Dot Com 2.0???

cousin_borat

People are finally talking about it. I've been in San Francisco and Silicon Valley a couple of times this year and there seems to be a tonne of VC money going around. Maybe better times are coming for IT workers.

Of course in the long run it will be a bubble. However it's going to be interesting to see what happens and observe the lessons learned from the first Dot Com.

dahamsta

I think this time it's going to be more like a Good Year blimp than a Hindenburg zeppelin. A bit fun, occasionally useful, but most certainly not a ball of fire that results in loss of life.

And there is a chance this time around, as long as people keep their heads, of actually turning out quite a lot of useful stuff. However the Web 2.0 and loony-toon bloggers aren't helping...

adam

boardy

I always believed that the previous dot.com (Version 1) was just the tip of the iceberg, and the bust was just a blip. We ain't seen nothing yet as technology and innovation will drive a sustainable dot.com resurgence.

cousin_borat

Alot of the technologies today are alot more mature that in the 90's. Companies such as Productopia in SF which went belly up in the first bust would in hindsight have gone onto great things. Probably the same with the likes of Ebeon here.

Merrion

Quite a lot of the hype this time around is based on the business reengineering aspect rather than just the technology - i.e. not what it is (online, java, flash etc.) but what it does (inventory tracking, payroll etc.) for the business.

Not sure what (if anything) is going to be really big in the B-2-C market though. One thing that Web 1.0 proved is that consumers are really reluctant to pay for web based services. (Online shopping and banking aside)

cousin_borat

From what I see there is significant developments in both B2B and B2C.

I agree the business re-engineering aspect is huge, SOA, et al. Currrently I'm working in Enterprise Business System Integration. Attending a conference in San Jose in March on the commercialization of Semantic Technologies applying it to Business Integration, Healthcare, and many other applications. Other examples of B2C ventures such as Meebo (http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/13164800.htm) lead me to believe the consumer is being drawn back the new Dot Com.

here's hoping

jimmycrackcorm

I'd tend to agree on such a resurgence. The first boom was a runaway horse but the intervening years have shown a level of maturity that leads people to understand more easily what type of business can survive a web 2.0 boom.

The essential difference is that VC money is going to flow into companies that actually have the groundwork for a successful business. Meebo for example has thousands of users whereas many companies in the past including one I worked for were founded purely on share price speculation.