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Dot-Com Craze Peaked 10 Years Ago This Week

Posted by kdawson on from the irrational-exuberance dept.

netbuzz writes "When the NASDAQ stock index hit its all-time high of 5,133 on March 10, 2000, it had more than doubled in a year and the dot-com bubble was already leaking in a big way. A week later the NASDAQ had fallen 9 percent. A year later it was below 2000. Gone were such poster children of the era as Pets.com, Kozmo, and — who could forget? — Whoopi Goldberg's Flooz. Here's a look back."

28 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. I'm just waiting on this .info thing to peak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    GoDaddy said these .info domains were the future! And they let me have one for the low low price of $1.99!

  2. What is Up with Go.com? by eldavojohn · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Okay on the list they have go.com as #8 biggest flop. I go to www.go.com and sure enough it looks like I just typed in the wrong URL and got some domain parking crap. And yet, on Alexa it's ranked 15th in the United States. Is Alexa horribly flawed or what is going on with www.go.com? How does a site that looks like that still rank number 15 in the United States? It's above Bing, CNN, Flickr and Wordpress. Huh?

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:What is Up with Go.com? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      The front page www does indeed seem worthless, but http://espn.go.com/ and http://disney.go.com/ and http://abcnews.go.com/ look like they would account for traffic.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go.com has some info.

    2. Re:What is Up with Go.com? by mu51c10rd · · Score: 4, Informative

      You may have heard of the following sites:
      http://espn.go.com/
      http://disney.go.com/index
      http://abcnews.go.com/

  3. Programmers where like Rock Stars... by acomj · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Jobs where plentiful, signing bonuses common, stock options flowed like champagne......

    I miss it.

    Then company I worked for had an all hands meeting and then proceed to hand out unemployment forms.. We weren't even a dot com, but lack of investment killed them.

    Like waking from a wonderful dream....

    1. Re:Programmers where like Rock Stars... by zero_out · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I had a similar, unfortunate, experience.

      I studied computer science because I loved using computers since I was in first grade, even though I never owned one until a few months before graduating HS. There was just something about their flexibility, and capacity for automating tasks that appealed to me.

      When I chose CS as my major in college, my friends were all telling me that I only needed to study for a couple of years, apply for a few jobs, get competing offers with huge salaries and signing bonuses, and I would be set. This was based on the experiences of their older brothers, cousins, etc. As a result, I thought nothing about all the loans I was taking out to attend university. It wasn't that I was greedy, I just couldn't get a full scholarship, and my parents couldn't afford to give me a dime, so if I was going to continue my education instead of working right out of HS, I would need a lot of loans.

      Then the bust happend, and I spent my summer of 2001 working helpdesk for a government agency. In 2002, I couldn't even get a summer job, and lived off $250 a month leftover from my loans that year, with $200 going toward rent, ~$35 toward utilities, and ~$15 toward food. Not even a fast food joint would hire me. In 2003 I didn't even bother looking for a job, because it was preferrable to be scraping by and deal with more debt when I graduated than to face the impossibility of finding a job. When I graduated in 2004, I jumped at the first job I could get, which was desktop/server administration, intranet maintenance, and helpdesk in a 3-man IT shop for a very non-technical company. It paid the bills for 3 years, and allowed me to support my wife while she attended university. Toward the end of the third year, I was offered my first development job, working for a small company that was bought (a week later) by a mega-multinational.

      Now things have turned around, I am earning twice what I was earning at my first job out of college, and my $105,000 in school debt is well under control. My wife graduated from school, and is earning a very nice sum too. Sure, she has $40,000 in school debt, but five years of scraping by together has taught us how to live well below our means; and with our combined salaries (and no kids) we have considerable means.

      If the "golden years" never occured, I would have ended up working at a video store straight out of HS, spending all my money on video games, and living with my parents. I never got to experience the era, but it gave me the courage to take a bold risk and become the first person within my family (immediate and extended) to attend college. Sure, it was a rocky road, hiking through the rubble that was the dot-com bust, but I made it through in the end.

    2. Re:Programmers where like Rock Stars... by Sponge+Bath · · Score: 4, Funny

      I entered college in Fall 2009...Fast forward to Fall 2003 when I graduated...

      Back to the future!

  4. dot com business model (no, not the ??? one) by Shakrai · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let's sell dimes for a nickel and make it up in volume......

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  5. the dotcom boom by Em+Emalb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    How many people went from paper millionaires to "LOL..wut?" during this time?

