The Scoop...

Deja.com was founded in 1995 as Deja News - a forum for Internet users to participate in newsgroup discussions. In late 1998, the company hired current CEO Tom Phillips to help expand its online offerings beyond online discussion. In May 1999, the company dropped the "News" from its moniker and introduced Deja Ratings, its online ratings system. Today, the site is a virtual cornucopia of product information and discussion, with nearly a million consumer ratings on almost 40,000 products. Deja touts its rating system as an important consumer tool - not to mention a lucrative marketing opportunity.

Deja review

Deja has a user base of 1 million readers and reviewers, and has been installing new features on its site to make searches easier and more efficient. The Product Wizard eliminates products in real time as the user selects criteria, and the Side-by-Side Comparison feature displays key features on a table for easy comparisons. This new "precision buying service" has garnered favorable comments from consumers and web-site reviewers alike, and may spur increased interest in the company.

Deja boo-boo

While the emphasis at Deja.com is now on its rating and precision buying services, the site still provides access to more than 35,000 newsgroups. Users registering for My Deja get access to a Deja e-mail account and the ability to post messages to newsgroup discussions and community forums. In June 1999, Deja made headlines when Richard Smith - the software developer who helped the government track down the writer of the Melissa virus in April 1999 - pointed out that Deja was keeping a log of e-mail addresses to which its users sent messages to via "mailto" links. The company claims that the action was inadvertent, and overhauled its privacy policy in order to satisfy consumers.

IPO delay

A plan to go public sometime in 1999 was put on hold indefinitely for unknown reasons; the company had filed for an initial public offering with the SEC in June of that year. The company pulled the filing entirely as of June 2000.