Revenge of the Dot-Com Poster Boy: "He was the king—and kingmaker—of New York's Silicon Alley, a new-media cheerleader turned media mogul. Then the bubble burst—but he's back." —Wired News

I'm considering doing a Bubble 2.0 Moguls gallery, in the spirit of Suck.com's original Net.Moguls series. Any nominations?

eCommerce Accelerating: "It's taken a while, but most of those seemingly nutty mid-90s predictions about the potential for ecommerce are being borne out." —Henry Blodgett

San Jose hotels report occupancy jump: "San Jose's 14 major hotels saw major gains in their occupancy rates in November, another sign that Silicon Valley's struggling hotel industry is starting to recover." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

The Hyatt on 101 at North First Street in San Jose has to be the nastiest hotel I've ever stayed in. A ground-floor room with a sliding glass door—with a broken lock—opening onto the parking lot. A non-smoking room with a cigarette butt on the floor under the desk. But the Tiki theme did make up for it. Not.

Ten predictions for the new year: "900,000 more websites will add RSS feeds. Bloggers will cover all of them. One of the sites will be the blog of an obscure profession, such as shoe cobbling. This will be groundbreaking news, because now shoe cobblees will be able to participate in a Conversation with their shoe cobbler. Thirty-seven VC firms will invest in the cobbler." —Blake Ross

Cash pours in for student with $1 million Web idea: "'I didn't expect it to happen like that,' Tew said. 'To have the job offers and approaches from investors—the whole thing is kind of surreal. I'm still in a state of disbelief.'" —Yahoo! News

Investors? Now that's a Bubble story.

Tom Taulli On Technology: "In light of recent high-priced acquisitions (for example, Skype), it makes more sense for startups to lose money and go for growth—not build a stable, profitable business" —Forbes.com

OK, I know, two links to one article. But the above quote was just too good not to point to. The return of Get Big Fast. Nice.

Year in review: The Internet reborn: "Five years after the dot-com bust, the Internet is showing vigor and inspiration not seen since the 1990s." —News.com

I was going to write a Year in review post, but I'm lazy so I'm just going to link to c|net's. Happy New Year, y'all!

Tom Taulli On Technology: "Tech will look like 1998. Smaller—less developed—companies will get large sums of funding." —Forbes.com News

When I was twenty-eight
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for smaller, less developed companies
With large sums of cash
And the Friday beer bash
But it came undone
When I was thirty-one

Of bubbles and developers: "Silicon Valley is a different place these days. After years of dot-com fallout, 2005 saw tech companies regain their self confidence—a fact signified by rapacious M&A, guilt-free spending on marketing activities and bold strategic statements." —The Register

Confidence. Rapaciousness. Guilt-free spending. It's morning in the Valley.

Chinese Blog Bubble Popped Before It Began?: "Over the summer we wrote about a bizarre story about a Chinese blogging firm that was getting attention for claiming that it was going to go public with a $1 billion valuation. There was no reality to back up the claim—just a CEO saying it would be so. There were a lot of other problems with the article, as well (including misleading statements about how much money the company had raised and how much revenue it was making), but it should come as no surprise to find out that the company (which did, indeed, raise the $10 million it was looking for just a few months ago) is now laying off one-quarter of its staff." —Techdirt

2006 Trends to Watch Part V: Crash 2.0: "We're going to see a shakeout among the startups that are hoping to build a business around online advertising. Those who have established a sizable audience footprint and have started monetizing it I am sure will be fine. I have no doubt Google, Yahoo and Microsoft—the axis known as GYM—will no doubt succeed. However, for everyone else planning to build a yet-to-be-launched business that's built on online advertising, the noose is tightening." —Steve Rubel

Monetize those eyeballs while you can, monkey-boy!

