A first year economic major could have predicted this train wreck. Attempting to sell expensive clothing on a website loaded down with sluggish graphics coupled with impossible navigation would be the recipe for a slow death. The Boo fiasco has put a face on the excesses that characterize the ever-growing list of carcasses strewn along the highways and byways of the Information Superhighway. During early 1999, the buzz on the Web was that something BIG was about to be launched. During that period, it seemed, a new mega-deal involving a limitless supply of venture capital would bring to life yet another colossal website.
Venture capitalists have money to burn.
Like almost everyone else, I was captured in the hype. The initial luster faded when the site did not appear on schedule. With backers like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Benetton Family and the French entrepreneur Bernard Arnault, the thinking was Boo could ride out the storm bolstered by the deep pockets of its benefactors. Finally, in November 1999 the website opened. Instead, what appeared was so over-stuffed and poorly designed, it defied easy characterization.