Is unlucky Internet start-up Boo.com heading for the record books? Last week Boo.com became the latest high-profile Internetcompany to head towards the bankruptcy court. As the company closed its virtual shop, the reverberations were felt around Europe and North America. Top stockmarkets from New York and London to Madrid and Milan, plunged as investors began to fear that Boo would be the first of many and developed a bad case of hi-tech jitters.
It isn't hard to understand why the failure of Boo threw the markets into turmoil. It came like a bucket of cold water for investors who've been throwing their money into high technology. But Boo was always a symbol of the worst hi-tech excesses. The company burned money at an astonishing rate, confident that it could return to the market and raise more. And, it had an extraordinarily optimistic business plan which involved selling $80 T-shirts and $30 socks on the Internet. At its peak it was valued at an outlandish $250 million. In the harsh light of reality it was always a non-flyer.
Yes TV is in a slightly different league. The company aims to provide video on demand and until one month ago it was hailed as the hottest new star in the London market. It painted such an attractive picture that merchant bankers believed it could pull off a