Dot.com loses its aura as investors reject tech firms

Bloomberg News Service

NEW YORK — GenesisIntermedia.com Inc. reminded shareholders last week that the consumer products marketer would drop the dot.com from its name next month.

The less elaborate name of GenesisIntermedia Inc. "more accurately reflects the broader mix of businesses in which we are involved," Ramy El-Batrawi, chairman and chief executive, said in February when the change was announced.

Although the Los Angeles-based company's stock is up 19 percent over the last year, it is joining a legion of companies that see dot-com as a stigma.

At least 30 companies axed dot-com or a label such as "technology" from their names in the first quarter, according to Bloomberg data. In the same quarter last year, 45 added the terms to their names.

One company has adapted to the changing winds unusually well. In March of last year, Judge Group Inc. became Judge.com Inc. This month, it was back to being merely Judge Group Inc.

MonsterDaata.com, which distributes information over the Internet, became MonsterDaata Inc. after the value of its shares fell 95 percent. Eurbid.com Inc., a provider of financial services over the Web, became Junum Inc. after its stock fell 75 percent last year. FVC.com Inc., a telecommunications network services provider, changed to First Virtual Communications after it fell 91 percent over a year.

Not all companies, however, suffered financial losses before changing their names. Some see a change in identity as expedient given investors' lack of appetite for things new fangled after some technology-related companies fell short of profit expectations, fired workers or closed up shop.

The dot.com stigma goes beyond Wall Street. About 56 percent of those polled in the Pew Charitable Trusts Internet and American Life Project survey, for instance, said such companies had no clear plan for making profits. Many blamed either investors in search of quick payoffs or inexperienced executives for the demise of dot.coms.