High-Tech Industry in Israel Goes From Bust to Boom: "Israel's high-tech sector is having its best year since the dot-com implosion in 2000"—The New York Times

The Tech Bubble in the WSJ: "The Wall Street Journal has put out its list of the top 25 most-clicked articles from 2005. The bubble still prevails, with seven of the top ten articles being tech-related—and two of the top three having to do with Google (arguably the top two articles, if you consider that a 'hurricane news tracker' isn't really a story at all)." —Paul Kedrosky

Florence during the Renaissance: "This is what Florence must have felt like during the Renaissance with so much happening in so many technology areas." —Vinnie Mirchandani

I wonder if Florence had people insisting there was no renaissance.

What's An Ookle?: "Whatever Ookles.com is, Johnson says it includes tags and search but isn't about either; it taps into memes and core shifts of the Internet industry; it's heavily viral." —WebProNews.com

I sold a deal once to a company called ememes.com. The finance people never could figure out how to pronounce it. For the record, it was "EE-MEEMZ". I think their check cleared before they bit the dust. Good luck, Scott.

The Bubble Cycle is Replacing the Business Cycle: "Let's put to rest the myth that the Fed is blind to asset bubbles and never intentionally acts to prick them. The truth can be obtained by anyone with an internet browser and a few hours on their hands to read the voluminous Fed Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting minutes." —AlwaysOn Network

I want a ride on that cycle.

Buy.com Not Going Public—Maybe The Bubble Isn't Fully Inflated Yet: "Last month we pointed to Buy.com's IPO filing as yet another sign of a potential bubble. After all, this was a Bubble 1.0 era company with plenty of questions about it, that still wasn't profitable, trying to go public (for the second time) in the Bubble 2.0 era. However, it would appear that we haven't reached the truly bubblerific stage yet, because Buy.com has indefinitely postponed its IPO, citing (of course) current 'stock market conditions' which is a really obvious euphemism for 'our bankers couldn't find anyone to buy our stock.'" —Techdirt

Sounds like holiday sales numbers aren't going to be where they should have been.

Bubble Talk and Joe Kraus: "In an environment like this, he says, longevity is a strategy. Easy money won't always be around." —BusinessWeek Blogspotting

Another $250 million for Vonage: "With this round of financing the company has raised a whopping $658 million from private investors. Is this proof that the company continues to burn cash as it competes with the giants? This is the last round before IPO, a line I have heard before." —Om Malik

$658M. All I can say is, "Wow."

Dow's glide to 11,000 looks smooth: "Investors will sort through data on housing, durable goods and inflation plus earnings from companies like FedEx Corp. and Morgan Stanley next week, but none are expected to pack enough punch to undo year's gains and derail Dow's push toward 11,000." —Yahoo! News

The last time the Dow closed above 11,000 looks like it was some time in the Spring of 2001. Anyone have a pointer to a source where I can find the exact date? If so, email me.

Tiny Bubbles...: "Mike Arrington also wonders if there's a bubble brewing after all in the land of Web 2.0. His latest red flag is stupid parties." —BusinessWeek Tech Beat

It's not a bubble party until the CEO is cage-dancing with the hired party girls. I can't find mention of the party I'm thinking of in Google, but it involved ATG's CEO. Man, those were the days.

How Much Did Meebo Get?: "For a while, the word on the street has been that Meebo, barely 13 weeks old has been out raising some cash. But did they? Apparently yes! The amount of money they have raised is $3.5 million, at about $9 million pre-money valuation from Sequoia Capital, and Roelof Botha has joined the company’s board." —Om Malik

Buy.com Cuts Expected IPO Price: "Underwriters for Buy.com Inc., an online technology and entertainment goods retailer, on Friday cut the expected per-share price of the company's pending initial public offering to $8 from $11 to $13." —Yahoo! News: Business

Maybe they should call it Hold.com. Har har.

