The return of boo.com

By May 2 2007, 1:49 pm 5 Comments
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Do you remember boo.com and its spending spree through the first dotcom boom that frittered away £80m of other people's money? No? Well, it's back. Kind of.

An Irish company, Web Reservations International, has bought the URL and relaunched it not as a fashion brand but as a travel site.

They haven't disclosed the figure but they have told me "they paid ten times less than what it cost when it was first sold by the founders" whatever that might be.

Is it worth resurrecting a URL like that? Is Boo particularly valuable? I don't think it is. I just carried out a snap office survey (SOS) and the results were virtually no one had heard of Boo.

That's not to say it’s a bad name, its short and memorable, but is that enough?

Web Reservations International describes itself as the "leading online travel company"? I wish people wouldn't use the world leading particularly when no one has ever heard of them (that said it claims to have handled more than €300m in annual bookings last year). I'm not sure how that makes you the "ultimate online destination for travel", maybe it's ultimate in the way that the original Boo was going to be in the world of fashion. A grand enterprise with a great big whole in the middle.

Boo was perhaps the ultimate dotcom story. A tale of such glorious excess that it finally managed to waste £80m (but hey it was only VC cash, so no harm no foul) and hire so many people – a staggering 300. Oh that ominous in hindsight – before it went under and got snapped up by Fashionmall.com before it too closed.

 No word if the travel guys are bringing Ms Boo back, she's been much missed.

If you haven't read it, you should snap up a copy of the book written by Boo founder Ernst Malmsten. He was if you remember the twenty-something Nordic poet who wrote Boo Hoo: A Dotcom Story. It's a fiver on Amazon.

  • Will Callaghan

    The name’s got pluses (easy to remember) and minuses (infamous to some and could harm the business model), but the success of the site surely rests on encouraging sufficient readers to sign up and generate useful content.

    I’d back the Guardian’s ‘Been There’ site over the new boo though. It’s got the brand, the traffic and the IA works – unlike this page (http://www.boo.com/london)

  • George Parker

    Remember how Boo was known as the three “C’s” company, because it ran on Champagne, Caviar & Concord. They opened offices all over the world, and as you say, went through a ton of money in a few months. But as you also say, it was VC money… And based on some bad experiences in my chequered past, they deserve everything that happens to them.
    Cheers/George

  • al fox

    Was it BOO.COM that had the inflatable boardroom? I’ve been trying to remember which company had this in the height of the boom euphoria. Ahhh them wa’ days.

  • Will Callaghan

    Inflatable boardroom? Wha? Reminds me of the scene in 24 Hour Party People…

    “25 grand for a CHUFFING TABLE?”

  • Philip Smith

    Boo apparently even had a cocktail named after them at the once very exclusive Home house – most of the team meetings were held there apparently. I recommend the book about its rise and fall, Boo Hoo, as a good read but, to honest, some of the excess is frightening. In Ernst’s defence (he co-founded the business), he clearly was overwhelmed by how quickly it all got so big.

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