The internet has become such a part of modern life that it’s almost hard to remember life before it. The internet has lead to some gigantic success stories, Amazon, Yahoo, iTunes, eBay, Listverse. But as in real life not everything has flourished on the web. The following is a list of fifteen biggest defunct websites. Some failed because of the dot com bust, others were ahead of their time, some simply disappeared and one was turned out to be a scam. So sit back and let’s take a trip down internet memory lane. This list is in no particular order.
15
Pets.com
Founded in 1998, Pets.com would become the poster child of the dot com bust, going from Initial Public Offering to liquidation in a mere nine months. Founded, (like many dot com busts) in 1998, Pets.com was an online pet supply store. The site gained national attention with Super Bowl ads and a sock puppet spokesman who appeared on Good Morning America and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee. But the hype didn’t lead to customers and Pets.com quickly found itself on the same business Titanic as Webvan. It had too much overhead and online shopping was almost unheard of in the days of dial-up modems. In the end, the site’s spokespuppet would out live its own website becoming the mascot for 1-800-BARNONE.
14
Boo.com
Lest you think only Americans were dumb enough to throw their money down the toilet of early e-business, there was also London based Boo.com. This British online clothing vendor was founded in 1998. The site was very innovative for the time and featured an online shopping assistant, Ms. Boo. But in the pre-broadband days Ms. Boo took up too much bandwidth making the site slow to navigate. There was also the inevitable too much overhead and bad business practice. Boo.com blow through £80 million before it even went online. It folded in mid-2000, having only managed to generate £200,000.
13
Webvan.com
When the dot com bubble burst, no company burst harder than grocery delivery service Webvan. Founded at the height of the dot com boom in the late 1990’s, by the co-founder of Borders bookstore, Webvan had branches in ten major U.S. markets including San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta and plans to expand internationally. But the web as a means of shopping was still a novelty at the time. Combine this with a $1 billion warehouse, a fleet of delivery vans, a high-tech computer system and senior executives with no experience in the grocery industry and you had a recipe for disaster. The company folded in 2001 leaving behind nothing but thousands of brightly colored plastic grocery bins collecting dust in people’s basements.
12
Jennicamlive
The first successful “lifecast”, Jennicamlive dates all the way back to the dial-up internet days of 1996. For $15 a month you could watch than 19-year-old Jennifer Ringley life out her live via webcam. There was no censorship and everything that happened in her home was broadcast over the net, and I mean everything. Think of it as a sort of proto Big Brother with sex. Unlike most of the other sites on this list, Jennicamlive was both popular and profitable. At its height the site had between 3 to 4 million subscribers and Jennifer became a minor celebrity appearing on several talk shows. But after seven years, Jennifer had enough and turned the webcams off for good. Jennifer claimed the decision was due to a change in PayPal policy while others maintain it was due to falling revenue. She now makes her living as a computer programmer.
11
Beenz
Beenz was an online currency created in 1998. Customers earned Beenz from various websites through online shopping, logging on through certain internet service providers or in some cases just visiting a website. The earned Beenz could then be redeemed at participating online merchants for real products. It was an interesting idea, but bad business practices and questionable legality kept the idea from taking off. Making your own money is illegal in most countries which meant the site had to get special permission to operate in most nations. Plus redeeming the Beenz was a hassle for merchants. In the end, few bothered and the site was done by 2001.
10
SixDegrees.com
SixDegrees.com was the first modern social networking site, launching in 1997. The site was modeled after the ‘six degrees of separation’ concept with members able to see who they connected to other members through friends and family. Although primitive by today’s standards, the site only allowed message posting, it had 1 million registered members at the height of its popularity. The site was bought out in 2000 and was soon shut down. Although ultimately unsuccessful, Sixdegrees.com set the stage for modern social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook.
9
The Spot
The Spot was the first episodic fiction website to meet with success and an innovator due to its use of paid advertising to underwrite the cost of bandwidth. Begun in 1995 The Spot was an online soap opera which told the story of several teens living together in Santa Monica, California. The Spot won one of the first Webby awards and its success lead to the creation of American Cybercast, the first online network. But it was all downhill from there. The advertising revenue brought in by The Spot and a few other online shows wasn’t enough to sustain the network and by 1997 American Cybercast had fallen into bankruptcy. The Spot was briefly revived in 2004, but has once again gone dark.