Big Buybacks: "Awash in cash, S&P 500 companies repurchased $311 billion in shares over the 12 months ended in September." —Forbes

Business Barometer: "The BBC is back, filming at Buck’s. Like the traffic on 101, the number of film crews showing up for breakfast at Buck’s is a barometer of the Silicon Valley bustle. And it was a déjà vu moment. The questions about the Internet opportunities sounded eerily familiar. Cut and paste ‘Skype’ for ‘Hotmail’ in the conversation..." —Steve Jurvetson's Flickr Photostream

Thanks to PK for the pointer.

Didn't Pay Your Mortgage? Don't Worry.: "The housing boom is being fueled by the willingness of lenders to let borrowers get behind—and stay behind—on their payments. Homeowners go deeper and deeper in debt and become less and less home 'owners,' but they get to keep the roof over their heads." —Slate

OK, I know I said I was swearing off my cynical side and would remain strictly irrationally exuberant. But this is kinda scary.

Bush denies he lives in a 'bubble': "'I don't feel in a bubble. You feel in a bubble in the sense I can't go walking out the front gate and go shopping like I'd love to do for my wife—although I may, and I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to buy her,' said Bush." —Yahoo! News

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Reflection on LesBlog2.0: "The entrepreneurs are back. With more than 5 new interesting projects resulting from some of my conference conversations, and more than 35 entrepreneurs participating in the post conference CGS dinner that Jeff, Rodrigo, and myself organised on Wednesday dinner, it was clear that the entrepreneurs were back, and working hard to build new ventures." —Marc Goldberg (Occam)

Barron's: There is No Real Estate Bubble: "Perhaps the most interesting article in this weekend's Barron's was an article by two contrarian investors. They argue (among other things) that there is no real estate bubble. They make this poinut by saying that if you use a non-governmental inflation measure—such as the increase in the value of precious metals—and adjust property values..." —Daily Dose of Optimism

Google’s Nasdaq 100 bounce: "Famed Nasdaq 100 will add Google to the index on Monday. Index fund buying and another Google frenzy?" —Om Malik

Cash-laden equity firms shake up M&A universe: "For cash-rich investors, it's buying time." —MarketWatch

M and A are in my top five favorite letters. Right behind I, P, and O.

Even in Web 2.0 Scale & Size Matter: "However, the lack of planning for scale is a clear sign that we are living in a 'built to flip' age. No one, is thinking (or planning) about long term business models!" —Om Malik

Just because some aren't doesn't mean none are.

Sun: putting the dot in web 2.0: "Sun didn't go volume crazy in the 1990s because of a marketing slogan - it sold hot boxes too. It's back in that game." —James Governor's (RedMonk)

The network is the computer and Network is a dog. Therefore the computer is a dog. QED.

Wired Magazine: Barometer of Industry Health?: "I started to leaf through the latest Wired magazine last night when it suddenly struck me it was a nice, hefty, advertising-packed 296 pages. This took me back to the height of the dot-com boom when magazines such as Wired, Business 2.0 (which went bi-weekly), Fast Company and the Industry Standard regularly published heavy, back-busting issues. " —Mark Evans

Which in turn took me back to 2000, when Vignette ran four (4) full-page ads in the same issue of Wired, each with its own androgynous model and the vague yet pedantic tagline, "E-business ideas that turn on your brain."

Doerr talks up Web 2.0: "At the TechNet Innovation Summit in San Jose, Calif., John Doerr, a partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talks to ZDNet Editor in Chief Dan Farber about how he thinks this is a period of 'intense innovation' that will empower consumers."—News.Com

Om Malik says eyeballs are regaining their luster: "While Om Malik says that online visitors are worth $38 each, Jason Calacanis values them at $1 to $3." —BusinessWeek

Google Shares Seen Surpassing $500 Mark: "Google Inc. shares popped another 2 percent Monday after one Wall Street analyst predicted the Web-search giant's stock price could hit $500 within the next 12 months." —AP via Yahoo! Finance

Hell, why not? In fact, let's just set a target at $1,000 and be done with it.

