It?s becoming a dot.common story. Start big and plan to go long, but now dot.coms aren?t very popular with once eager investors, and many are closing up shop or paring down making themselves attractive to buyers. One close to home is CampusEngine.com which launched The State Hornet?s Web site, statehornet.com, and many other collegiate newspaper sites.

The State Hornet?s Web site has been down since Dec. 19, leaving a one line message stating “www.statehornet.com will resume service on Jan. 28, 2001.” In the meantime, a substitute site can be assessed at hornetonline.comDavid Sommers former editor in chief of the State Hornet, and former employee of campusengine.com said the State Hornet was the first customer of the start-up internet company based in Folsom, Calif.

“We first signed with them Sept 4, 1999. There?s a big gap between the time we signed and the time we went online. That?s because they had to design all the software and Web sites, and train everybody in online ad sales. It was just an idea when they came to us,” Sommers said.

The concept was to make a network of college newspapers. The company would provide online publishing equipment and training. The network would attract national advertisers to a sought-after market. The State Hornet went online with the company Feb. 2, 2000.

At the end, campusengine.com had signed 100 newspapers at some of the largest colleges in the country. The network had the potential to reach over 2 million college-age consumers.

As of last semester, the company had yet to bring in any profits, and when gun-shy investors didn?t come through with a needed infusion of venture capital, campusengine.com was forced to power down. Like other dot.coms campusengine.com had expanded rapidly hiring numerous employees and moving to accommodate the workforce.

The company began laying off just after Thanksgiving and let the last employees go before Christmas.

Sommers said the company depended primarily on advertising dollars.

“There was too much reliance on making money through advertising,” Sommers said. “When the dot.coms went away so did the advertising.”

Sommers, who spent last summer traveling around the country as a corporate spokesman for Campus Engine said the company had an advantage over other startups.

“There was no need to invest in creating a brand name, the newspapers were already known” Sommers said.

Soon after the State Hornet website went down an agreement was made to keep a brief message up at the Web address so visitors would not be greeted with an error message or a blank screen.

A company called Ispi came on to the scene with its newly formed offshoot, Digital Partners which is dedicated to the college newspaper network. David Hahn, President and founder of Ispi and Digital Partners said a business arrangement had Ispi assume responsibility for the clients and customers of campusengine.com.

“We plan to carry forward beyond what they were offering. We plan to provide more extensive services, range of tools and opportunities,” Hahn said.

Out of the 100 colleges in the campusengine.com network about 10 percent have already been moved to Digital Partners? publishing platform, Vnews.

“We called it Digital Partners for a reason. It?s very exciting. Well be building the next major shift in student media for maybe the next hundred years,” Hahn said.Editor-in-Chief of the State Hornet, Nadine Simonson said Ispi and The State Hornet are working hard to get the Web site back to statehornet.com.

The substitute website, Hornetonline.com, is up and working, and the content is being renewed daily. Simonson expects the content from hornetonline.com to migrate over to statehornet.com sometime during the next week.

“We are hoping to get statehornet.com up as soon as possible,” Simonson said. “Most likely, it will happen during the next few business days.”

The publication board of the State Hornet made the decision to sign with Ispi on Jan 24. Simonson said many factors went into the decision to sign a new contract with Ispi.

“The company has been in business for about five years and is relatively financially stable. We needed to sign with a company that would be around for awhile.”