8
Google Answers
Google Answers was an online knowledge market. It worked like a traditional search engine, only you paid someone else to do the search for you. People would post questions which would then be answered for a fee, or “bounty”, ranging from $2 to $200 by contractors who completed a registration process. There were of course restrictions: links to adult oriented sites, copy righted material, plagiarism and questions of uncertain legality, i.e. “How do I make a bomb?” were not allowed. Also, obvious homework questions were strongly discouraged. The site launched in April 2002 and lasted for four years before Google shut it down. Some of Google Answers contractors went on to form another online knowledge website, Uclue.com.
7
Virtual Magic Kingdom
Virtual Magic Kingdom was a free massively multiplayer online game run by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. It was launched in May 2005 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World. VMK was a virtual representation of various Disney theme parks with mini-games and areas based on real attractions. It was intended to be a temporary venture lasting only for the 50th anniversary celebration but it gained surprisingly popularity and soon grew beyond its origins. But the site proved to be more trouble than it was worth, even for a company the size of Disney. Due to the young age of most players the site had to be monitored constantly by paid staff resulting in limited play hours. While Disney claimed the site had 2 million active players but loose registration rules meant the actual number was probably much lower. Some speculate as low as 50,000. Despite an online petition, VMK closed its doors in May 2008.
6
Yahoo! Auctions
Okay, this one is kind of a cheat since the site still operates in Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan but for the rest of the world, this site is but a memory. Launched in 1998 as a rival to online auction giant eBay, Yahoo! Auctions used the same proxy bidding system as eBay and even had its own version of PayPal, Yahoo! Wallet. The big difference between the two was Yahoo! Auctions had no seller’s fees, all revenue was from ad sales. One would think this would have made Yahoo! Auctions more popular than eBay, but for whatever reason the site just never caught on with consumers. Maybe it was too late to the party or maybe it just wasn’t trusted like eBay. Either way, the U.S. and European sites went dark in 2003.
5
Stock Generation
In 1998 Stock Generation began offering clients the chance to trade “virtual companies” for real money and promised substantial returns on investments. The site featured rabid testimonials and rewards for referrals. There was only one problem, it was all just a Ponzi scheme. The site was run by Russian conglomerate MMM and operated from islands in the Caribbean and Dominica. The scam began to unravel in late 1999 when “investors” began to experience trouble withdrawing funds. More shenanigans ensued and the SEC took action. Stunningly the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, ruled in favor of Stock Generation! The court said the site adequately described the market as “a game” not an investment vehicle. Fortunately the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit later reversed the District Court, stating that “the opportunity to invest in the shares of the privileged company, described on SG’s website, constituted an invitation to enter into an investment contract within the jurisdictional reach of the federal securities laws.” In the end 275,000 people were defrauded in the largest internet Ponzi scheme to date.
4
Media Whores Online
Media Whores Online was a popular left-wing news/blog site which ran from 2000 – 2004. The site fancied itself a “watchdog” exposing high-profile media figure for favorable coverage of Republicans or uncritical acceptance of right-wing talking points. The site was commonly quoted by activists such as James Carville and Paul Begala. In 2003, the site was ranked 8th most influential by Brendan Nyhan for Online Journalism Review. Despite its popularity the site simply disappeared in 2004. When pressed for information about the shutdown, the MWO owner cited “personal reasons”. The site was supposed to be back up for the 2004 Presidential election but it failed to follow through with this promise and has been dark ever since.
3
Ogrish.com
Ogrish.com was a shock website featuring uncensored video and photos of war zones, accidents, executions and other similar material. For example, in 2002, graphic pictures and videos of the jumpers of the September 11, 2001 attacks were displayed. In summer 2004 the site was targeted for hacking attacks from Koreans after Ogrish uploaded the execution video of Kim Sun-il. In September 2005, graphic pictures of Hurricane Katrina victims were posted. As you can imagine the site proved very controversial and was banned in many countries including Germany. Over time Ogrish.com became less about blood and guts and more about uncensored news and video. Today, Ogrish.com redirects to LiveLeak.com, a video sharing and “citizen journalism” website which was among the first to feature footage of the execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
2
Nupedia
Nupedia was an online encyclopedia, launched in March of 2000. But while its sister site, Wikipedia, went on to become one of the biggest websites in the world, Nupedia faded into obscurity. What happened? Unlike Wikipedia, Nupedia was not open to public editing. Each article had an extensive peer-review process which resulted in infrequent updates. In fact, Wikipedia was originally created as side-project to get around this very problem. By the time it folded in September 2003, Nupedia had a mere 24 articles.
