AG's Tech Test Blog

The Seattle Times today is kicking off a three-part series detailing the gigantic boom-era scam that was InfoSpace, once the region's biggest dot-coms. Perhaps we've all -- or mostly -- moved far enough past the insanity to take an honest look back; this certainly seems like a good start. (Of course, tech haters thought the whole industry was like this; it wasn't, and one of the hardest parts about this piece for those of us who were in Seattle during the era is thinking back on all the really decent, smart people who gave their efforts to this ever-so-losing cause.)

Lots of good reporting here, though you should try not to be distracted by the quaint regionalisms -- for instance, "dot-com guru," as in "dot -com guru Henry Blodget," is apparently a regionalism for "bloviating idiot who puffed up InfoSpace and companies like it strictly because he could, and heck, he made his pile either way." Alas, the court has sealed a great number of documents connected with the case (much to the dismay of the shareholders, who are clearly the victims of the Naveen Jains and the Henry Blodgets and so forth), but reporters Heath and Chan have truly done their work here -- and the scant emails posted so far are quite damning by themselves. Juicy and infuriating and sad, and very funny in spots (describing the "look" he was going for with his incredibly tacky, incredibly expensive self-designed jewelry, one software engineer says, "I wanted something more pimpish").

If this series puts some real presure on what's clearly a cozy relationship between former InfoSpace leadership and the courts, prizes for the reporters are most certainly in order.