In the Guardian today, Richard Wray takes a look back on Boo.com, five years after it collapsed.
Probably the case study in how not to launch a dotcom, Boo seemed to do everything wrong: questionable product, overambitious, inaccessible website. As the article points out, it made only £200,000 in its final two months, and needed a further $30m to keep going at a time when the Nasdaq was falling harder than Southampton FC. Share prices aren't everything.
But did it also open the door to the Americanisation of European internet companies?
There is, however, a case to be made that the failure of Boo.com tarnished the reputation of European web start-ups and left the web to be colonised by internet giants from across the Atlantic and the online protuberances of existing bricks and mortar retailers such as Tesco. The top 10 most visited UK sites, for instance, include just two purely online European players - CD Wow and dabs.com.
It's certainly not a story that covers its participants in glory.
