Wedgewood cracks up.

I'll never forget the long hours I put in as an intern in the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation's archeology department sorting and labling bits of 18th century ceramics. A lot of the pieces had come from England, from the kilns of one of the world's most innovative businessmen and marketeers, ceramics maker and seller extraordinaire, Josiah Wedgewood.

Among other things, Wedgewood thought up and deployed the buy one get one free idea, direct mail marketing, and the money back guarantee.

And as is often the case, the company that changed the way the world worked has, as of 2009, failed to work the way the world's changed. Wedgewood has gone the way of the sherds I used to label so many years ago--it's broke.

Read the obit in the NY Times.