How funny was the site Fucked Company back in the day.
But now it seems very quiet on the personal attacks and sensational content front. It is filled with rumors, but it seems so dry. I find that Valleywag is much better at the fun, outrageous stuff you want to know about each internet company. Think gossip magazine for Web 2.0.
But I did find something useful. I dug up my copy of F’d Companies by Philip Kaplan who is the founder of the fuckedcompany.com site.
I love his brash and cutting style on writing about these dot-com boom era companies. Companies that had such ridiculous, or no business models and were getting unbelievable funding. As I thumb through its pages, I reminisce about those days where us naive Internet pioneers thought that anything should be tried, and who knew what would work and what would not. And all these money people tried to jump on the bandwagon, fund any company whatsoever, and try to take the most ridiculous companies IPO in an attempt to score big.
But now, I find I am drawn back to some of the businesses in that book. In today’s Web, things are different. Now some of these businesses that failed could realistically be tried again. In fact, I just read an article about some venture fund guys who were precisely “mining” old Industry Standard and Wired magazines just for that reason. Sometimes a tweak is all it takes.
I am hoping to find some ideas in F’d Companies and see if they work today. But I also think that some of the ideas were truly F’d and should never again see the light of day!