Talk:Dot-com bubble

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	Dot-com bubble is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
April 10, 2006 Featured article candidate Not promoted

Contents 1 older comments 2 Bookends 3 New sections 4 Work section 5 Successful dot-coms 6 Celtic Tiger 7 The could-have-beens 8 Proper title for this article? Proposal... 9 Requested move to Dot-com bubble 9.1 Survey 9.2 Discussion 10 Telecom Bubble 11 Youtube? 12 Terminology 13 Dotpocalypse? 14 List in general and Internet Brands in specific 15 It's mistake to mention Bubble 2.0, at most should be Bubble 2.0? 16 VA Linux 17 Warren Buffett 18 Name 19 Worst websites

[edit] older comments

Dot-com, Dot-com boom, Dot-com bubble, Dot-compost. One sign of a great thinker is the ability to synthesize. Wouldn't one article be better? Barely surviving after the Dot-com bust, yours, Ortolan88 12:08 Jul 30, 2002 (PDT)

Please write it, O Great Thinker! --Ed Poor

Believe it or not, I am not prone to hog in on other people's territory. If these hang around awhile without much change, I might do it, but not when they're so fresh and new. I wrote to stimulate the anonymous author to thought. I'm miles behind on Huckleberry Finn and Knots, just to name two.

If I ever get another job, wikipedia is in the weeds! Ortolan88

[edit] Bookends

I always thought the dot-com bubble started with the Netscape IPO in August 1995 and ended when the markets peaked due to the concerns about the Microsoft Anti-trust ruling in April 2000. Granted, the actual start and stop of the dot-com bubble are fuzzier than that, but these two events nicely frame this period. Most named time periods are usually delimited well defined events. Perhaps the article should place more emphasis on these two events?

• I would agree with this to some extent but the bookends are probably more 1997 - 2000, beginning with the famous Greenspan warning against "irrational exuberance" in late (November) 1996. Somehow the Telecom Bubble and the dot-com bubbles are being merged in human memory and recall... One was still riding high when the other peaked and crashed. They were separate events with separate repercussions. Stevenmitchell 12:01, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New sections

This article could use a couple additional sections.

1. the business "theory" of the dot-com boom: mindshare is everything, physical assets and experience are irrelevant; old-economy companies are obsolete; technology is inherently marketable; growth is more important than profits, etc.
2. the aftermath: mass layoffs (with security guards); empty office space; domain name buy-ups; return to traditional business wisdom (can be integrated with the "Secondary effects" section)

I'd love to write them myself, but I was way out on the fringe of the boom. So I didn't see these events closely enough to write confidently. Gazpacho 02:14, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Work section

What is meant by "battleground of intergenerational warfare"? warfare between the execs and the employees? between the tech employees and the operations employees?

"digital sweatshops / slave-driven" / underclass: the boom had a "programmer-hero" myth that made it seem worthwhile to put extraordinary effort into a company. There was the sense that your work was going to change the world, and that as a small company employee you had to make sure you pulled your weight. Certainly after the capital dried up, managers got a lot more serious about pushing employees past their limit, but that was the aftermath rather than the boom itself. The article could also use a mention of the use of stock-based compensation to avoid paying a full salary. Anyway, the three terms listed need to go; they're a mockery of real slavery and people who work in real sweatshops, as opposed to air-conditioned cubicles with web access and padded chairs. Gazpacho 07:40, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have toned down the disputed section, hopefully without changing the intended meaning of the original contributor. If you feel that fixes the problem, please remove the disputed tag. If it does not fix it, then try making the required edits yourself (or be more specific about the nature of the problem and I will come back to it). mydogategodshat 17:49, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Successful dot-coms

I wanted to suggest this here before editing the article:

• Removing MSN - its just a subsidiary of Microsoft.
• Adding Hotmail - although it is also a subsidiary of Microsoft, it was founded as an independent company and later sold to them.
• Add ICQ (Mirabilis) maybe?

-- Chuq 9 July 2005 08:43 (UTC)

ICQ does not run on a domain name idea, as "dot com" in this case implies. Dot com refers to the world wide web and its http protocol more than to any other protocol.

