Comments on: Confessions of a Dot-com Survivor

By: ¿Vuelve la burbuja? | cornisa.net

¿Vuelve la burbuja? | cornisa.net — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:09:53 +0000

[...] este interesante artículo un “superviviente” de la caída de las puntocom nos deja su [...]

By: karl

karl — Wed, 17 May 2006 03:45:01 +0000

Word.

By: Todd Ziaja

Todd Ziaja — Tue, 16 May 2006 22:33:44 +0000

My name is Todd and I am dot.com survivor. One difference between then and now is having the infrastructure and real-time data to truly deliver an online storefront. I remember trying to order a Mac online way back in 1999 from a discount reseller. After having trouble with the site I called customer service only to have the rep tell me the site “was lying to me”, i.e. the posted inventory didn’t match actual inventory. Also, I don’t think investors are throwing bushelfuls of money at the space expecting triple-digit returns. I think we all know now that the i-web didn’t create any new customers, only a new way of connecting with them. I look trepidatiously forward to UNIMEDIA.

By: David Armano

David Armano — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:45:54 +0000

Mack,
No worries–this time around will be different. I think the “survival” experience has made us all better people. Really what it comes down to is combining the creative spirit with grounded common sense.
I’m encouraged with what I see in the business world these days and I think these are exciting times we live in.
Time to put our collective experience to good use!

By: Jonathan Kranz

Jonathan Kranz — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:38:27 +0000

Yes, the Internet is back, but I do see a difference between the growth now and the surge back then. Back then, people w/out any real biz experience scoffed at such outmoded “so-yesterday” notions such as “profit” and “revenue growth.”
Now, I see that the ideas that achieve credibility are the ones tested by experience. We’re no longer in the panic phase of confronting a new beast. Today, we know the animal and are much more familiar with its behaviors.

By: Ann Handley

Ann Handley — Tue, 16 May 2006 19:19:10 +0000

Excellent post, David. And great comments, Tom and Mack.
I spent the “Good & Bad Old Days” at ClickZ.com — plenty arrogant, admittedly, and then plenty flat-out LUCKY to have sold it in 2000, *this close* to the crash and *this close* to screwing the whole thing up. Since I’m on a show-tune kick this week….I’m “a sadder but wiser girl” because of it (“Music Man”).
Anyway — I think the big difference between the late ’90s and now is summed up by David: “Technology no longer drives–it enables.” Seems to me that we aren’t as willing to swig from the fountain of Cool Technology as Business Model.

By: Mack Collier

Mack Collier — Tue, 16 May 2006 18:41:59 +0000

Ugh….I see more and more bubble ’survivors’ sounding the same warnings both of you are. Hopefully the results will be different this time.

By: Tom Hespos

Tom Hespos — Tue, 16 May 2006 15:03:21 +0000

Indeed, I am catching a whiff of that old hype and that old arrogance.
I spent my 1996-1999 at K2, which was one of the first interactive agencies to go public. We didn’t have things like Razor scooters in the office, but we did other silly things during the boom like flying across the country to crash a Razorfish party and making trips to Toys R Us to buy toys for the creatives. Ahh…those were the days.
A lot of the arrogance came from high-flying ad-supported sites (I won’t name names – everyone knows who they are). If you balked in the slightest at paying their ridiculously high CPMs for online media, they’d call you to tell you your price just doubled and that you’d better sign the contract before they changed their minds again. It was wack.
I’m not saying it’s back to that level again, but it’s getting there. All we need is another huge wave of ad dollars to set the whole thing in motion again. And that influx of ad dollars is nearly upon us.