Few events have provided richer skewering fuel for modern business writers than the dot-com collapse. From accounts of absurd business models descending in flames to bratty billionaires and their decadent lifestyles, the rise and fall of thousands of Internet businesses has become a modern-day 
equivalent of disco. 
   
 Few people were in a better position to chronicle that spectacular collapse than Philip Kaplan. The founder of FuckedCompany.com, a Web site that provided up-to-the-minute coverage of the collapse, Kaplan had a ring-side seat to one of the most fascinating  business events in modern history. His Web site was (and remains)  surprisingly comprehensive, frequently prescient, and always entertaining.

That's why his new book, F'd Company-Spectacular Dot-Com
 Flameouts, is such a disappointment. On his Web site, we are
 treated to Kaplan's wonderful directing capabilities. There, he has
 the wisdom to stand out of the way and let those who've been rudely canned do the chronicling. 
 
 In his book, a thin, single-evening read from Simon & Schuster for $18,  we're treated to more Kaplan than chronicling-and it's more Kaplan than most people likely will be able to tolerate. 

    The book is filled with the sort of vulgar geek speak you've always suspected your glum office tech-support guy was capable of. 

"On the one hand, there's no fucking way in hell that Iam.com's 
business would have worked, pretty colors or not…Wouldn't you 
feel like a fuck-face if you flushed $48 million of other people's 
money down the toilet on an idea this stupid." 

Kaplan also employs the abbreviated language of instant 
messaging in a way that becomes instantly annoying. Each 
time he used cuz instead of because I found myself a little 
more nauseous. There was even an lol. 

But the main problem with the book was that the one-page 
case studies were too brief, and featured more commentary 
from a smug Kaplan than straight reporting. Those most 
ridiculous dot-coms were unintentionally comic enough 
without him. 

Avoid the book and visit the Web site. 

 Mark Harrington is a business reporter at Newsday