    The only good thing about the .bomb was that it separated the wheat from the chaff, in that all the little monkeyboys who thought getting their MCSE meant $85k+/yr are no longer in the industry, for the most part.

    Basically, after the .bomb, the only people left were the good ones.

    --
    Sent from your iPad.
    1. Re:the dotcom boom by mikael_j · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Actually, my experience from working tech support here in Sweden in the years after the dot bomb was that a lot of the incompetent ones entrenched themselves in "safe" positions and focused on job security and climbing the corporate ladder, it's amazing how many completely inept "senior" sysadmins there are that need to call in an expensive consultant just to make basic configuration changes to systems that they're supposed to be experts on.

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    2. Re:the dotcom boom by spun · · Score: 3, Funny

      Where is this wonderful meritocracy you live in, and can I move there?

      --
      - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
    3. Re:the dotcom boom by eln · · Score: 3, Funny

      On the bright side, these paper millions did result in one of the most unintentionally hilarious essays ever written. So, it wasn't a total loss.

  6. Ha, My .com artifacts lasted longer... by nweaver · · Score: 5, Funny

    I still have, in my office, my pets.com sock puppet (still in box), the business cards for Petopia.com's CEO and CFO, my webvan box, and most precious, the receipt for 1 pack of lifesavers (5 flavor, $.48) delivered by Webvan for no-charge.

    Ahh, those were good times...

    --
    Test your net with Netalyzr
    1. Re:Ha, My .com artifacts lasted longer... by longacre · · Score: 5, Funny

      1 pack of lifesavers (5 flavor, $.48) delivered by Webvan for no-charge.

      The dotcom implosion can actually be traced back to this particular transaction. Way to go.

      --
      Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
  7. Being naive, I lost a lot of money that year by cytoman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I hate being reminded of the dot com bubble. I had some good money in blue chip stocks and good mutual funds. I saw people making money like crazy all around me by investing in mutual funds that were heavily into tech stocks. So I took out a huge portion of my money and transferred it to the tech mutual funds and very soon after, the bubble burst. I had the misfortune of buying at the peak of the bubble and lost a very large amount of hard earned money. I don't know when I'll get over that.

    1. Re:Being naive, I lost a lot of money that year by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It depends: Did you do the same thing in mortgage banking a couple of years ago?

      And you've learned some important lessons about investing, like:
      1. Don't trust hype.
      2. No, really, don't trust hype.
      3. If you invest on momentum, you've probably already missed the boat.
      4. Profitable companies are better investments than unprofitable companies for a reason.
      5. Don't be afraid to be conservative. You might not make as much as the folks who risk a lot, but you're much more likely to hang onto your cash.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  8. Kozmo.com by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seems like we have these retrospectives on the dot-com bubble every 1-2 years - guess it's being driven by all the still-unemployed programmers.

    I will mention (as I do in every dot-com retrospective thread) a bunch of my coworkers did their best to bankrupt Kozmo.com - unintentionally, of course. But with no minimum charge, it was the "go to" place whenever anyone was jonesing for a pint of Ben and Jerry's or even a Snickers bar.

    Oh, and we can't have one of these threads without mentioning Eazel!

    It's amazing how so many of these companies had no business plan whatsoever. It's REALLY amazing that, back then, some people were actually defending this practice! People who asked "what's the long term business plan" were ridiculed as being small minded or being guilty of outmoded thinking.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Kozmo.com by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Really, the business plan that worked for most .com businesses and still do, is get bought out. Really, get a million or two for the founders and give the employees early retirement. Plus, if you said "Hey, I founded YouTube" you can bet that you'd get a job, even though YouTube is chronically unprofitable.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    2. Re:Kozmo.com by ClosedSource · · Score: 4, Funny

      But now we have companies with down-to-earth business plans - like twitter.

    3. Re:Kozmo.com by Wireless+Joe · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But now we have companies with down-to-earth business plans - like twitter.

      And large banks.
      And airlines.
      And auto manufacturers.
      And newspapers.
      And publishers.
      And Malls/retail.

      God, I just got myself depressed again.

  9. WE ARE STILL ROCK STARS! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I am a Ruby on Rails developer, and I AM A ROCK STAR. You think you know CRUD? Nuh uh! Me, RoR and ActiveRecord will kick your pathetic ass, because not only are we ROCK STARS, but we are CODE NINJAS.

    See my fedora? Yeah, you do, bitch. It shows I'm real. I'm only 18 and haven't been to university, and my startup has no real customers, but me and AJAX will whoop your ass and make you worship DHH.

