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((Short description|Defunct website))
((More citations needed|date=October 2019))
((lowercase title))
((Use dmy dates|date=October 2019))
((Infobox company
| logo       = Beenz.com-logo.png
| type       = 
| foundation = 1998
| defunct    = 2001
| location   = [[London]]
| founder    = Charles Cohen
| key_people = 
| industry   = Online commerce
| products   = 
| fate       = Sold to Carlson Marketing Group
))
'''beenz.com''' was a [[website]]<ref>((cite web |url=http://www.beenz.com/ |title=Beenz |website=www.beenz.com |access-date=12 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20011014231958/http://www.beenz.com/ |archive-date=14 October 2001 |url-status=dead))</ref> that allowed consumers to earn beenz, a type of online [[currency]], for performing activities such as visiting a web site, [[e-commerce|shopping online]], or logging on through an [[Internet service provider]]. The beenz [[Electronic money|e-currency]] could then be spent with participating online merchants.

The marketing and brand concept positioned Beenz as "the web's currency", global money that would challenge the world's major currencies.((Citation needed|date=January 2009)) The Beenz management team raised almost $100 million from venture capitalists including [[Apax Partners|Apax Patricof]], [[Larry Ellison]] of Oracle, [[Michael Saylor]] of [[Microstrategy]], [[François Pinault]] of PPR, [[Vivendi|Vivendi Universal]], Italian financier Carlo de Benedetti and Hikari Tsushin of Japan.((Citation needed|date=March 2014))

Since launching a new currency is illegal in many countries, beenz management and its legal teams had to meet with finance ministers across Europe to assure them that Beenz would be categorized as virtual points. Beenz's offices in London were visited by the [[Financial Services Authority]] (FSA) on suspicion of operating an unlicensed bank.<ref name=thehustle>((Cite web|url=https://thehustle.co/beenz-pre-bitcoin-digital-currency|title=A decade before crypto, one digital currency conquered the world — then failed spectacularly|last1=Grant|first1=Conor|date=1 July 2018|website=The Hustle))</ref> 

Beenz operated in the United States, [[Sweden]], France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, Australia and China. At its peak, there were offices in 15 countries,<ref name=thehustle/> and translations of the beenz website into several languages.((Citation needed|date=March 2014))

After the [[dot-com bubble]] burst, the company replaced its CEO, Philip Letts, with a team including the founder, Charles Cohen, and other Board directors Stephen Limpe, Don McGuire and Sean Lane. The company could not go public, further funding did not materialise, and the company was sold to US-based Carlson Marketing Group in 2001 for an undisclosed sum.((Citation needed|date=March 2014))

Carlson planned to integrate the beenz system into the [[customer relationship management]] tools they offered to clients. After the sale of the company to Carlson, beenz account holders were given a period of time to redeem their beenz before it became integrated. Competitors like [[Amazon (company)|Amazon]] who, along with [[Visa Inc.|Visa]], built systems allowing direct online payments via debit or credit cards, meant many of Beenz's clients moved to these new platforms, and Beenz eventually lost most of its clients.<ref name=thehustle/>

Carlson did not renew the domain name.((Citation needed|date=March 2014)) In June 2008, [[CNET]] counted Beenz among the greatest dotcom disasters.<ref>((cite web |url=http://crave.cnet.co.uk/0,39029477,49296926-7,00.htm |title=The greatest defunct Web sites and dotcom disasters |publisher=CNET |date=2008-06-05 |accessdate=2008-06-05 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080607211845/http://crave.cnet.co.uk/0%2C39029477%2C49296926-7%2C00.htm |archivedate=2008-06-07 |url-status=dead ))</ref>

==Partnerships==
Amongst the company's partnerships one was with [[MasterCard]] enabling holders of the "rewardz card" to transfer earned beenz to their [[credit card]] account.((citation needed|date=December 2014)) This was one of the first relationships of its kind between a traditional [[Financial institution|finance company]] and a [[.com|dot-com]] enterprise.((Citation needed|date=January 2009))

Beenz was also once aligned with the now-defunct [[Speedyclick.com]], which carried its own [[virtual economy|virtual currency]]. Beenz could be converted into SpeedyBucks, but not vice versa.

