DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

January 15, 2001 — Go.com buys the centerfold spread in the Industry Standard, “introducing the new Go.com”, pitching their new “interactive” advertisements called ActivAds.

In a move that was probably designed to appeal to the corporate executives in the Standard’s readership, the ad instructed readers to contact Thomas Hartman, VP/Worldwide Sales — no phone-sales flunkies here, no cube farm of MBA interns in Plantronics headsets… your ad order goes straight to Mahogany Row!

January 29, 2001 — Disney lays off the entire Go.com staff and announces plans to shutter the go.com website.

According to The Industry Standard’s calendar, that insert was placed on December 11, or possibly earlier. So the time between rolling out a hopeful, high-profile new ad campaign, and giving the boot to 400 people, is a measly 49 days.

In this economy, that doesn’t sound too bad; running full-tilt into the wall is in some ways preferable to the alternatives. But it is ironic when the company it happens to boasts that their new ad technology is “as close as you can get to being psychic.” If they were really psychic, they might have been able to predict that betting the company on an online ad-sales business plan, after a 6- or 9-month slide in online advertising rates, wasn’t such a hot idea.

As a somber postscript to this episode, we confirmed (with a quick call to the phone number in the advertisement) that Thomas Hartman, VP/Worldwide Sales, is no longer working at Go.com.