Flying the Dot-Com Skies

October 15, 2004 4:33 PM

It has been four years since the dot-coms crashed, sweeping ideas like mylacky.com, pets.com and kozmo.com into the circular file. The remaining survivors have been remarkably successful. Google owns the search space and has redefined web mail. Orbitz and Expedia take most of the pain out of travel planning and reservations. Tenzing has spent close to half a decade pushing for IFE certification for Linux. Once properly certified, they built a system light enough, cheap enough, and reliable enough for installation aboard aircraft. All this effort just so you can read email the next time you travel by air. Aerospace giant Boeing is hard at work on a similar product but their demonstration is far more limited than start-up Tenzing's. (no, not that Tenzing)
posted by b1tr0t (12 comments total)

posted by neckro23 at 4:38 PM on October 15, 2004

The pictures they use to illustrate their website made me wince.
posted by NewBornHippy at 5:31 PM on October 15, 2004

Some other forums have mentioned that you can get online for free by entering the following login code: 20000103257652.
posted by Kwantsar at 5:58 PM on October 15, 2004

If I am not badly mistaken, Orbitz, Hotwire.com, and Priceline are all owned by the same company.
posted by riffola at 6:01 PM on October 15, 2004

Google has redefined web mail? You must be joking. They launched a fantastic marketing campaign by creating a scarcity and mystique that duped people into thinking they were getting something great instead of a rookie service. I was very very very excited when I finally received a gmail invite, then very very disappointed that it was all hype.
posted by fleener at 8:20 PM on October 15, 2004

I just wanted to say that I really, really, really miss Kozmo.

That is all.
posted by majcher at 9:12 PM on October 15, 2004

I want to say that I really miss Webvan. Not the shitty-selection-two-hour-delivery-window-we-opened-too-many-markets Webvan. The Webvan from before that, with the produce better than available in most supermarkets, the half hour delivery windows, the same day schedule, and the custom deli. That is all.
posted by majick at 11:14 PM on October 15, 2004

I don't, however, miss the orbitz.com that used to be a marketing site for a drink with plastic pieces floating around in it.
posted by majick at 11:15 PM on October 15, 2004

No, Hotwire is owned by InterActiveCorp. Not sure about Priceline or Orbitz, but I don't think they're owned by the same company, and it's definitely not IAC. IAC also owns Expedia, TripAdvisor, and Hotels.com though.
posted by ricecrazy at 12:02 AM on October 16, 2004

Sniff. Suck.com.
posted by pieoverdone at 6:16 AM on October 16, 2004

Sniff. CDNow.com before Amazon bought it. Theirs is the only dotcom freebie t-shirt I own.

I wonder how long that code will remain active, if it's true.
posted by emelenjr at 7:27 AM on October 16, 2004

I was very very very excited when I finally received a gmail invite, then very very disappointed that it was all hype.

You must not have used it very much.

1) 1 gigabyte of storage
2) Speedy, keyboard-navigable UI
3) Conversation threading
4) Labels instead of folders
5) Google-class search

All of these things make Gmail best-of-breed in Web mail services and the new bar which other services will have to meet. Of course, those features, while cool, still make it 99% useless to me, since I don't feel like I really have my mail until it's on my computer, but several people I know have switched over to it full-time from their ISP's mail account.
posted by kindall at 8:37 AM on October 16, 2004