Dot-Com Service Memories?

Buster Chan asks: "As the dotcom boom was still going strong in 1998, there was a service called MyTalk, which I used to send/recieve e-mail/voicemail/telephone calls/horoscopes and so forth, for free; it was mostly a unique, ad-driven way to avoid paying a quarter for telephone calls from payphones. Most of the ads were recruitment ads for the U.S. Army. MyTalk was a major tool for my online socialization when I was seventeen. Does anyone else have fond memories of MyTalk, or know of similar services that exist for free nowdays, or does anyone remember using interesting, unique services from the dotcom boom that no longer exist?"

Comments

Kozmo/Urban Fetch

[autarkeia]

The best service that went the way of the dodo during the boom was either Kozmo.com or Urban Fetch. Though they started out with video & DVD rentals, you could order ANYTHING from them. In one instance, our office was swelteringly hot during the summer. I hopped onto Urban Fetch and ordered myself an air conditioner. I also ordered Palms, ice cream, videos, and Smith & Wollensky steaks.

At one point Urban Fetch dropped off a "free" CD along with a DVD rental that the bicycle delivery people had "written, produced, and directed." It was horrible-- all I can remember was something about "what can we fetch fo' u?" rapped to nasty pseudo-hip-hop music. I scrawled a "please never deliver one of these promos to me again" note on it and returned it alongside my DVD rental.

Ahh, the good old days.

Zombo.com

[Ieshan]

Well, if you can't find a more specific service, you can do everything at Zombo.com. Anything. Welcome. Anything. You can do anything at Zombo.com.

DialPad.com

[vasqzr]

It still exists today but it's not the same. I used to use it to make free calls back home all the time. It worked great for calling relatives, long distance relationships...j

Basically you signed up for free, then dialed the number with your mouse, and used your microphone/headphone to talk in full duplex. Very good sound quality, even with a 56k modem. You'd hear a "thank you for using dialpad.com" and it would call your destination. Completely transparent, no operators involved. The other party had no idea.

It was also great for prank calls. The calls seemed to get routed to a local number, so they couldn't call you back with *69 or caller ID. I'm sure a subpoena could though...

Nothing like stalking an ex-girlfriend anonymously, without having to buy a pre-paid cellular phone.

After a while, DialPad started limiting calls to ten minutes, then they started charging...

Some guy in a suit dot com

[jonesvery]

My favorite dot com service was "some guy in a suit dot com."

As I recall, this service started up in 1997 or so. Some guy in a suit knocked on my door and said, "I hear that you know about this 'internet' thing -- I'll leave a big sack of money outside the door of your apartment every two weeks if you'll show up at my office for a couple of hours each day and sit there playing video games."

After that, about every three months or so a different guy in a suit (at least I think it was a different guy) would knock on my door and say, "I hear that you know about this 'internet' thing, and I also hear that there's still room for more sacks of money in your apartment; if you'll show up at my office for a couple of hours each day, and tell me that 'the rules have changed,' and that I 'don't get it,' I'll leave a bigger sack of money outside your door every two weeks.

I guess their their funding dried up or something.