The late 1990s were a boom time and there are constant reminders of the more excesses over that period. Half.com is an example of a successful exit to an unsuccessful business.

But back in 1999, in its Netflix-like heyday, Half.com was hot. And then it did something quite remarkable. As a publicity stunt, it bought a town — somewhere in Oregon — and renamed it. This news made the wire services, The New York Times and Wired Magazine.

So what ever happened to Half.com, Oregon, the first dot com city in the world?

Design Observer - What ever happened to Half.com

Joe Kopelman, the CEO of Half.com created the publicity stunt to convince a small city to change their name to Half.com in return for cash, computers and stock. No more that 6 months later they sold Half.com, a online “Steptoe and Son” for around $300M. (If you don’t know who Steptoe and Son). This must of being one of the most inspired PR ROI achievement of the nineties.

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