I had read this article in today's Chronicle and then saw your post...
Going . . . going . . . dot-gone.
In the latest trend in online auctions, money-losing Internet firms are putting themselves on the block.
Yesterday, Philip Kaplan, founder of an irreverent Web site with a profane name that skewers failing Internet enterprises, put F--company.com up for sale on EBay.
In an e-mail to more than 27,000 subscribers, Kaplan said he decided to put the 3-month-old site up for auction because he was bored.
The site, a play off the trendy business magazine Fast Company, trumpets itself as a ``dead pool'' for dot-coms, awarding game points to surfers who most-accurately predict the demise of e-commerce firms.
By yesterday afternoon, the auction attracted more than 70 bids, with the top bid just under $10 million.
Of course, the auction has all the appearance of a prank because Kaplan's site, after all, pokes fun at the Internet economy. Sure enough, the person who placed a $10 million bid, Edward Reed, turned out to be a college sophomore at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York.
``It's a joke,'' Reed said of his bid. The bid was later removed, and some other bids appeared to be made in jest. Although EBay requires people who place bids of more than $15,000 to give their credit card numbers, there is usually no financial penalty for placing phony bids, though users can be suspended.
Still, Kaplan told Cnet that he is serious about the auction. He said he didn't have time to convert the site into a profitable business. |
