When it comes to the dotcom shakeout, the bigger they are has nothing to do with how hard they fall. A new report from San Francisco-based firm Applied Communications
investigates the most visible dotcom crashes of 2000, and it seems the top losers on their list may have their PR workers to thank. Company size had nothing to do with coverage of
their going bust, rather the companies who made a big media splash in the months before the shakeout flamed out the brightest. Applied Communications VP of Communications
Research Jim Beakey says one big problem was that PR people acted like cheerleaders when they should have been strategists. "There were a lot of agencies going for the short-term
publicity wins, rather than helping their clients build their business models," he says. "They forgot that publicity doesn't help unless it brings in sales leads, or helps achieve
business objectives."
(Beakey, Applied Communications, (415) 365-0222, http://www.appliedcom.com)