internet companies bought advertisements, but that number reached 17 the following year. However, this number sharply decreased in 2001, with only 3 dot-com companies purchasing an advertising slot. While the term can refer to present-day companies, it is also used about companies with this business model that came into being during the late 1990s with the rapid growth of the World Wide Web. Many such startups were formed to take advantage of the surplus of venture capital funding and were launched with thin business plans, sometimes with just an idea and a catchy name. The stated goal was often to "get big fast", i.e. to capture a majority share of whatever market was being entered. The exit strategy usually included an IPO and a large payoff for the founders. Others were existing companies that re-styled themselves as Internet companies, many of them legally changing their names to incorporate a .com suffix. The stock market crash around 2000 that ended the dot-com bubble resulted in many failed and failing dot-com companies, which were referred to punningly as dot-bombs, dot-cons or dot-gones. Many of the surviving firms dropped the .com suffix from their names. See also Brick and mortar Dot-com commercials during Super Bowl XXXIV List of largest Internet companies Notes and references Dot-com bubble E-commerce