Business 2.0 has it’s The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2003. Here’s some good ones…
20. Hmmm. Maybe you should’ve gotten the hint by the 3,168,453rd time we closed one of your pop-ups without reading it.
After years of bombarding Web surfers with annoying pop-up ads, wireless camera maker X10 files for bankruptcy in October, listing debts of more than $10 million. Among the parties stiffed: AOL, Google, Yahoo, and AdvertisementBanners.com, which won $4 million in a lawsuit against X10 shortly before the bankruptcy filing.
67. Is that where we’d go to register Squanderingbillions.com?
In October, three and a half years after buying Network Solutions for $21 billion, VeriSign sells its dotcom-registration business for $100 million.
83. How to win friends and influence software sales.
“Terrorists do things designed to intimidate people, and we see a lot of that going on all the time—people trying to attack us or people that we’re associated with.”—SCO Group CEO Darl McBride, complaining about the backlash from hundreds of thousands of Linux users after the former Linux software vendor sued IBM, a major Linux proponent, for allegedly violating its intellectual-property rights.
88. The sentence for first offenders? Three to five in Fresno.
While attending a gathering of business leaders in Florida, Fresno, Calif., Chamber of Commerce head Stebbins Dean—inventor of his city’s slogan “Fresno: Smile When You Say That”—is arrested for attempting to buy crack from an undercover cop. He resigns shortly thereafter.