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Sally Struthers Asks You to Save the Dot-Coms
warland writes "Right now, all over the world, dot-coms are suffering. All that is needed is someone who will look into the eyes of a needy dot-com and say, "Yes, I will help." Someone like you."
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Here is a test example.
Old Way:
Bob and sally open up a lemonade stand and sell cups of a secret recipe of yellow liquid handed down for generations at 25 cents a pop, with a profit of about 17 cents per cup. Bob and sally save that profit and before long are able to put their savings into a small local store front where they sell lemonade and cookies and turn a small profit. After a while people decide the the unique flavor of lemonade and the unmatched goodness of cookies provided by Bob and Sally can no longer be hidden from the rest of the state -- and a state wide franchise is started....followed soon by Bob & Sally Worldwide. Bob & Sally retire at age 60 with a nice big bank account.
New Way (Internet Age):
Bob and Sally want to start a world wide lemonade and cookie distribution network...as soon as they can find some VC to finance the idea that the world will love the yet untested coolness of their yet undetmined product. After a year of struggling to convince the world to purchase their product online (koolaid and oreo's) for a price comparible to that of ones local grocery store...Bob and Sally having recentlly burned through a couple of million of VC, and after having gone public 6 months earlier on the idea that the general public (at least the "plugged in" general public) had never tried the unique combination of KoolAid and Oreo's...Bob and Sally are left with stock proces less than $1 a share, and they are bleeding red...and they wonder what went wrong..
Hmmm....
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Customer: I wish to register a complaint about this stock, what I purchased not half hour ago from this very brokerage.
Broker: Oh yes, the Dot-Com, what's aah, what's wrong with it?
Customer: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. It's dead, that's what's wrong with it.
Broker: No, no, 'e's ah... he's strategizing.
Customer : Look, matey, I know a dead Dot-Com when I see one, and I'm looking at one right now.
Broker : No no, h-he's not dead, he's, he's strategizin'!
Customer : Strategizin'?
Broker : Y-yeah, Strategizin.'
Remarkable stock, the Dot-Com, isn't it, eh? Beautiful website!
Customer : The website don't enter into it. It's stone dead!
Broker : Nononono, no, no! 'E's
strategizin!
Customer : All right then,
if he's strategizing, I'll wake him
up!
(shouting at the cage)
'Ello, Dotty! Mister Dot-Comie! I've got a lovely fresh IPO for you if you wake up, Mr. Dot-Com...
Broker : There, he moved!
Customer : No, he didn't, that was you sending out a press release!
Broker : I never!!
Customer : Yes, you did!
Broker : I never, never....
Customer : 'ELLO DOTTAAAAAAAY! DOTT-EE! DOT-COM! WAKE UP!
TESTIIIING! TESTIIIING! THIS IS YOUR ANNUAL REPORT!
DOT-EEEEEEE!
Now that's what I call a dead parrot.
Broker: No, no.... No, he's reorganizing.
Customer : REORGANIZING?
Broker : Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Dot-Coms stun easily, major.
Customer : Look my lad, I've had just about enough of this. That Dot-Com is
definitely deceased, and when I bought it not half an hour ago, you assured me that
its total lack of movement was due to it being tired and shagged out after a long
martket expansion.
Broker : Well, he's... he's, ah... probably developin' a patent portfolio.
Customer : DEVELOPIN' a PATENT PORTFOLIO? What kind of talk is that? Look, why did he fall
flat on his back the moment I got 'im home?
Broker : The Dot-Com prefers kippin' new marketin strategies! Remarkable stock, isn't it, guv, eh? Lovely website!
Customer : (coldly) Look, I took the liberty of examining that stock when I got
it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on the market in
the first place was that it had been NAILED there.
Broker : Well, of course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that stock down, it
would have nuzzled up to those markets, bent 'em apart with its little B2B sales force, and VOOM!
Customer : "VOOM?"
Customer : Look matey, this stock wouldn't "voom" if you put four thousand venture capitalists through it! It's bleedin' demised!
Broker : It's not! I-It's patenting!
Customer : It's not patenetin,' it's passed on! This company is no more! It has ceased
to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late stock! It's a stiff!
Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed him up with venture capital he would be
pushing up the daisies! Its business processes are of interest only to historians!
It's hopped the twig! It's shuffled off this mortal coil! It's run down the curtain
and joined the choir invisible! This.... is an F*CKED-COMPANY!
Broker : Well, I'd better replace it, then.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
First they came for the Boos,
but I did not speak out,
because I did not shop there.
Then they came for the free-www-providers,
but I did not speak out,
because I had a cable modem.
Then they came for the petstores,
but I did not speak out,
because I did not own a pet.
Then they came for the movie sites,
but I did not speak out,
because I was busy boycotting Hollywood.
Then they came for VA Linux and Slashdot,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
BilldaCat
IT's always amazed me how many of those startups could never succeed in any way to begin with. Think .. selling overpriced silvery running shoes on the web. Think .... group buying ... let's group and get huge rebate on a VCR the 20 of us, when your average supermarket is buying millions at a time and will certainly never get such a huge rebate ... Think ... let's make a portal, it will only be the 58454th on the market.
--
there were a lot of *us* working 80 hour weeks and to unreasonable deadlines with relatively poorer salaries in the vain expectation that the stock options would eventually pay off. After all, we all knew, or knew someone who knew, someone who cashed in big on stock options and retired with millions in his or her early 20s.
While we yuk and guffaw at the suits watching their paper castles crash to the floor, remember that for each of these there was a back room where techs worked underpaid 12 hour days to support these 8 hour day clowns who were most certainly NOT underpaid.
I never benefited from the dot com boom. Am I bitter? Slightly. Do I celebrate the demise? Not really. Yeah, it's hubris, but a lot of people got crushed. Especially investors who bought high on margin.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Every morning I drive by drkoop.com and think about how they could use just a few pennies out of your pocket. They have nothing but a heartless, uncaring highway passing them by while their stock price is left out in the cold, without even the simplest of convienences, like fresh running espresso. Abandoned by investors, they are reduced to begging for venture capital at the highway intersections of US 183, holding up heart-wrenching singns with slogans such as "WILL PORTAL FOR T1 FEED" and "HOMEPAGELESS, PLEASE GIVE, GOD BLESS". Is this some third world country? No, this is happening RIGHT HERE, in AMERICA. A mere three dollars a share can get them back on the road to recovery. Won't you please see it in your hearts to give to those in need?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I feel I should give something back to the Internet community, so I have reached a decision: I will lend my internet and economical expertise to any dot-com startup who cares to ask, and all I ask in return is one small thing: control of the
Think about it...
Michael
...another comment from Michael Tandy.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
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