1
Daily Radar
Daily Radar was a gaming news website launched in 2000. Unfortunately it was known more for stunts like destroying a brand new PS2 then for game journalism. It was frequently parodied by gaming webcomic Penny Arcade and folded in May of 2001, a victim of the dot com bubble. Daily Radar was later renamed and relaunched in the UK as GamesRadar.
Inspired by an article at cNet
I am not surprised to see VMK up there. I found it frustrating after one week. I am surprised to see that it last as long as it did.
It’s not possible that they were celebrating the 50th anniversary of Disney World. It partially opened in 1971. I actually viewed it from a distance before it opened right before that time. Unless they were also including Disney Land, the math just doesn’t stretch back that far.
Not too bad of a list….I wondered what became of a couple of these.
Fascinating
How about Geocities? Yahoo recently shut it down.
DAC – they shut down, hence the title “Top 15 Defunct Websites”
Makes you wonder if some of these ideas would be able to bounce back in todays broadband climate.
Obviously I am not spending enough time on the internet….I haven’t even heard of 90% of these sites!!
havent heard one of these
Nice list.. thanks! I wonder which came first, Google Answers or that of Yahoo!’s?
Man, this list brings back memories, and I never knew what happened to a lot of these sites. Great info here, but the list still needs a lot of editing for spelling and grammar. Pay close attention to the difference between “site” and “cite.”
Did you just compare listverse with Yahoo and eBay?
Right.
@ 11. Jilksenk
You’re right, Listverse is way better then Yahoo and eBay. Badum-tsh!
No need to get nasty – geez! He only mentioned listverse in the opening paragraph to ensure that my vanity would entice me to publish the list. It worked
Oh – and warrrreagl – thanks for pointing out the errors – I have corrected all site/cite/site’s related mistakes
Great list. Reminded me of Kozmo.com, a site in major cities where you could rent movies and buy food and get it delivered to your door in less than an hour. Anyone else remember that? Closed down really quickly I think in 2001. I used to abuse that service, bummed when they closed!
I guess I’m not nerdy enough, I’ve only heard of one of these site’s. Interesting list.
I used to love zthing.com, that was the only way i could tolerate computer class. i with so many hilarious games and videos. i remember it was up from 1998 to around 2003 but has been announcing plans to reopen ever since then… though you still can find a few original zthings on youtube, i hope that site comes back soon.
So what do you think the real story is behind the shutdown of Media *****s Online (#4)? That entry practically screams “Karl Rove sent in the goon squad!” doesn’t it?
I miss bertisevil.com!
I find your lack of &TotSE disturbing.
>: |
I also miss Geocities. all through middle school my friends and i would look at all those “ate my balls” pages that were popular for a while, then make our own websites about the things we thought were interesting at the time.
I didn’t really think about some of these and what happened to them until they were posted here. Maybe others did too since many went under due to lack of usage.
What about biddycam.com? Now that was a site to provide hours of enjoyment. lol
Whoa, 3 boring lists in a row!
I have never heard of any of these. Guess I wasn’t that much into the web then. Interesting list.
didn’t pets.com get sued (or sue someone) over the mascot? I thought they stole it from someone for had it stolen from them.
Also, I’m sad they shut down google answers, because when I’m down about myself or a guy or whatever, I hop on Yahoo answers, and all the “ZOMG this boy in my class looked at me what does it mean !” questions just make me feel better somehow.
“life her live”?
I’m just glad I didn’t find listverse on this list. That would have just ruined my day.
Interesting list. I remember some of these website.
Actually I sorta liked Google Answers as a concept because it was helpful to search their archive when doing basic research on a question or problem….Yahoo Answers pretty much serves the same function now. In both cases you needed to sift through the crap, more so with Yahoo Answers now.
