End is nigh as cash runs out for Christian website

Having God on your side is not enough if you are an internet site struggling for funds. As dot.coms fall like skittles, the latest to go is ibelieve.com, which claimed to be"the leading Christian community on the internet".

Having God on your side is not enough if you are an internet site struggling for funds. As dot.coms fall like skittles, the latest to go is ibelieve.com, which claimed to be"the leading Christian community on the internet".

An apologetic site note (at www.ibelieve.com) says: "Despite a tremendous launch and site traffic that ranks as the leading Christian community on the internet, iBelieve.com has not been able to secure additional funding to continue to keep the site up."

More than 200 million people worldwide can access the Net, but iBelieve - despite its leadership claim - had only 550,000 members. Even so, its management insisted it had "consistently exceeded our business and ministry objectives" - except for the funding.

It signs off: "We'd like to end our time the same way we started... by giving glory and praise to our great and awesome God who holds all of history and the most intimate details of our lives in the palm of his hand..." Except, it seems, the names of any willing venture capitalists.

Meanwhile, the most successful online sector forges ahead. There is no recorded occasion of a pornography website going bust. One of the biggest Web hits is Voyeurweb, where people post pictures of themselves nude or having sex. The site says it gets more than a million visitors a day.