The 14 Greatest Dot Com Bombs

The Internet has propelled many companies to great success and riches. Of course, it’s sent even more to failure.

Just take a spin around the world of online blogs. Sure, you’ll find the success stories such as the Huffington Post. But you’ll find an even greater number of failed blogging networks, abandoned individuals blogs and bloggers who are lucky to get three hits a month.

In honor of all these failed bloggers, here is a look at some of the greatest dot.com business failures in history.

Amp’d Mobile, which was supposed to allow hip youngsters to access online entertainment, movies and games through their cell phones, spent tons on advertising. The company sponsored cool concerts, outdoor parties and hip festivals. Unfortunately, Amp’d Mobile’s customers, though they may have been cool, weren’t so good about paying their bills. Nearly half of the company’s customers defaulted on their payments, sending Amp’d Mobile out of business after just two years. The company burned through $360 million during its short time.

It could have been worse, though. Webvan proved this. Designed to automate the tedious process of grocery shopping, Webvan never did take off. It simply didn’t find the customers it needed to survive. The company died after one-and-a-half years. It spent $800 million during this time.

You might remember Pets.com’s SuperBowl ad. You might not remember that Pets.com went out of business after just two years. The company, which never could convince customers that it was a hassle to buy pet food at an actual grocery or pet supply store, burned through $150 million before shutting down.

Cuecat.com had a unique product. The company sold cat-shaped barcode readers that allowed users to scan barcodes in print ads. The scanner would then launch a related Web page in user’s Internet browsers. To promote the product Cuecat sent its scanners to subscribers of Wired Magazine. Unfortunately, these subscribers panned the product. Cuecat never recovered. The company burned through $185 million before going out of business after three years.

There was a time when Etoys.com was valued at $8 billion. That didn’t last. The company botched several Christmas orders and finally perished because of the effects of the dot.com bust. Etoys went through $100 million before going out of business after four years.

Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky both backed online sports retailer MVP.com. The company, though, never dug up enough customers to succeed. It closed after just one year and after having burnt through $65 million.

What do these non-success stories prove? That even good ideas don’t always work out. Of course, the Internet is still a pretty forgiving place. There’s always room for more good business ideas online. And you can bet that savvy entrepreneurs will be trying out new ideas for decades to come.