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Wike, who also became editor in chief of Crosswalk.com, said in a statement at the time that he was excited about the move: "It is clear to more and more people in the Christian community that Crosswalk.com is assuming an increasingly high visibility and is creating something very special on the Web."

That excitement apparently depreciated in the next 13 months. From a price over $12 per share in July 1999, Crosswalk shares were trading at about $1.44 per share when Wike resigned as coo in August 2000. By the end of the year, the price had shrunk to less than 60 cents per share, and Wike quit his last official tie to the firm as a member of its board of directors.

"I am saddened and disappointed with the outcome of the merger of Wike Associates Inc. and Crosswalk.com Inc.," Wike wrote in a letter to James G. Buick, the former Zondervan CEO who is now chairman of Crosswalk's board. That disappointment, while not explained in his resignation, likely included seeing the value of his Crosswalk shares plummet by more than 90 percent during the period, a worse percentage loss than has struck Amazon.com.

Conceded William Parker, the Crosswalk.com president who was replaced in January, "We bought his company largely for stock, and that's no fun, needless to say."

One Crosswalk.com insider—who insisted upon anonymity—said that Wike had criticized the firm for unsound business principles, such as neither "living within its means" nor expecting the Internet bubble to pop.

But as of press time, Crosswalk.com is at least still in business, and its stock is worth something. Consider the customers (and employees) of iBelieve.com, which came out of the gate in late January 2000 with $30 million in cash from investors, and Family Christian Stores—the nation's largest Christian retailer—behind it.

"We set out to create the best site for Christians and families on the Internet, not by measuring ourselves against others in our niche, but by developing a comprehensive strategy that would put us among the best sites—like a Yahoo!, AOL, or Amazon.com—on the Web," iBelieve president Jef Fite said in a statement at the time. "Now the real test begins."

Despite strong backing and a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, iBelieve was apparently unable to "monetize" (to use the latest Internet buzzword) its business quickly enough.

The firm not only failed to get its message across in key prime-time shows—its efforts to buy advertising on CBS during the network's Jesus miniseries and Touched by an Angel were rebuffed—it also failed to find additional funding and pulled the plug on October 20, 2000, less than nine months after its launch. In its 268 days of existence (including Sundays), iBelieve.com hemorrhaged more than $111,000 per day.

"We met or exceeded all of our traffic metrics, experienced revenue growth every month since launch and realized our goal of becoming the leading Christian Internet site," Fite said in a news release announcing the shutdown. "However, like many other Internet companies, we were not able to raise capital given the current market conditions, and we [were] left without options."

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February 19 2001, Vol. 45, No. 3