By David A. Fields
It's hard not to laugh when recalling the sixteen German violinists who sued for higher pay on the grounds that they played more notes than musicians who toot trumpets or blow oboes. Judging the value of a performance based on the number of notes played is obviously absurd.
But not every ridiculous yardstick of value is so easy to spot. Back in the glory days of the dot-com bubble, Web sites were judged by the traffic they generated. On this basis, ExciteAt-Home purchased Bluemountain.com for $780 million. But neither hits nor traffic are the same as value and ExciteAtHome ended up selling the site to American Greetings for a mere $35 million—a 96 percent loss!
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