Austin-based drkoop.com has been gathering steam for the last year or so, but quietly. Whoever knew that their IPO would fly so high, or that they would make a marketing deal so huge that it would blast breathless headlines all across the net.biz weeklies? And that one deal's not all: drkoop.com banners are popping up everywhere, and the site's quickly becoming an online mecca for consumers of allopathic medicine. The bearded ol' ex-Surgeon General and his colleagues have created a site focused on content rather than commerce, with tons of information written from a traditional medical perspective. They'll probably attract billions of eyeballs and make tons of money on advertising alone, despite that hospital smell. You gotta admire the chutzpah of a Web company that'll drop all those millions into AOL's piggy bank without a clue whether they'll ever see a cent returned. Could bettyelders.com be far behind?
