If only I had a dime for every time I've heard a nerd say, "Why do girls never go for the nice guy?" Every nerd thinks that every guy that doesn't behave like a whipped puppy when interacting with women is morally flawed and subsequently blame womankind for wanting more out of a relationship.
What I find more disturbing than the possibility to use this system to spy on americans, is the implied opinion that it's OK to use such a system for killing people in other countries but not to spy on US citizens.
boocom was badly handled
on
Boo No More
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· Score: 1
Looking at boo.com, there are a number of things that adds up to failure. The first thing I was aware of was a major mistake technology-wise. They made a mega-hip web site that was simply too difficult to use for people to buy from them. I once heard how much this first version had cost them to produce and I think it was somewhere around $10M. This should of course be plenty reason enough to get warning signs up. Anyone spending millions of dollars on what must be considered the core of the company and not having the knowledge to make sure it's functional is not someone I'd trust with my money. If it was a car company, there wouldn't have been a second chance.
Another thing you might want to consider is their business idea. Buying clothes online? Esp. relatively expensive clothes. Myself, I like to try clothes on first unless we're talking socks or t-shirts or the like. On the other hand, if I'm about to spend $100 on a t-shirt, I might want to have seen it first. Of course mail order companies have been selling clothes in a similar fashion for some time and are doing quite well. Maybe it's about the price or maybe it's simply that they know something about selling "on distance" that boo.com didn't know or care to find out?
The last and final straw is their marketing. Half of their spendings have been marketing related. That's over $50M in one year. This should be enough to brand your name in any small or medium-sized country. But what do they do? they market themselves everywhere at the same time. Really. I'm no marketing guru but wouldn't it have made sense to pick out one market or possibly two and start there and then conquer the markets one by one?
I doubt this is the end of e-commerce. But perhaps (we'd be so lucky) it will get people to start thinking about reality instead of thinking that the "e-commerce market" is a place wher eyou don't need to use your head to make it big. And perhaps venture capitalists will start demanding proffesional lead for companies they fund. It's a nice thought.
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If only I had a dime for every time I've heard a nerd say, "Why do girls never go for the nice guy?" Every nerd thinks that every guy that doesn't behave like a whipped puppy when interacting with women is morally flawed and subsequently blame womankind for wanting more out of a relationship.
What I find more disturbing than the possibility to use this system to spy on americans, is the implied opinion that it's OK to use such a system for killing people in other countries but not to spy on US citizens.
Looking at boo.com, there are a number of things that adds up to failure. The first thing I was aware of was a major mistake technology-wise. They made a mega-hip web site that was simply too difficult to use for people to buy from them. I once heard how much this first version had cost them to produce and I think it was somewhere around $10M.
This should of course be plenty reason enough to get warning signs up. Anyone spending millions of dollars on what must be considered the core of the company and not having the knowledge to make sure it's functional is not someone I'd trust with my money. If it was a car company, there wouldn't have been a second chance.
Another thing you might want to consider is their business idea. Buying clothes online? Esp. relatively expensive clothes. Myself, I like to try clothes on first unless we're talking socks or t-shirts or the like. On the other hand, if I'm about to spend $100 on a t-shirt, I might want to have seen it first. Of course mail order companies have been selling clothes in a similar fashion for some time and are doing quite well. Maybe it's about the price or maybe it's simply that they know something about selling "on distance" that boo.com didn't know or care to find out?
The last and final straw is their marketing. Half of their spendings have been marketing related. That's over $50M in one year. This should be enough to brand your name in any small or medium-sized country. But what do they do? they market themselves everywhere at the same time. Really. I'm no marketing guru but wouldn't it have made sense to pick out one market or possibly two and start there and then conquer the markets one by one?
I doubt this is the end of e-commerce. But perhaps (we'd be so lucky) it will get people to start thinking about reality instead of thinking that the "e-commerce market" is a place wher eyou don't need to use your head to make it big. And perhaps venture capitalists will start demanding proffesional lead for companies they fund.
It's a nice thought.