Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Atlantic Rim
Posts: 570

What is the Dead Website You Miss the Most?

I was just thinking how boring the web has gotten, especially since tens of thousands of otherwise wealthy and savvy investors stopped pouring billions and billions of dollars into it.

My favorite dead e-commerce sites are (where):

Webhouse Club - the Priceline spinoff that allowed you to "bid" on gasoline and groceries. Over the six months the program ran I saved hundreds of dollars. Then it became obvious that there was no underlying bidding process by participating merchants and the savings I was enjoying was really just the redistribution of venture capital directly into consumers pockets (to the tune of $400M). It was fun while it lasted.

Garden.com - I enjoyed the wealth of gardening information, and the ease with which I could order plants that are generally unavailable in my area. Another great idea who's over-ambitious execution plans doomed it from the start.

Etoys - Two christmas' ago I save a ton of time (if not money) by ordering virtually every christmas gift from eToys, and having it shipped already wrapped. Its hard to believe they couldn't make this venture work...it was doomed by an almost maniacal belief that they needed to be the world's #1 toy retailer in under five years. Now wasn't that just silly!

My ecommerce experiences over the past year and a half have been dominated by small purchases from niche web sites employing ready-made shopping cart systems. Nothing wrong with that mind you, but the fun certainly has been drained from much of the online experience.

Some day I'll fill you all in on my nightmarish nine month experience working for a portal site. Once the therapy sessions have ended....

Registered: Feb 2002
Location: Washburn University in Topeka, KS
Posts: 450

www.freescholarships.com

Two years ago, this site was alive and well, giving out free daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly scholarships (in increasing amounts) just for surfing their website, as well as providing an auction system where you could use points collected on their website to get anything from Pizza coupons to movie tickets, etc...

Unfortunately, this site went underground before I ever won anything (except a $10 dominoes gift certificate, which was very nice, I admit!)

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Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

I miss the early days of the web circa '95 where, with very little effort, you could win pretty much anything off of the internet simply due to the fact that there were a lot less people online.

I miss AdCritic.

As for ecommerce sites, I can't say I miss any of them really. We still have online groceries where I am at, so that's nice...though a lot of the country lost that when WebVan and PeaPod went under.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by homer
I miss the early days of the web circa '95 where, with very little effort, you could win pretty much anything off of the internet simply due to the fact that there were a lot less people online.

I miss AdCritic.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Out of my skull, back in five minutes
Posts: 1435

quote:

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Originally posted by Toby
Isn't eToys technically still around, though? They surely keep sending things to me (I think Amazon might have them).

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by Yorick
Kay Bee Toys (= KBKids.com) bought eToys' assets. Amazon has a deal with ToysRUs, as the TRU ecommerce site is kaput too. [...]

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Registered: May 2001
Location: NY metro area
Posts: 219

Keefer Lucas asked:

quote:

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What is the Dead Website You Miss the Most?

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But you don't have to miss the best dead website. Just go here

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Jonathan

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

Hmmm

I can't think of any dead web sites that I miss..in fact I can't think of any sites that I used to go to that is now dead....

I think the internet is evolving...teh future is mobile internet. You will see more Venture Capital pouring into the net again..this time in mobile stuff.

Registered: Sep 1999
Location: at work...
Posts: 736

AdCritic is definitely the one I miss the most. I even downloaded some of my favorites and converted them into gMedia movies I could play on my Clie.

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Well, it's not one specific site, but I miss all the free porn. Yoosta be, I'd try to do some research for a school project only to be sidetracked into oodles of free porn that was somehow related to potato clocks.

Remind me, what was adcritic?

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Aug 2000
Location: Alive and well on VisorCentral.com
Posts: 861

As an owner of a GEODE, for me it's ..

http://www.geodiscovery.com/

It's dead, it died a year ago, it just hasn't gone away yet... more like a zombie at this point..

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"One of the most important things you learn from the internet is that there is no �them� out there. It�s just an awful lot of �us�." -- Douglas Adams

Registered: Dec 2000
Location: Elkins Park, Pa
Posts: 577

www.advertain.com

I won a good digital camera AND a TV.

I got the camera, and they sent a $250 check in place of the TV.

Amazing luck, but I sure miss them.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
[...] Remind me, what was adcritic?

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:

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Originally posted by Toby
It was a site which hosted streaming clips of commercials, ostensibly for review as to their 'art' or humor value.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by dick-richardson
Ah, yes. I only visited the site a few times. Never remembered to keep tabs on them. Super Bowl Sunday last year was the last time, IIRC.

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