Vonage IPOs, tanks

Vonage went public this spring at $17, and put some of the stock aside for its customers. The stock dropped right out of the box, leading to some concern that the customers--many of whom no doubt had dot-com sugarplums dancing in their heads--wouldn't pay for their shares. That got worked out. But even though Vonage continued to pick up customers, the stock headed pretty much straight downhill. At this writing, it was trading at $7.14, slightly off its low of $6.30. It's not all bleak; Vonage made hundreds of millions of dollars in the IPO, which buys it a ton of marketing presence and a lot of breathing room that its competitors don't have.