Ogrish.com…funny you list that. I remember being directed there in e-mails from friends a couple times and always have trouble sleeping the night after (why I didn’t go more than a couple of times). It was a pretty raw website. I guess I, in the words of Jack Nicholson, “can’t handle the truth.” Very tough to stomach most of the pictures and videos on the website. Actually depressed me about mankind.
suck.com… I think you can still read it, but it’s no longer updated.
You should add “listverse.com”… oh, wait… that will probably be in a few months when people get tired of going to this site and getting pop-up after pop-up afetr pop-up on every new page.
This was my Favorite news site mprofaca.cro.net is it still running?
Yahoo Auctions was a good idea, but I think it mostly failed vs. eBay because eBay had been around longer and had the feedback system running well.
I had a sixdegrees account when I was about 15 or 16. My brother invited me, I actually still have the registration email(I don’t ever delete emails except for spam).
I know Ask.com is still there, but I miss Jeeves. It was fun to insult him and perhaps get a snide remark in return.
Here is the invite email that was sent to me from sixdegrees on behalf of my brother. I edited out his name it appears as ****. The sign in email and password they sent is also at the bottom, I just replaced with the words email and password.
—————————————————-
This is your official invite from ****
to join sixdegrees! **** listed you as “Brother.”
(insert applause and confetti here)
sixdegrees is a community of smart, good-looking, athletic, rich
people who only want to hang out with other smart, good-looking,
athletic, rich people.
(insert gasp here)
Actually, sixdegrees is a free community for people like
you and ****, where you can meet new people through
the people you already know.
It really comes in handy when you’re looking for a new job, an
apartment, things to do, places to go…you know, everything you’d
rely on the people you know to help you with in real life.
Just stop by this link to check out sixdegrees and confirm your
relationship with ****.
http://www.sixdegrees.com
Sign in with this email address and password:
email
password
**** is waiting for you.
==================================================================
TO REMOVE YOURSELF:
If you don’t want to hear from sixdegrees again, send a reply to
this email that says REMOVE in the SUBJECT LINE.
QUESTIONS:
If you have any questions, send an email to issues@sixdegrees.com.
==================================================================
sixdegrees is Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
E.DB.ANB.1, 000110, 6a
I haven’t heard of any of these. I don’t even remember the internet being around back in like 1998. How many people even used the web back then? Probably not a whole lot, which is a good reason why all these sites failed.
Interesting article, though.
Great list Sharki.
bertisevil.com was good for a laugh and I still remember it being closed down several years ago.
To be honest, reading about web sites that no longer exist makes me kind of sad.
These websites represented the hopes and dreams of some entrepreneurs, and they ended up just being crushed. :/
Yeah, those were the days – NOT! I remember getting my first 28.8k modem, and how thrilled I was upgrade to a 33.6! I still got one of my 56k modems for ‘emergencies’, though don’t try to dial up on ‘em as they cost 10p per minute these days.
I remember when they lauched ‘Ask Jeeves’ and wondered why they needed such a site when Yahoo! was the standard of the day – like Google is now.
Geocities used to be THE place to get web space, but it wasn’t great. I hated typing in addresses to web sites or emails using a stupidly long name and subname, which I would often mis-spell. Genious!
“What’s your new web site, is it about tongue twisters?” “oh, yes, it’s http://www.geocities.com/Athens/8136/tonguetwisters.html – it’s so easy to remember, just trips off the tongue!”
(the site above is real)
The one I really miss is Ruckus being shut down…
Also, a mention of Juicy Campus, and all it’s hilariousness/ sketchyness would be fun.
Have we had the ‘Top Ten Tortuous Tongue Twisters’?
reminds me of the original muse site- it still technically exists except you can’t really do anything on there. this is what happens when you let a drunk musician practice his coding skills on his own site.
or how about all the defunct myspace pages? people come on and drop off at such a rate it’s got to be hard to erase all those non-pages. O_o
Before I read the list, I would like to know what is “dot com bust” ?
And yeah, today I am feeling lazy enough not to google it.
