Cost-Justifying Usability, 2nd Edition

their sites; this was measured through page-views and unique Web server hits

(Trueman et al., 2000). Advertising was used to keep a steady stream of “eyeballs”

(Stone, 2000) coming to Web sites. Bell (2003) discussed the fundamental

reasons for the failure of dot-coms including the following:

✦ The myth of advertising—although the “first-mover” advantage is important

in many markets, too many dot-coms put undue faith in the belief that adver-

tising would get them market share quickly

✦ Inappropriate business models

✦ Selling at a loss

Many early startups had a business model in which time-to-market and a focus

on increasing valuation shifted the focus ...