DotComGuy Emerges from E-Commerce Captivity

After a year of self-imposed captivity, relying solely on e-commerce for survival, DotComGuy, aka Mitch Maddox, emerged from his Web exile as the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve.

Maddox’s self-proclaimed purpose for DotComGuy was "to help people realize the possibilities of e-commerce." The question is: did he?

"There's nothing we could have done to change e-commerce," Len Critcher, chief executive officer of DotComGuy, Inc., told the E-Commerce Times. "We were a barometer of what was happening around us. We provided a cool, infotainment family/friendly venue that maybe opened some eyes to something positive online."

The DotComGuy experiment did establish that it is possible for someone to live using online resources exclusively, even if the results are less than ideal, according to Critcher.

"Living solely online isn't the greatest thing in the world," Critcher said. "We’re all happy [it’s over] but at the same time very sad because we’ve been a family for 366 days living all of our lives online."

Internet Bellwether?

DotComGuy moved into a Dallas, Texas house on January 1, 2000, ready to take on life for a year with nothing but a laptop computer and an Internet connection.

During his experiment, Maddox purchased all of his food, furniture, entertainment and clothing via the Internet, while 20 cameras streamed the video of his life over the Web 24 hours a day.

"DotComGuy, Inc. wavered through a year of incredible uncertainty with no start-up capital and only a sincere passion to complete what we started," Critcher said. "As to the future of DotComGuy, Inc., that is uncertain. However, the accomplishments we have had and the imprint we have left is a success for all involved."

Sponsor Shakeout

DotComGuy, Inc. was sponsored by a number of companies, including Travelocity, Food.com and UPS. However, many of the e-tailers DotComGuy relied on fell off the map during the yearlong experiment.

"Our biggest challenge was keeping it afloat," Critcher said. "We were trying to find sponsors when a lot of potential sponsors were going out of business. We were one of the last of what I call the branding market."

Critcher believes the model DotComGuy initially used to attract sponsors -- building recognition through brand name marketing -- would not work as well today because e-tailers are now looking for immediate, direct results from their marketing efforts.

Even so, DotComGuy is probably not the last of the dot-com marketing experiments. During the summer of 2000, a Web site known as the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) announced that it would pay US$5,000 to couples who name their newborn babies "Iuma" -- and more than one couple accepted the offer.

Wedding Bells

What does the real world hold in store for DotComGuy? First and foremost, a bit of rest and vacation. Then Maddox plans to get married to a woman he met in an online chat room.

"We’re all kind of taking a deep breath right now," Critcher said. "We don’t know what the future holds. We have a lot of great ideas, but if we do something we want to make sure we want to do it and that it's smart."