Digital Music 2.0: "Welcome to iHollywood Forum. The next big conference December 8-9 2004..."—Ignition Partners

Another twofer: iSomething and Something 2.0! Bubble on.

"Experts" Awry on Google's IPO Effects: "While correlation isn't causation, I'm inclined to believe that the success of the Google public offering has made it at least a little easier for a host of technology companies to do a late-2004 IPO. The experts strike out again -- and you can bet VCs and investment bankers are working overtime to get product into the launch chute."—Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

The halo effect begins.

Survival of Fittest and Leanest Becomes Strategy for the Airlines: "'Every time we go through one of these harrowing experiences, the industry has endured, it has survived and it has successfully provided what I consider to be an essential service for the American public and American business.'-Herb Kelleher"—The New York Times

No industry should be able to operate leaner than computer software. Who will be the Southwest Airlines of the tech world after Shakeout 2.0? You can count on one thing: they'll have a hosted model.

Google's rapid rise rewarded the open-minded: "As Google shares flirt with the $200 mark, investors have to wonder whether many of those buying the stock near that lofty level are money managers who once spurned it at half that price. And it's not just day traders..."—AlwaysOn Network

The seduction begins.

In healthy Indian job market, developers want it all: "As hiring picks up in Bangalore, India, the city's software professionals are again acquiring the spoiled-brat image they had in the late 1990s, when the dot-com boom increased staff requirements at Indian outsourcing companies."—InfoWorld

At least they haven't started giving away BMW Z3's yet. Yet.

Google Investors Revel in Stock's Success: "Google's stock has more than doubled since the company's IPO."—eWEEK

One easy way to spot a bubble: when tech industry trade rags start writing articles about stocks. Bonus points for writing about stocks doubling.

Those Dark Clouds over the Street: "Third-quarter earnings would have had to be simply dazzling to add some luster to the market amidst so many reasons for worry. Instead, earnings are turning out to be just ho-hum. For investors, that amounts to one more reason to keep their enthusiasm for stocks in check. "—BusinessWeek

Shopping.com IPO Soars 53 Percent: "Shopping.com Ltd. surged in the opening minutes of its debut, recently trading at $27.50, up 53 percent, or $9.50, from its initial public offering price of $18 per share."—Yahoo! Finance

Bubble voyeurs will note the addition of the SHOP chart to this site. First-day close: 28.80. Welcome to the pleasuredome.

Is The Google IPO Rubbing Off?: "Or is Shopping.com going to pop on its own accord? It priced at the top of the range today...and will trade shortly. Lead underwriter: Goldman. Ticker symbol: SHOP ... This does not feel right to me. On the other hand, it feels...familiar."—John Battelle

Do we have another candidate for inclusion in the Bubble 2.0 Index? I think so!

Why This Bull Is Ready to Run: "Joseph Battipaglia of Ryan Beck & Co. sees the S&P 500 near 1300 by next summer, and likes industrials and consumer nondurables best."—BusinessWeek

Google market value surges past $50B, tops Yahoo: "While analysts widely applauded Google's strong sales growth for the third quarter, Janco Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen commented that the stock is 'priced to perfection.'"—AlwaysOn

Google is now worth more than General Motors, American Airlines, Starbuck's, and Kodak combined. Perfection indeed.

Can The U.S. Stock Market Crash Again?: "The market has already completed a counter-trend rally, and the psychology of investors, advisers and economists is dangerously optimistic. The market is probably doing something more akin to what happened in 1835-1842 or 1929-1932 [versus the 1970s]. According to my analysis, the bear market has already resumed, so the crash potential is significant."—Forbes

Yikes.

So you think you can make millions: "The nation's seemingly endless property boom has intersected with widespread disillusionment with Wall Street and an unemployment picture that has many people scrambling for new careers. As a result, 'dabbling in real estate' has turned into the modern equivalent of whispering 'plastics' into the ear of graduate Dustin Hoffman."—Chicago Tribune

The speculative real estate bubble is underwritten by large mortgage lenders such as Countrywide Financial, hence the company's inclusion, alongside PlanetOut(.com) and our poster child Google, in the Bubble 2.0 Index.

Do I Hear Google $400?: "Bambi Francisco of CBS Marketwatch has a frothy piece implying that there remains a supply-demand imbalance in Google shares ... As we learned from the Amazon case, it is cheap career-making PR, a low-road move that is a guaranteed and cynical attention-getter. So how can I resist? Google is going to $400."—Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

Amen!

