Staggering when you think most of them had unproven or unworkable business models and were unlikely at best to succeed.
Hindsight is a wonderful tool, and with it we can see that far to many venture capitalists and investors were conned into believing the hype perpetuated. I wonder how many of those budding entrepeneurs, if any would get past BBC2's Dragon's Den.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/
Probably the easiest way (which a reasonable chance of success) to start a ".com" is to be a bricks & mortar company that branches out and offers an online purchasing route.