At number nine, eCompany notes a town in Oregon that changed its name to Half.com to support a local e-tailer of secondhand books, music and videos.
At number 14, the following quote is taken from the prospectus of Buy.com: “We sell a substantial portion of our products at very low prices. As a result, we have extremely low and sometimes negative gross margins on our product sales.”
Boo.com, the failed (though subsequently re-launched) fashion site, gets frequent mentions in the chart. Among purchases made with its $135 million venture capital:
“$150,000 annual salaries for the founders, plus $100,000 apiece to rent apartments in London and another $100,000 to redecorate them; $654,100 on promotional giveaways like disposable cameras and snow globes; $600,000 in public relations fees to the firm of Hill & Knowlton (mostly for setting up lunches with fashion editors); a $42 million ad campaign; a staff of 420 people, a.k.a the boocrew, housed in offices spanning from New York to Paris to Munich to Stockholm; and $5,000 per day to a crew of fashion consultants and hairstylists to perfect the look of Miss Boo, the site's computer-animated mascot.”
ECompany quotes co-founder Ernst Malmsten speaking to the New York Times: "It's easy for the press to say that we spent $135 million on Concordes and Champagne, but we only drink vodka."
At number 32 is streaming-media company Pixelon which had a $16 million launch party in Las Vegas, wasting 80% of its latest round of financing. The company’s CEO Michael Fenne turned out to be a fugitive con artist named David Kim Stanley; he is now serving an eight-year prison sentence.
At 35 is the well-known purchase of the domain name business.com for $7.5 million. Founder of buyer eCompanies said: “It is going to be the bargain of the century. It is going to look like we bought the island of Manhattan for $7.5 million and some beads."
The full list can be read on eCompany’s site.