I never patronized either of these outfits, even though hip celebs like Whoopi Goldberg were raving about it, telling us that it was "the thing to do."

Let's see, beenz.com reportedly burned through around $80 million in real Yankee greenbacks before giving up the ghost. Flooz used up approximately $50 million in venture capital backing. And the capper was the New York Times report that Flooz had unknowingly sold $300,000 of its "flooz" currency (redeemable for goodies from various e-commerce sites) over the past three months to a ring of hacker credit card thieves in Russia and the Philippines, before finally being alerted by the FBI.

Official word of the Flooz demise came just two weeks after the operation took its online currency market off-line and announced it was actively pursuing a merger partner. Apparently, no one took the bait. Beenz announced its online operations would shut down on August 26.

Are we all nuts? Or were good people just blinded by greed, by the possibility of cashing in on The Next Big Thing? How did we ever think this might actually work?

Good public relations is one answer. I did a little search for the word "beenz" on InternetNews.com, and came up with a raft of headlines like these:

"Beenz.com Taps FCB for Global Ad Campaign"

"Beenz.com Sets Stage for Rollout in China"

"Beenz.com and Flooz.com Form Trading Alliance"

"Been.com Secures Another $10.5 Million Investment"

"Beenz.com Claims Ten Million Transactions"

There's a similar litany for Flooz, including this one: "Whoopi Goldberg Stars in Flooz Commercial." Believe it or not, they spent $8 million on the campaign.

Turns out I even wrote some of these stories. But I never really believed in these companies, and hindsight tells me that I sure should have said something at the time. So, dear reader, you have my apologies. I will try to be more "real worldly" in the future.

The Thrill Is Over
What gets me is it's turning out that the Internet is not nearly as revolutionary as so many of us thought it would be. In reality, the Internet is just an easier way to shop (or browse), if you don't mind all the threats to your privacy. E-mail is cool, and a few game sites entertain me at times.

But I don't need or want Web currency. I don't want to talk over a Web phone. I don't want to watch TV or movies on my computer. I play my music on my stereo system. I messed around with some chat room sites in the early days, and while it was a novelty at first to be typing back and forth with somebody in Australia, the thrill is long gone.

I don't want to buy people presents using my mobile phone during a few precious moments of downtime -- if my life becomes that crowded, I'll move to Wyoming. I don't want to have to register at a dozen different Web sites in order to read one little thing on each. I don't want to be a member or a user of anything that requires me to surrender my personal information. I've had it with spam. And I am damned sick and tired of each new computer I buy being out of date in 12 to 15 months.

So Flooz, you lose. Beenz, you're soup. I won't cry for either of you.

To quote from an anonymous poster on a rather entertaining Web site devoted to dot com bombs: "Real companies actually generate something called "profits", this is what keeps the normal everyday business, like your corner grocery store, in business."