Lucy @ comment #35:
I am guessing that you are in your early 20′s if not much younger? YES, the internet was not only around in 1998, but millions of people were using it. That was the period of the orginal “dot.com bubble”. Ask your Economics teacher about that.
I have personally been using the internet since 1992. My first interface was UNIX, my first newsreader was trn, and my first web browser was lynx–no graphics, just text!
I agree that Geocities should be on this list. It was the first major site to offer free personalized web pages and it lasted 15 years, which is epic in web years.
Actually, that would make a good list, too. Sites from the dawn of the internet that are still active, like Lycos, Altavista, IMBD.com, and so on. I wonder if somewhere out there that homeless guy is still wiping the inside of people’s monitors….
Anyone too young to reference the dot-com bust is too young to be on the computer without parental supervision. Go get mommy and ask her. Then take a nappy-poo.
suintamo – I don’t have that problem at all. I get one pop-under per visit, that’s it. I do believe that there was a problem with a different browser (I use firefox btw); Jamie has been notified and is working on a fix. Keep us posted please.
lol at #35 – Lucy
I’m guessing you are pretty young as you don’t remember the internet back then…but I sure do…slow crappy computer, always getting booted cause I was on dial-up, but I digress.
Here’s a little update for the boo.com website: there were two buyers waiting to snap up some of the assets of the trendy British fashion retailer Boo.com after it ran through $135 million in investors’ money, closed up shop, and hired KPMG to liquidate.
Within days the technology sold for a bargain $368,800 to the British information technology firm Bright Station, and the website went for an undisclosed amount to the U.S. fashion portal, fashionmall.com.
Another great list, thank you very much…
One thing is for sure — http://www.zombo.com will never die.
My favorite was stripquotes.com. The idea was that men want to see two things on the web, naked women and their stock quotes, and it provided both. It didn’t last very long, though.
46 mom424: I don’t have that problem at all. I get one pop-under per visit, that’s it.
Man I get them all the time when visiting LV from my home pc. Redirects, pop-ups or blocked pop-up notices, (I’ve noticed some pages in particular get more bombarded than others), java script errors, Norton warnings of “attempted attacks” etc. When I surf LV from work, not so much (better firewall apparently).
lulzlulz heh VUT ABUT YOUTUBEZ?!?!? HUKS
Great list Sharki! Be sure to support the advertisers so that this site doesn’t make some future nerd’s top ten.
amazing list… I could swear I used yahoo auctions as late as 2005 or even 2006…
I think people were willing to pay the modest fees of ebay for a chance of bigger bids. Oh and Ebay fees werent as bad back then, not to mention had way more features. I think it was just “late to the party”.
50 maggot:
I surf from home, I use internet explorer, and I don’t even get one pop up ever…not even a message that says pop ups are blocked…I’ve always found that peculiar actually, when I hear of others inundated with them…goes to show you sure don’t need firefox…lol just a good antivirus program apparently, and I use avast, free download off the internet. FYI
I don’t have a problem with the pop-up ads and the ones that appear on the page on this page add some color. My only concern is that the comments section will be scrubbed free of any content that might offend the advertisers.
BTW why can’t I log in or comment under my old screen name, YogiBarrister? Why are my comments green?
BongoShaftsbury -
so far as i’m aware, no comments or content is edited or deleted by anyone other than J. so any issue you have w/ that should be addressed to him. i know i’ve not been touching comments, don’t know about Mom424 or any other admin. issues w/ ads should also be sent to J. as for the screen name issue…i know something was changed to prevent username imposters so, check w/ J on that too. should be contact info in the about section…link is on the navbar.
yogibarrister
my understanding – the other day there was an out of control troll situation where they were using other peoples usernames – J.F. set it so if you have a registered handle, it can’t be used without a sign in with password. It took me a few days to work it out.
ah i remember VMK and the limited vocabulary but everyone somehow got around it.
I remeber going to Aol.com alot back in the days. I also hated my dial up and that annoying sound it makes. I remeber mostly playing computer games back then, and playing Pang on Alfy.com
Please edit for grammar and spelling!
I remember most of those sites and when they failed. The Media *****s website probably failed for lack of material… the corresponding site pointing out where the media uncritically repeat Left-Wing talking points would have a lot more material to work with…