might have been. I think Vonage's simple formula: <Get as many customers as you can regardless of how much it costs>, is not enough to attract investors. Vonage has yet to have a profitable quarter and quite frankly I thought this kind of IPO - that is built purely on the infamous hockey stick growth curve - were history: but obviously not.

The positive could be, though, that this flop will discourage others who might have had similiar ideas: Collect lots of VC money, hype up the business potential with lots of marketing, earn 100 million USD on expenses of 200 million USD and then start believing the story yourself. Often the good old "solid growth and profit over many quarters" IPO criteria are better. Now Skype and lots of telcos will have a smile on their face or at least be more relaxed - the latter are anyway in a different game: bundled services (triple- and quadruple-play), with one phone and one telecom/datacom service bill in mind. Vonage will be squeezed between both of these groups and has yet to show any profit. The IPO brought in 500 million USD though, so still a lot of marketing dollars to spend and that's at least good news for ad space sellers such as the London Underground, where you will probably now find even more of the Vonage ads. So to sum it up the British way: the rest of the money might also go down the tube...