One way the industry copes is through dark humor and parody. It's based on celebrity death watches, picking who's going to die and when they're going to die. I originally made it for just my six friends. Visitors to the site compete by picking five dot-coms they think will fail. So far, more than 70,000 have entered the competition.
Participants rack up points if chosen companies report bad news.
Maybe they're getting sued or an executive leaves. Napster's lawsuits have landed it on many magazine covers, making it a popular pick. But players can net more points choosing lower profile possible failures, like one prophetically-named breakfast cereal portal. Kaplan also posts sarcastic tidbits of company news or gossip, gleaned from the media and friends or memos and e-mail sent in by the site's fans. Over its first few weeks his site has drawn more than 1 million visitors, many of them industry insiders.