At a time when most Web sites continue to be merely ideas for businesses or theories of companies, it's little wonder that people prefer to draw conclusions rather than report true performance. In essence, we still haven't learned the true metrics of success, aside from the obvious yardstick of profitability. Until we get a better handle on what makes an e-business viable, perceptions will trump reality. Drkoop's refusal to fold when its demise was predicted by so many reminds us that markets are aggregated from individual companies and that the performance of an overall market never accurately determines the value of any one player. Granted, the degree to which collective attitudes determine how investors allocate their capital and make buying decisions certainly affects companies.
Perceptions have a nasty way of shaping reality.
Yet the correlation is dynamic and not always direct. The first step toward economic reality is a simple assessment of reality. And so I salute Drkoop, the Richard Hatch of the Net. Let the company's living death remind us of the mixed-up Web that continues to change our lives. Privacy Policy Stock data provided by Stockpoint and its data suppliers.