Analysts set $145 price target on Google stock: "The Google stock view is eye-popping enough to recall the days of hundred-dollar-plus price targets. Henry Blodget, Merrill Lynch's former star analyst on Internet stocks, hit the high mark for ambitious stock price targets with a famous call in 1998 that Amazon.com would hit $400 in 12 months. Amazon shares hit the target in about a month (since adjusted for splits), but the crash in the Nasdaq a year later made a mockery of the Internet stock analysis industry. "—CBS MarketWatch

Mockery indeed. GOOG: 149.38 170.00 177.62

TheGlobe Folks Up To Old Hype Tricks... This Time With VoIP: "Last year, we joked about the VoIP bubble, noting that TheGlobe -- one of the more disgraced names of the dot com era for selling nothing but hype and getting the largest one day IPO bump at the time -- had changed their name to VoiceGlo and was hyping themselves up to ridiculous levels."—Techdirt

Homebuilders Are Stretched Thin: "Even as demand falls and inventories rise, they're taking on debt to boost construction and keep up their heady growth."—BusinessWeek

A crash in the housing market would be very ugly. Lock in those rates, kids.

The next big thing may be searchable TV: "SAN FRANCISCO - I can tell when the market gets frothy: My e-mail box gets flooded with information about the next-new thing..."—AlwaysOn Network

You know, I can tell when the market gets frothy: I start seeing datelines from San Francisco, city of the eternal acid trip. And I'd like to give a shout-out to my dog, Willie Brown!

Peer-To-Peer Bartering To Replace Money?: "Nicholas Negroponte was a huge supporter of electronic currencies, even as one after another failed. Now, he's back, suggesting that the next version of "electronic currency" will simply make use of peer-to-peer technology to complete multi-party barter exchanges."—Techdirt

Yes, money is obsolete. And the browser is dead. And Segways will change the way we build cities. Can I get a "Dow 36,000!"

Housing bubble popping in Las Vegas: "The region's second largest home builder, Pulte Homes, has cut its new home prices by 5 percent to 25 percent in recent days, reversing a trend of ballooning home prices and leaving at least one Denver-based real estate investor threatening legal action."—UnderReported

Housing Bubbles Are Not Like Stock Bubbles: "Unlike stock market bubbles, real estate bubbles don't pop. Collapsing stock market bubbles are characterized by a sudden collapse in prices because stock markets are highly liquid. You see huge volumes of transactions at ever lower prices during a stock market collapse. Collapsing housing bubbles, on the other hand, are characterized by illiquidity, a sudden collapse in transactions. Buyers and sellers seem to disappear."—AlwaysOn Network

Being a native Austinite, I've seen this happen before. It's not pretty. At least this time no one will be able to say they weren't warned.

E-commerce experts: You ain't seen nothing yet: "Opportunity will knock louder than ever for online business in the next 10 years, panelists say."—News.com

Said panelists included both Mary Meeker and Shelby Bonnie, making this one a twofer.

IPOs!: "I posted a picture of an IPO Prospectus on my blog back in July. It was for our portfolio company PlanetOut. Well it took quite a while, but PlanetOut is a public company this morning. They went effective last night at $9/share and will be trading this morning under the ticker symbol LGBT. I think there are quiet period obligations so I won't say much more about the Company, but its a great company, with great management, and I expect it will be a great stock over time."—Fred Wilson (Flatiron)

All together now: "Content! Commerce! Community! IPO!" Haven't we seen this movie?

Time to contemplate the 100-year bear market again: "So where does that leave us? Marching headlong into a 100-year bear market says Prechter. And while his predictions may still be unacceptable to you and me, the harsh reality is that the facts seem to be rapidly catching up with his theories. And that restores his credibility."—AlwaysOn Network

Once burned, twice shy?

Mary Meeker Strikes Again: "Mary's at it again. Last night in Yahoo's conference call she pulled out another stumper, this time a 133-word multi-part query that caused Yahoo CEO Terry Semel to stand back and scratch his head."—Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

Apparently back from her self-imposed exile, one-time "Queen of the Net" Mary Meeker fueled the expansion and then predicted the bursting of Bubble 1.0 with remarkable accuracy. Will she be the canary in the coalmine for Bubble 2.0?

Web 2.0: "My summary: Including the gatecrashers there were probably close to a thousand people in attendance, schmoozing each other up and creating the kind of optimistic, wild enthusiasm that I haven't seen since 1999. Silicon Valley is buzzing again -- and the powerful, the influential, and the entrepreneurial came together to trade ideas, to make connections, and to get energized to take the industry and the world to the next level."—Adam Rifkin

I remember that level. That was a good level.

Podcasting Flashback: "Podcasting <- Shoutcast <- AudioNet/Broadcast.com <- Real/Prognet"—Ross Mayfield (SocialText)

In Bubble 1.0, Yahoo paid $5.7B for Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com. Who'll be the big winner in Bubble 2.0?

SegwayFest 2004: "This year’s SegwayFest is going on right now in Coconut Point Florida..."—Engadget

Bubbles Bursting All Around!: "Back in the late '90s, two of the great harbingers of doom were those pesky Perkins brothers, who published The Internet Bubble, telling one and all that our oh-so-pretty house of cards was in the path of a force five hurricane and it was just a matter of weeks or months before real disaster..."—AlwaysOn Network

During Bubble 1.0, Jamis McNiven owned and operated Buck's of Woodside, "where people meet in The Valley to hammer out the Information Age." In Bubble 2.0, he writes, as above, for Always On, "the only media brand to combine traditional news and analysis, participatory journalism (blogging), and a powerful social network (AO Zaibatsu)." Again, I'm not making this stuff up.

