F'd Companies

The book F'd Companies (Simon & Schuster, 2002) by Philip J. Kaplan "captures the waste, greed and human stupidity of more than 100 dot-com companies." His book sells for just under $4 in some BookSale branches. When asked if I can reprint this page, Kaplan, known also as Pud in twitter, said: "Sure".

Enjoy.

 

Digiscents

 

I'd make Fuckedcompany.com smell like peas.

That was the thinking behind Digiscents' flagship product, iSmell.

iSmell was a peripheral you could plug into your computer that would make websites and other computer programs smell. The device contained a palette of 128 different scented oils. When triggered, iSmell would internally combine selected smells and expel a puff of scent.

So yeah, there's something that's both really cool while simultaneously intensely stupid.

The idea was that there would be smell-enabled games –smell the caverns, the sweat, the dead bodies...Problem is, even with their seventy employees and $20 million in funding, they never got around to releasing the thing.

Besides, potential customers weren't too keen on having a bunch of nasty-smelling chemicals pumped up their noses.

Another idea was that perfume websites would smell like perfume. Okay...just a thought here, but would a company like, say, Gucci, trust this little box to accurately reproduce their fragrance? And if so, wouldn't people then just use the fuckin' smell from the box rather than actually buying the perfume? Further still, WHO THE FUCK GOES TO PERFUME WEBSITES. We can't leave out the obvious...

Still, this is cool, but so far the only applications that anyone can think of don't translate to $$$.

That's until now. I propose BURNINGSHITBAG.COM. This is a virtual burning bag of shit, delivered right to the email box of your favorite fucked CEO. The synergies are "overpowering" and the market seems just right.

URINALCAKES.COM coming soon.