The CueCat Is Back: "In 2000, the CueCat scanner became a symbol of tech-industry cluelessness. Distributed to millions of magazine subscribers, the scanner redirected readers to advertisers' web pages after they scanned a bar code printed in the magazine. But few people used it, and the CueCat became the target of almost universal derision. Now it's back—in German mobile phones." —Wired News

Lame 2.0.

San Jose airport traffic up, cargo down: "Air traffic at Mineta San Jose International inched upward in October, with 901,825 passengers coming through the airport's two terminals, a 1.8 percent increase from October 2004." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

Why does Silicon Valley, the heart of the engine of the most robust economy in the world, have such a junky airport?

Reporting from Deep Inside the Bubble: Geek Entertainment TV Cracks Me Up: "Geek Entertainment TV is an emerging global media empire, reporting from deep inside the bubble as it re-inflates. GETV covers buzzword compliant topics such as web 2.0, tagging, AJAX, social software and the bubble juice known as VCs." —Jeremy Zawodny (Yahoo)

Year’s Biggest Tech Fund: $1.4B: "Return of the mega-funds? No way, says venture group." —Red Herring

$1.4B? You call that a mega-fund? Ha!

Pajamas Media Closes $3.5 Million Venture Round: "Pajamas Media, a new media venture designed to bring together bloggers, journalists and commentators under a single umbrella, today announced it has closed its first round of private financing in the amount of $3.5 million." —Yahoo! Finance

This must be the new New Media. Nice.

Google to pick up Riya?: "A Riya deal could make sense for Google, since the company's technology would seem to fit with Google's strategy to 'build products that organize the world's information.' But $40 million for a startup with no income?" —Download Squad

To which I say, "Only 40?"

VC Action: More Angel Funding: "Deal flow improves for angel investors as venture firms snub early-stage investments." —Red Herring

Where the Affordable Homes Are: "If you want a housing bargain in the Southwest, head for the Lone Star State. The housing boom seems to have passed right over Texas. ... You'd be hard-pressed to find a bargain anywhere in California, which is probably the most overvalued state in the Union. In the San Francisco metro area, the median price is $722,000." —BusinessWeek

Hint to would-be Boom 2.0 startup founders: lower cost of living means lower salary OPEX, which ultimately means more wealth-creation bang for your VC buck.

Overhyped, Unprofitable Dot Coms Going Public? Bubble? What Bubble?: "[Buy.com] filed to go public today, even though it's still unprofitable. Wall Street is waking up to tech IPOs again..." —Techdirt

Dr. Egon Spengler: There's something very important I forgot to tell you.
Dr. Peter Venkman: What?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Don't cross the [Bubble 1.0 and 2.0] streams.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Why?
Dr. Egon Spengler: It would be bad.
Dr. Peter Venkman: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad?"
Dr. Egon Spengler: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
Dr Ray Stantz: Total protonic reversal.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon!

Babble not Bubble 2.0: "The recent frenzy to fund say five to-do-lists, or five video hosting sites or whatever. What we have is ‘Babble 2.0.’ We are talking about these new tiny-tots in breathless tones (I am guilty as charged!) and talking a lot… all the time. We are not asking the 'show me the money' questions. That is giving VC community some kind of a nervous tic, and an itch to invest... as much as they can... now. I think the babble is leading to over investments, and hence the general sense of a bubble." —Om Malik

Housing Bubble Insurance: "Just in time for the apparent top of the housing market, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange is introducing futures and options on housing prices in 10 cities for the second quarter of 2006." —Slate

Google data centers and dark fiber connections: "We could be on the verge of another web innovation cycle reminiscent of 1995. Some entrepreneurs have spent the last two years building products and services in anticipation of this wave. The fun is about to begin." —Don Dodge

Hear, hear!