Recognizing The Inevitable: "While Om Malik correctly notes that much of [Bubble 2.0] certainly looks and sounds like all the big names of [Bubble 1.0] coming back and saying, "no, wait, this time we got it right,", it looks like there are a few interesting points breaking through. ... The trick is to recognize the unstoppable trends, and figure out how to ride the waves."—Techdirt

"Unstoppable trends" I've seen:

1. Builders always keep building
2. Salesmen always want more
3. VC's always get a 3% management fee plus a 20% carry

Somebody help me ride that wave.

MSN TV 2 Combines Media Hub and Web Access: "Microsoft's MSN TV (nee WebTV) sheds its stodgy past to be reborn as a multipurpose Internet appliance."—PC Magazine's New Product Update

Can AOL TV 2.0 and Netpliance 2.0 be far behind?

Andreessen: IE faces one-two punch: "Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen says Microsoft faces serious competition from smaller alternative browsers."—News.com

It wouldn't be Bubble 2.0 without marca commenting on Browser Wars 2.0.

Kim Polese returns: "Kim Polese, the woman who coined the term "Java," has found a new job. At the Web 2.0 conference here Thursday, she will unveil a startup called SpikeSource that will provide enterprise support services for open-source software."—InfoWorld

Once admired by Fast Company as "the hottest Web celeb since Netscape poster boy Marc Andreessen," Kim once explained push technologies: "You'll never have to install software again."

Is This a Bubble Yet?: "Q: Did the Google IPO get you guys excited? A: It was remarkable to see the execution. It impacted the valuation and was a good opportunity for investors. Big investors wanted to know more about then auction model than the business model. Then they started asking about the lock-ups rather than the business numbers. The panel thinks the current valuation is reasonable and..."—Jeremy Zawodny (Yahoo)

October 6, 2004, 1:03pm PDT: Bubble 2.0 becomes self-aware.

Pluck raises $8.5M: "Pluck was the brainchild of former Living.com Inc. President and CEO Andrew Busey and former AV venture partner Dave Panos."—Austin Business Journal

Let's hope they don't use the money to buy a solid business.

Idealab Rethinks Web Search with Snap: "The incubator, best-known from the dot-com boom, launches a search-engine startup with an eye on re-sorting results and exposing the engine's inner workings."—eWEEK

IdeaLab and Bill Gross and Snap! Oh my!

Quote of the Year: "Please God, Just One More Bubble"—Business Week Europe

Look at that, first day and I've already found my site's tagline.

Web 2.0: Lightweight Business Models, Part 2: "Next up in the Lightweight Business Models workshop, a talk by Marc Canter..."—Abe Fettig's Weblog

Note: This one counts as a triple, since it's about a conference called "Web 2.0", the conference costs $2,400 to attend, and the seminar mentioned is being presented by Marc Canter, of DigiScents ("a smell-based platform") fame. (I'm not making this up!)

Back from the grave: Bubble 1.0 fanzines Red Herring and The Industry Standard. Even Tony Perkins is back at it.

A New Age of Innovation?: "While it's not a statistically significant sample, I have had at least three separate conversations with senior technology people lately who, like me, feel cheery about the current technology resurgence. They are all capivated by the many fascinating things going..."—Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

Business Week Accidentally Raises Overhype Alert Level to Orange: "I've said it before and I'll say it again. When mainstream magazines start interviewing people who call themsleves "futurists", get out your waders, becuse it's going to get deep."—Moonwatcher

The Return of the Venture Capitalists: "The hung-over partygoer finally puts some clothes on and makes it to Kerbey Lane for brunch."—Moonwatcher

Paul Graham gets wistful for Bubble 1.0 in "What the Bubble Got Right"

CNET (c|net?) founder Halsey Minor resurfaces, this time aiming to increase his wealth a few more orders of magnitude by investing in companies offering software on demand, known in Bubble 1.0 as "application service providers" (and in the original Go-Go Years of the 1960's as "processing services").

Bubble 2.0?

The signs are all around us. First a mainstream business publication quotes Howard Rheingold. Then Esther Dyson starts making investments. Before you know it, there's a new Vespa store in downtown Austin. Is it Internet 2.0? Maybe. Is it Bubble 2.0? Only time will tell. But along the way, we'll be following the signs, and invite you to follow along.

This site is maintained by Charlie Wood, a Bubble 1.0 survivor and avid blogger. You can reach him directly at charlie.wood@gmail.com. His other blogs include Moonwatcher, Globelogger, and Tablog PC.

The site's tagline, "Please God, just one more bubble!", was seen on a bumper sticker in Silicon Valley during the nuclear winter of 2000-2004.