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Dot-com Boom's Biggest Duds, From Flooz to iSmell
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "WSJ.com looks back on some of the boom's biggest busts, and catches up with once-optimistic inventors. A creator of the unfortunately named iSmell, a USB device meant to 'print' smells transmitted by websites or videogames, says, 'It was a heartbreaking experience, because we had put so much into it.' The digital currency known as Flooz crashed and burned when a ring of thieves defrauded the company out of $300,000 using stolen credit cards. Microsoft flushed iLoo down the crapper. CueCat, meanwhile, got a second life as a bar-code reader that doesn't pick up personal information. 'The cat got butchered, but it has spawned a cottage industry,' says the device's inventor."
iSmell? I thought that was the smelloscope, able to smell anything from far away in the galaxy....come to think of it, i dont think it will be invented for another 1000 years, give or take a few (thanks professor farnsworth!)
I miss the days when new product announcements read like jokes and saying "the Internet will make bricks and mortar obsolete" wasn't a joke. Now the best we've got is "Oh look, Google made a calendar that works with your email."
I still have that very issue of Wired Magazine that the iSmell was publisized in from like 6 years ago.. I remember being so fond of it because (if i remember porperly) it was a Spumco project. And I wanted so badly for that to become a reality. Viva la Spumco!!!! (and Ren and Stimpy too)
A foul up at the iSmell datacenter led every customers device to smell like Uranus.
Kozmo com was too limited. You need a site where anything is possible! You need Zombo com.
How ya like dat?
You can still get $5 sandwiches delivered in 30 minutes or less from Ninja Burger.
I... I still do that...
Ever get the feeling that the people who don't have anything to say are the ones doing the majority of the talking?
if someone calls a product "iSmell" then I Smell a Really Bad Sense for Business.
I'd tell you the chances of this story being a dupe, but you wouldn't like it.
If the iLoo and the iSmell people had got together they would have created a right old stink. This has to be a joke, right? It reminds me of the time I first marvelled at the ability to take my mobile phone into the crapper, then thought better of it.
"I worked for Sprockets.com for a couple months as technical support..."
How is Mr Spacely and what's George up to these days...
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I must have missed something. What's a cuecat? Link?
Boo? Who?