    BRING IT.

  10. Re:Where were YOU when the bomb dropped? by spun · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm pretty sure that I was head of IT for a non-profit medical marijuana club in San Francisco.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  11. Ahhhh, dot.com by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I spent the dot.com time in a bank auditing company. So I had a perfect view when the whole crap started to crash and burn.

    Assessment of risk was completely off the bat. Everyone thought the internet is the next big thing. That really will take off. Everyone will buy everything online. Soon. Any time now. It's so much easier. And with a concentrated storage, logistics and delivery, you simply HAVE to be cheaper (overhead-wise) than everyone else, and computers are cheaper than brick-and-mortar stores, and no shop rents, and and and... it just MUST be a huge thing! And those loans, they will pay for themselves. Easily. They have no expense, you see? They can all invest it in their computers. And stuff. And what they need. And marketing is so big, it just HAS to take off like crazy!

    Believe it or not, THAT was actually the reasoning behind the unsecured multi million loans! Everyone was so hyped up about how easily they should be able to recover their investments. Hell, NOT throwing money at them would have been so stupid because everyone else did it and you just can't stay out of it because then your revenue would be lower and nobody would give you money (sounds familiar? It reminds me a lot of the current "we had to do those high risk businesses because else we could not offer those insane interest rates and if we didn't, nobody would have invested with us... It's the same bull all over again).

    What appearantly everyone failed (or refused) to see was that a lot of these people had little more than a pipe dream for a business plan and no experience with running a business whatsoever. We'll certainly hear a lot of stories of people who worked at dot.com businesses at the time. Tell me: These were startups, right? How many had expensive paid-by-company lunches or parties? What cars did your bosses drive, at company expense? Where was your office, and how was it furnished? What PR stunts did you stage?

    That's not how you "invest" money. That's how you squander it. And that's what made the bubble burst.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Re:Where were YOU when the bomb dropped? by oldhack · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Saw the ship sinking, jumped it and went on extended cheap backpacking. Rode out good part of the bust. Good times.

    --
    Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
  13. When you don't make anything... by copponex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    When you don't have a manufacturing sector, it's hard to create actual wealth. When corporate structures have co-opted your government into forcing you to compete with third world wages and shifted the tax burden from the richest to the middle class, it's impossible.

    Hey, welcome to 18th Century France! I can't wait to see what happens next...

  14. Re:Where were YOU when the bomb dropped? by spun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Hehe, yeah, just a little joke. In reality, we had a state of the art integrated membership, document management, inventory, and point of sales system, hosted on a server with encrypted hard drives, in a locked and booby trapped closet, with hidden kill switches placed in strategic locations around the club, at foot level so we could kick them if the cops threw us up against the wall. Stoned or not, it was some of my best work. :)

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  15. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  16. Lies, damn lies, and... well, you're full of shit. by copponex · · Score: 4, Informative

    True. How fortunate that the US is #1 in manufacturing, and vastly ahead of #2 (Japan) and very far ahead of #3 (China).

    You know what the most important thing is for statistics? Context. Our manufacturing per capita consistently places us outside of the top 10. It's like people celebrating a US or Canadian women's hockey victory despite the fact that we have more players by a factor of a thousand. Sweden, Norway, Japan, and Germany outperform us in a number of areas. And I bet if you took entertainment out of the equation it would really be illuminating.

    You also may want to know that the #2 economy (by GDP alone) is now China. It also just overtook Germany as the world's largest exporter (again, by pure GDP, not per capita).

    And worse, Bill Clinton signed a larger tax cut for the rich than George Bush ever did...

    Alright, now you're just full of shit, by income tax and by effective tax rates. Read the tax rates here. Top bracket under Bush is 35%. Top bracket under Clinton is 39.6%. Capital gains tax was cut from 20% to 15%. Income from dividends went from 35% to 15%. The Estate Tax was halved, and even completely nonexistent for one year (this year, I think). And that's why you hear the babbling heads screaming bloody murder about keeping the Bush Tax Cuts.

    There's even an article in the Times from 2007. This shit is no secret. "Families earning more than $1 million a year saw their federal tax rates drop more sharply than any group in the country as a result of President Bush’s tax cuts, according to a new Congressional study."

    http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/08/washington/08tax.html

    And before you say a word about the richest paying the most taxes - OF COURSE. The top 1% of households hold more than 50% the assets. Why wouldn't they be paying most of the taxes?

    If you have any other questions about reality, feel free to ask.