Out of all the websites that I have ever visited (in the 10,000′s no doubt), I cannot believe that I have not heard of most of the list of 10 dotcoms that are dotgone by BBC News.
- Ready2shop.com – started in 1999 by two fashion icons, Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine, the site might be remembered by the advertisements that included the two posing naked with melons and eggs placed just so. The site only lasted one year and from that the two went to TV.
- QXL.com – said as “quick-sell”, the site started in 1997 and was Eurpeans first auction site. The site lasted through the bust in 2001, but had to close it’s door in 2008 when it realized that eBay was the place to be for selling online, worldwide.
- Clickmango.com – a health and beauty store took off quickly and was ready for action. But after getting into a trendy loft space and spending about a million dollars on it’s site, there wasn’t much left over. The sales were slow and the site had to close up shop after only
being open 3 years. - Freeserve.com – launched in 1998 the site offered to pay for a portion of phone charges for a monthly fee and the site quickly grew to 1,000,000 subscribers. In a short 18 months later the site bust and was sold to French Telecom.
- Boxman.com – started in 1997 was pre-iTunes and Europes largest music related online retailer. The site also sold video games and films, but was closed in 2000 when the owner could not secure any financing.
- Petspark.com – opening in 2000 the site was partnered up with the US’s worst dot com fail, Pets.com. The partnership’s goal was to bring pet owners together to meet and learn about eachother, much like Facebook today, and they could shop everything pet related too. The site closed without notice around 2004.
- Broadcast.com – started in 1997 as AudioNet, the site was around way before Last.fm or Spotify and was run by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner in Dallas. The website was one of the first to try multimedia advertising, but it was acquired by Yahoo 1999.
- Beenz.com – 10 years ago, before internet currency, Beenz.com was created in the UK. The site rewarded users for making purchases from affiliate sites and then they could use those BEENZ to purchase real life products and services. As soon as credit cards got into the online action, Beenz.com wasn’t worth jack.
- FooDoo.com – started in 2000, a user could type random ingredients into the search engine and get recipes back in return. The site signed up some chefs, including Gordon Ramsay, to write articles. Over 10 million dollars was raised for the site, but it actually ended up closing down a short 6 months later.
- Boo.com – started in 1998 with goals of becoming the first online sportwear and fashion site. The site launched one year late because of technical snags. The site loaded slowly and was hard to navigate because of heavy loads of Flash the site used. Almost 10 years after the site closed, you can find Flash on almost every single internet-enabled computer.
cool list. the problem with all this sites were too much money. while having money is good when launching a new site but most times when its few million + people start screwing up. i would built the site for few thousand and focus the rest on marketing and seo.
Er, I think you’ll find that QXL.com did NOT have “to close it’s door in 2008 when it realized that eBay was the place to be for selling online, worldwide”. It was sold for £960 MILLION to Naspers at the beginning of 2008. That was nearly $2 BILLION at that time. Get your facts straight !
That is information that is from the original source post. Being sold is closing the doors. What happens when you visit that site now? Thanks for the comment.