 @ 1:19pm

    You know it actually looks quite good, i would find it useful if travelling.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    Jezsik, May 2nd, 2007 @ 1:41pm

    Where's Miss Boo?!!!

    Who will advice us on where to go?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    BCS, May 2nd, 2007 @ 1:51pm

    Here's My Site

    How about www.rip.com? Ooops - Verizon has that.
    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.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Eric the Grey, May 2nd, 2007 @ 2:39pm

    Not a bad site...

    I like the idea of community input when it comes to searching for a place to go, especially when you are going to spend the kind of money it'll take to go there.

    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

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    rEdEyEz, May 2nd, 2007 @ 3:35pm

    Hey, brother!

    Got one for you,

    http://wwwdotcom.com/

    lol

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    identicon
    Ken, May 2nd, 2007 @ 3:42pm

    I did a double take when I read this headline.
    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...

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    Joost, May 3rd, 2007 @ 6:41am

    Not sure yet

    I think the new boo.com is a bit too much like the old boo.com and I'm curious to see if this one will do better. If not, then it's official; there is a curse.
    For a more comprehensive review see: http://www.dgfmedia.net/blog/2007/05/02/is-boocom-for-real/

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Pete Markiewicz, May 3rd, 2007 @ 10:23am

    boo-hoo.com

    LOTS of signs we are in another tech bubble - the S&P going higher than it has since 2000 today, the Dow hitting new highs - even as costs of basics (e.g. food and energy) continue to rise and homes fall for the first time ever. We are probably in another blow-out period of speculative investment with mostly imaginary money.

    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"?).

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  
    identicon
    Ernesto, Jun 17th, 2007 @ 4:24am

    boo boo

    The guys running boo seem to have been able to re-use quite a bit of user input from their other sites, hostelworld.com etc.
    They're not the first ones though to start this type of site - check out minimalist www.fivetodo.com.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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