By the time of the dot-com bubble bursting, Hotmail had been owned by Microsoft for nearly three years. For these reasons, I oppose the suggested changes. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

If it was created during the bubble forming, I think it counts. Maybe it also counts because of why it was bought by Microsoft... --CCFreak2K 09:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Celtic Tiger

Probably a sentence or two linking to Celtic Tiger would be appropriate in some section. The dot-com bubble was quite linked to some of the Celtic Tiger runaway growth in Ireland in the late 1990s.

I'm not sure where to add this such that it follows in context from other text. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much about the worldwide effects of the dot-com bubble, other than noting the 3G licences nonsense in Europe.

Incidentally, after about 3-4 tighter years (2003 was grim and gloomy in the IT job market), the IT boom has come back in Ireland thanks to Google and Amazon (and the fact that many thousands of IT jobs, at Dell, Intel, IBM, Analog Devices, etc., never went away).

zoney ♣ talk 15:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Use of "dot com boom" as an expression: (idea for the main article) Some articles have described certain technologies like surveillance technologies, keyboards with LCD keytops and the like as being "dot com boom" technologies where companies invest in start-up companies that develop or have "on paper" these technologies. The start-ups who have the technologies may make up "cardboard" prototypes or rough "proof-of-concept" models of the technologies or simply show 3-D computer-graphic images of the technologies.

It has been seen that we could end up with companies making these concepts but never seeing them off the ground as a proven device and could see companies go to the wall with overinvestment in various technologies.

With regards,

--SimonMackay 09:51, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The could-have-beens

What about Altavista, Lycos, Excite, and Ask.com, all of which have either failed to grab, or more recently lost, market share. Would we count these into the dot-com bubble, or is their demise a later development not suited for this article? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:13, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proper title for this article? Proposal...

The discussion of this being a featured article candidate got me thinking of a reason it may not be very clear about what its material is: this article can't seem to decide whether it's about dot-com companies, or the stock market dot-com bubble.

I'd like to propose that this article should be named 'Dot-com stock market bubble' or 'Dot-com bubble'. If its focus is on the bubble itself (as many articles that link here seem to think, including Stock market bubble itself, it will provide a frame of reference within which to write; it's pretty clear that this article is the result of merging articles about the boom and the companies that were a part of it.

What do you think? Skybunny 17:19, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Dot-com bubble already redirects here; in addition, the article refers to the phenomenon more generally, including the successful companies, rather than the eventual burst, which the "bubble" alludes to. I oppose your proposal. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Here's what I see as the problem. 'Dot-com' means two things at once. I believe the article is fundamentally flawed because it is forced to mean two things at once; even the introduction points out that the phrase 'Dot-com' means both companies and bubble, and the article frequently switches focus between the two. I believe it has timeline problems because companies run within their own timelines, and the boom overlaps several.

If we make the article about the 'Dot-com bubble', it can discuss the companies inside that context, and it is my belief that the bubble is the main reason companies like Pets.com are discussed in the first place. This change doesn't have to be made, but I suspect it will be more difficult for this article to reach featured status if it can't decide what its primary focus is. I believe it's easier to write about the companies in the context of the boom, and not vice-versa. For that matter, the bubble can also talk about the successful companies, just as RCA was a success story of the radio bubble. I don't know if this is convincingly stated, but it's my reason for bringing it up. Thanks... Skybunny 18:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

So really you are talking about splitting the article, rather than renaming it? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

What I am trying to propose is making the name and thrust of the article the 'Dot-com bubble', which provides excellent reason to discuss the companies (failures and successes) that were a part of it, because it refers to that period of time in the market. An introductory paragraph might look like this - please pardon the quick engineering:

The dot-com bubble refers to approximately four years of time (1997 - 2001) in which stock markets in Western nations had their value increase rapidly, most significantly in the technology and new Internet sector. A combination of rapidly increasing stock prices, individual speculation in stocks, and widely available venture capital created an exuberant environment in which many new businesses dismissed standard business economics, in favor of increasing market share at the expense of the bottom line. The period was marked by the founding (and in many cases, eventual spectacular failure) of a group of new Internet based companies, dot-coms. The bursting of the dot-com bubble marked the beginning of a several year recession in Western nations.