==Founders==
The inventor of Beenz was Charles Cohen, from the UK. He co-founded the [[Holding company|parent company]] and joined forces with former [[reality television]] star [[Neil Forrester]], whom Cohen had met whilst the pair were students at Oxford University.<ref>((Cite web|url=https://www.computerworld.com/article/2596386/what-it-s-like-to-work-at-beenz-com-inc-.html|title=What It's Like to Work at Beenz.com Inc.|first=Leslie Jaye|last=Goff|date=28 August 2000|website=Computerworld))</ref> After tossing around the idea of Beenz and trying to get it off the ground Charles joined forces with Dave King, John Hogg, and Philip Letts to take Beenz forward. They quickly divided roles - Charles would take on the tasks of website development becoming CTO, Dave was Head of Sales and Philip became CEO, John Hogg headed Marketing. Philip took on [[Nicolas De Santis]] to develop the much-vaunted Beenz logo and brand vision. After an intensive period of fundraising Beenz launched with a guerilla marketing campaign designed by the crew and Nick Band of Band and Brown.  John Hogg moved over and De Santis became Chief Marketing Officer. Letts led Beenz to raise nearly 100 million dollars and spearheaded the expansion worldwide. He moved head office to New York from London and brought on Philippe Cothier as European president, Mitch Feigen as US president and opened an  Asian division.

Letts left Beenz after closing the last big round of over 30 million and went on to run Tradaq.com, a business-to-business exchange that allowed companies to buy and sell products and services without using cash.

De Santis left a few months after that and took on Chief Marketing Officer of Opodo.

Cohen used his experience with Beenz.com to write a book in 2002 called ''Corporate Vices: What's Gone Wrong With Business'' (((ISBN|978-1-84112-435-3))). He now runs Probability plc in the UK, a mobile gambling business that he co-founded in 2004. Before beenz Cohen worked with Thought Interactive (a web design business). Initially, the concept was heavily dependent on the English-speaking world and to change that the company recruited such characters as the Swedish entrepreneur Mikael Karlmark to launch its first non-English subsidiary.((Citation needed|date=March 2014))

==Business model==
The beenz business model was based upon [[arbitrage]].((Citation needed|date=March 2014)) Companies purchased beenz from the company at a locally determined exchange rate. They could then award these to consumers for actions to which the issuer attached value, such as making online purchases. Beenz were collected by the user clicking on a [[Java Applet]] and entering their email address linked to a beenz account. Consumers were then able to use their beenz to purchase goods from online merchants. Each merchant was free to exchange beenz at any notional value they liked, the company assuming that the market would settle the exchange value of each beenz. Merchants were then able to sell beenz back to the company itself at a predefined exchange rate. The company made its margin on the spread between the sell and the buy price of beenz in the market. In the later stages, a professional economist was employed to model the behaviour of prices and flows of money in this micro-economy, and keep it healthy.

Cohen's stated long-term aim was eventually to allow consumers to purchase beenz directly from the company and for the "beenz economy" to eventually resemble that of a real economy. However, at the time, this was fraught with difficulty, as some countries (such as [[France]]) expressed a view that such alternative currency schemes were undesirable and that they would seek to prevent them from operating.

In 1999, a million beenz were given away by accident as a vendor mistakenly offered 100,000 beenz (worth $1,000) for an action. Beenz took them back after a software fraud monitor triggered when 1.5 million beenz were given out.<ref>((cite web|last=Nuttall|first=Chris|title=Web trader spills beenz|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/423369.stm|access-date=7 June 2021|website=BBC News))</ref>

==See also==
* [[Bitcoin]]
* [[Digital currency]]
* [[Electronic money]]
* [[Flooz.com]]
* [[InternetCash.com]]
* [[Virtual currency]]
* [[Shadow bank]]

==References==
((reflist))

((DEFAULTSORT:Beenz.Com))
[[Category:Digital currencies]]
[[Category:Defunct online companies]]
[[Category:Defunct companies of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Internet properties established in 1998]]
[[Category:Internet properties disestablished in 2001]]
[[Category:Online retailers of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Dot-com bubble]]

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