In America, it's called FuckedCompany.com. Lacking imagination to come up with the perfect word that depicts certain states of being so precisely, which those brainy Germans have a knack for with everything from sturm and drang to zeitgeist, we Americans go for the next best thing. That is, an expletive to draw attention.

Probably more people go to FuckedCompany.com than Schadenfreude.com (if there is one), not so much because of the name, no matter how well it sticks in the ear, or, how it's become the new Blair Witch-style Internet buzz.

Napsterization can only take you so far, as history is proving. No, it succeeds because it's so damn useful, fucking necessary even, as the bloom falls off the rose of Internet's promise of riches for anyone with a Web site.

Fuck, since it keeps track of dot-coms in trouble, an increasingly tireless task, the consumer service rivals the big Hoovers- and Gomez-style b-to-b resources on the Web. If you are employed at a dot-com, especially a shopping site or an infotainment site with no clear revenue model, you might just want to make it your home page----just to make sure you shouldn't be spending the rest of your morning clicking through job sites.

Dying, death and dot-com disaster is nothing to laugh about. It teaches us, transforms us, forces us out of our purgatory, a reality check pushing us into the spotlight of the fully realized moment

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For mainline news organizations, the simple mention of FuckedCompany.com in print is a two-hour editorial meeting waiting to happen. While the reporters argue that since truth is, after all, a defense in court, and anything short of reality is a cheat, the entire name should be printed in full. For managing editors, forced to face their bottom-line dwelling publishers at regular intervals, the consideration ranges between adding in expletive substitutes (*$%&*), using F---edcompany.com, or, simply going to a long lunch and hoping their bitchy reporters can find something else to write about.

TheStandard.com took the high ground, then caved, on this question. Surely, they must have been thinking, the Webizenry is more tolerant about such things as R-rated language. Surely, FOX-TV has changed the whole paradigm of inappropriate applications of language and other social mores. But, when the Web site named FuckedCompany.com appeared in their Shop Grok e-zine's subject line, reader complaints came in.

As the marketing and advertising Web-watcher, ICONOCAST reported, "Used to be business ezine publishing was kinda like cable. You could push the envelope a bit further than with regular print trade magazines. TheStandard.com learned last week to their dismay that these wild times are gone now.

"When they featured the Web site name FuckedCompany.com in their Shop Grok ezine's subject line, reader complaints forced TheStandard.com to email a public apology to its more than 80,000 readers on Friday.

"ContentBiz.com's sister ezine MarketingtoSmallBiz.com has also put FuckedCompany.com in a subject line, but did not receive any complaints. Still it's obvious we also will need to watch our step a bit more from now on."

The latter statement is, of course, ridiculous.

Perhaps it's only a sign that the usually iconoclastic ICONOCAST is loosing its edge. In fact, there's no telling whose knees really buckled when Shop Grok blinked, or, how much mail it received. Usually, in such cases, it's a miniscule percent of tweedle-dee folks who write in. Likely, commerce-minded managers, as opposed to the Standard's editors, who decided to let that tail wag their dot-com doggie.

USAToday included the entire name in print. Even if it was not much of a risk --- after all, what daily reader on the A-train has the wherewithal or moral outrage required to read the mini-paper and then remember to write a strongly worded letter after finally reaching the office --- that's another sign that the new millennium foretells no Victorian Age in the near future.

More to the point: FuckedCompany is useful info that bears close analysis, and yes, just as close scrutiny. The site's concept is similar to offline death pools. Players, who register online, initially pick five companies that they think are poised for a fall. Each week, they are allowed to pick an additional five companies. Picks are weighted so people can join the game in progress without lagging too far behind. Thus explains the rating points included in today's fresh catch of dead dot-fish at FuckedCompany:

"VP bails - Maybe Flooz's mascot, Whoopi, can fill in until they find a replacement for the VP of Business Development, who bailed out for greener grass elsewhere. - When: 9/1/2000 - Company: Flooz.com - Severity: 15 - Points: 109

"Discontinuing Operations - The fat lady is singing the affiliate blues. The homepage says it all... - When: 9/1/2000 - Company: Affinia.com - Severity: 100 - new hall of fame inductee! - Points: 200

"Our favorite chapter - LetsTalk.com filed chapter 11 bankruptcy. - When: 9/1/2000 - Company: letstalk.com - Severity: 95 - Points: 195

"Not playing - GetMedia Inc., a company that offered online radio stations a way to sell the records that it played, has closed its doors. - When: 9/1/2000 - Company: getmedia.com - Severity: 100 - new hall of fame inductee! - Points: 200"

The site's creator and owner, Philip Kaplan, a 24-year-old programmer, monitors sites such CNN.com and News.com for real good/bad news about Internet companies. He also relies on user tips from employees of dot-com companies, many of which are earning points while they are loosing professional viability as they post, from their cubes, their real good local bad news.

Kaplan rates each company with a points scale of 1 to 200. The more points a company earns, the closer it is to closing its doors. When a company hits the 200 point-mark, it's officially a FuckedCompany.com Hall-of-Famer, and it can no longer rack up points for players. Thus, the easy targets are left for the buzzards in the mainstream media to kick, pick on and pile on.

If you are an e-commerce shopper or someone with more than $15 at stake in a particular dot-com, you might do well to look at (presumably) more responsible outlets. That includes TheStandard's Dot-Com Layoff Tracker , Flop Tracker , and another good, simple tool is dBusiness.com. If you have more than $1,000 invested in your decision, you should check the Securities and Exchange Commissions search tool, Edgar, to read regularly filed corporate reports.

Now, let's see, what's the financial viability of a site called Schadenfreude.sucks?