In any case, the exclusivity agreements, which everyone valued so highly, seems like it was the very thing that drove ATHM into bankruptcy.
The exclusivity agreements, wether right or wrong, were amended in a deal between Cox, Comcast and AT&T that accrued no benefit to ATHM shareholders. The amendments were approved by the ATHM board which was comprised of AT&T, Cox and Comcast.
It's not exclusivity that killed the cat. It's the ownership mixed with Silicon Quiche management (see ahahha's definition).
Proof of the Silicon Quiche allegation lies in:
Blue Mountain
Excite
Enliven
Match Logic
iMall
Pogo
Work.bomb
Financial mismanagement
Jeep burning
Earnings reports delivered via telephone from a yacht in South America (missed earnings by the way)
Telecommuting 3,000 miles because your wife likes East Coast but you want to play CEO
Layoffs without severance
Disappearing vacation balances
Bounced last checks
Golden parachutes for people willing to preside over a BK
Bonuses awarded just prior to BK filing
"Doubling down" on failed strategies
............. Mr. Lucky
Some Mr. Lucky feedback from the critics:
Typically outfitted in a leopard-print cowboy hat and a green python-print shirt, the Luckster's supposed to convey in-control attitude. In the TV spots, he engages in Excite-enabled heroics, like dodging sand traps on a golf course after picking up a few tips at My Excite Sports: vaguely amusing stuff. In the outdoor ads, though, Mr. Lucky comes off as an insufferable prick, his cool frozen in self-satisfied mid-smirk (think Eric Roberts). There's just too much dissonance between Excite's sober, mild-mannered site and its leering, leathery Lothario. The irony is that in this narrowcast age, when nobody's idea of hip is the same, Mr. Lucky feels like an instant anachronism. - New York Magazine
Stay@Home, Mr.Lucky
Excite@Home's unexciting billboards bomb.
By Beth Snyder Bulik, September 2000 Issue Business 2.0
coming from a thirty-something white male wearing the pelts of dead animals, "Turn you on" sounds like a come-on. Or so say the critics. "‘Turn you on’ sounds like a cheesy slogan and ‘Mr. Lucky’ seems like a cheesy mascot of some second-rate porn site.
KB |
