TheStandard.com - September 12, 2000
The Press That Dares Not Speak the Site's Name
The media must be ecstatic about the sale of FuckedCompany.com on eBay. Perhaps the new owners will be some Ned Flanders type who'll rename the site, they must be thinking. Anything's better than this apparent agony over whether to use asterisks, m-dashes or shift-number keys.
As copy editors around the country ruminate, writers offered up mildly ironic leads on the auction of the mildly ironic site. WSJ.com, with the pleasantly offbeat underline style, asked "Could F___edCompany.com be, well, you know?" Forbes.com, with the more attention-grabbing shift-number tack, pitched in, "Ironically, F*#edCompany is one of the few Web sites up for sale that isn't actually, er, in trouble." Its kicker mirrored the WSJ.com's "well, you know" trick.
Playing it far more straight was News.com. You would have thought eBay itself was up for auction the way the CNet arm chased down founder Phillip Kaplan for a real-time interview. (The New York Times had to settle for an e-mailer.) Then it called Ed Reed, the person who submitted a $10 million bid, and wrangled a confession that his bid wasn't serious. Not to worry. The intrepid Troy Wolverton found Jack Goodman, whose bid of "tens of thousands of dollars" the modern-day Woodward proclaimed serious, even though it fell below Kaplan's $500,000 reserve price.
Most of the coverage focused on the note Kaplan posted, explaining that he put the site up for sale because he was "bored." No outlet that we saw speculated on the more likely truth - that Kaplan comprehends that cliche about striking while the iron is hot. After all, when you have a good brand and not much else (there's no staff to speak of, and Kaplan himself admits to screening out only tips that are obviously false), you might as well cash out. Even an out-of-work entrepreneur would understand that. - Steven M. Zeitchik
Dot-Com Deathwatch Site on eBay's Block http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,18428,00.html?nl=mg
EBay Bidders Get Shots at the Dot-Com Deadpool http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB968708519263774841.htm (Paid subscription required.)
Bids for F*#edCompany Reach $9.3 Million http://www.forbes.com/tool/html/00/sep/0911/mu4.htm
Dot-com Doom Site Up for Auction on eBay http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1007-200-2750439.html?tag=st.ne.1002.srchres.ni
Dot-Com Doom Site Up for Sale http://www.msnbc.com/news/458524.asp
The Auction http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=434391456