[edit] Telecom Bubble

I'm reading articles like this http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FGI/is_7_14/ai_106651520 that keep talking about the Telecom Bubble like it was bigger then the Dot-com bubble. Is it detailed at all in wikipedia? Mathiastck 18:05, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

• For some reason it does not have its own separate entry and I am unsure where it might be except under entries for Enron (which was related to it and partially responsible for it) - they were one of the more advanced Telcos in the U.S., Global Crossing, Worldcom, Tyco and the problems of Qwest and a number of other U.S. companies including DSL providers. However, to do so will require some effort as the Telecom, Telecommunications and operating telephone companies entries are about as well organized as the finances of the defunct telecom companies of the early 2000's. In order to reorganize these entries into a useable state, a bit of effort will have to be made - perhaps after colleges let out for the semester this can be accomplished... Stevenmitchell 12:44, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Youtube?

Although Youtube is a well-known dot.com company, it really has nothing to do with the subject of this article - the dot.com bubble. Wouldn't it be better if the section at the end was a list of notable dot.coms from the bubble era, both successful and failed? Venicemenace 01:45, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

One thing to note - this article is not about dot-com companies in general, and never was. It is about the dot-com bubble, so, I agree, it should be specific to the era. I'm going to try to change the section title and point people elsewhere if they want to add 'MySpace' and whatnot. Skybunny 17:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• I wholeheartedly believe that this article and its contents should ONLY be about those dot-com companies that either led the bubble or helped it to implode... for dot-com companies as a list there should be another entirely separate entry and/or category for dot-com companies as a listing... This article is specifically about "the Bubble". The Telecom Bubble should have its own entry somewhere else, probably under "Telecom Bubble" and the two events should not be confused... Later dot-com companies have absolutely nothing to do with this event... Stevenmitchell 12:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Terminology

Why is 'bubble' not in the terminology? I assume were not talking about a bubble made of fairy liquid and water... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.111.8.97 (talk) 16:59, 15 January 2007 (UTC).

It is. The very first paragraph says The Dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble...which explains what a 'bubble' is in this context. Skybunny 17:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dotpocalypse?

Does a nickname like that really belong in an encyclopedia? At the very least, it seems very unprofessional in the article: "(aka the DOTPOCOLYPSE)". 65.19.65.85 18:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List in general and Internet Brands in specific

As IB (which didn't even use the name at the time, it was CarsDirect.com) was privately held through the dot.com bubble and survived, I don't really see why it's listed. I'd suggest the list be limited to a) dot coms that IPO'ed and went bankrupt by 2001 and b) dot coms that were sold at high prices by 2001. Jpatokal 08:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] It's mistake to mention Bubble 2.0, at most should be Bubble 2.0?

There is no such thing as Bubble 2.0, the idea of mentioning the Bubble 2.0 as a established fact is a clear mistake and it is misleading BBC's quoted article: "Has the dotcom boom returned?"

However, there are a number of differences between the first internet boom and the current one, not least the fact that the companies that survived - such as eBay, Yahoo, and Amazon - tended to dominate their market niche. " "The second key difference with the late 1990s is that companies now have a model of how to make money from the internet - and that model is based on advertising." "Finally, the role of the stock market is very different in the current boom. "

Business Week article: Bubble 2.0? http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2006/tc20061108_556422.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily "Venture investments in Web 2.0 companies certainly aren't high enough to push funding back to bubble levels"

The Financial Times article: Bubble 2.0? http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/c81136ba-f747-11db-86b0-000b5df10621.html "With no such wider ramifications, the current boom could well be just another of the periodic waves of euphoria that washes through Silicon Valley. It is the sort of boom-bust cycle that locals face with remarkable equanimity" —Preceding unsigned comment added by EconomistBR (talk • contribs) 06:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VA Linux

I think that the section of notable dot-com companies should include VA Linux, who went public on December 9, 1999, opening at $30 and closing at $320 on that same day. This was and is the most "successful" IPO to date, and it is the pinnacle of what dot-com IPOs attempted to achieve. Of course, the company lost almost all its value shortly thereafter and was at $0.54 by July 24, 2002. The Wikipedia article on VA Linux calls this "a classic example of the dot-com stock market bubble", so I think it's appropriate for inclusion here. As someone who lived "through" the dot-com bubble, VA Linux was as I remember it the "straw that broke the camel's back", and highly relevent to this article. 118.90.1.169 (talk) 23:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Warren Buffett

I added a link documenting Warren Buffett's forewarnings about the bubble. No big deal, but I think it's fair to mention that at least one highly qualified investor saw the bubble for what it was. L'omo del batocio (talk) 15:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Worst websites

What is the logic of redirecting from worst websites to this article? ~ thinking-ape ~ (talk) 04:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)