Doubts and Opportunities

The stock market may be rocky, but online workers don’t seem too concerned.

Take what happened to the working masses at Digital Entertainment Network, the pioneering Internet video company in Santa Monica best known for adopting Hollywood excesses, using its venture capital to pay huge salaries, and a sex scandal involving one of the company’s founders.

When DEN recently closed its doors and laid off its entire staff, employees say they were bombarded with calls from recruiters. Some “dot-coms” went out to the company parking lot to hand out job applications. And one Web company, Scour Inc. of Beverly Hills, even persuaded DEN’s human resources staff to stuff fliers detailing its job availabilities inside workers’ final paychecks..

“Whatever works, we’ll try it,” said Dan Rodrigues, president of Scour, an online entertainment portal. The result? Scour has interviewed several former DEN workers, but it hasn’t hired anyone yet.