Building a Better Boom: "So sure, there are too many start-ups, and sure, some venture capitalists are trying to get in on as many as they can. In the meantime, far more companies are starting that just might change the world, or at least interesting parts of it, and thanks to the lessons of the past, we now have an ecosystem that may enable them to make a serious go of it." —John Battelle, writing for The New York Times

VCs vs. The Platforms: "Levene mentioned to me later that Google has even set up a fund to compete with VCs for early stage company financing (I had not head this before), and that Yahoo feels it can and must compete to buy early stage companies before VCs can get in with larger financing. An interesting development. " —John Battelle

Celebrity Deathmatch: Eric Schmidt vs. John Doerr! Fight!

Music Discovery Service Pandora Gets $12 Million Funding: "Pandora Media, an online music discovery service which is getting a lot of blog-love these days, has raised $12 million in third round of funding." —PaidContent.org

Google Shares Top $400: "The search giant continues its frenetic rise, hitting the $400 mark just a year after it went public." —Red Herring

For the record, that gives the kids in Mountain View a market cap just shy of $112B.

Google Base as a platform: "Something tells us this is going to grow very fast, in ways we can't even imagine yet." —SiliconBeat

This Internet thing could be big!

No Ad Space at the Inn: "There is fairly remarkable story in today's WSJ about how escalating demand and sorely limited supply have pushed ad rates on major sites up to 'Super Bowl' levels. Specifically, the front page slot for large display ads at Yahoo, AOL,and MSN are sold out well in advance, as much as eighteen months out." —Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

Friendster up for salester: "Earlier this year, Friendster was shopping for a buyer, and according to the story, it was looking for a sale price in the ballpark of $200 million. Now its price has been lowered to the range of $50 million to $100 million." —SiliconBeat

Not bad for a Web 1.5 property.

The House of Paaaaaaain: "That’s the lead story in today’s WSJ, and, as usual, it arrives six months too late to help anybody stuck with a just-closed-on McMansion in Upper Bergen County." —Jeff Matthews

My recommendation: get out of real estate and plow your money into Web 2.0 startups. You'll rue the day you ignored my advice.

Attention has arrived: "I spent most of last week in NYC and at Ad-Tech, the premier internet advertising conference, and was reminded of more exuberant times in 1999 before the bubble burst." —Craig Barnes (Attensa)

A new wave of user-friendly and interactive Internet technologies is turning the heads of venture capitalists: "In the third quarter, venture capitalists poured $394 million into 51 Internet companies that cater to individuals online, up from just $116 million in 17 companies during the same quarter two years ago, according to VentureOne." —MercuryNews.com

I'd like to point out that GOOG is flirting a share price that just one year ago Paul Kedrosky called "a gob-smacking wild-eyed target" in his blog post Do I Hear Google $400?.

When to catch a stock's popularity wave: "Owning a stock as it becomes increasingly popular is like surfing when you get on board a big wave way off shore—and equally satisfying. The key in both cases is identifying well in advance which waves are worth betting on." —MarketWatch

News Site Newsvine Gets $5 Million Funding: "Is this really novel? I've heard of countless other sites offering or promising to offer similar functionalities... I guess $5 million will tell us the answer down the line." —PaidContent.org

Web 2.0 Exit… what is that?: "When I asked these panelists whose search engines are basically are scraping other sites, cannibalizing the folks that provide the ‘content’ for their sites, what was their exit strategy? Answer: dead silence." —Om Malik

That's no way to build a bubble.

Buybacks soar at high-tech firms as cash levels rise: "Intel Corp.'s plans to buy back $25 billion of its stock is the latest in a two-year surge during which U.S. high-tech firms have set forth repurchase programs totaling more than $158 billion." —MarketWatch

It warms my heart to see "soar", "high-tech", and "cash" in the same headline.

Visto going for broke in push email: "Visto, the Redwood City provider of mobile push email, said it got another $70 million in financing from DFJ ePlanet Ventures and existing investors. That's a horde of cash, especially for a company that has previously raised at least $80 million." —SiliconBeat

Feel the dilution washing over you. Yes, that's it. Become one with the dilution.

Tech IPOs Post Gains: "Saifun and iRobot gain more than 20% in their market debuts after shares price above the expected range." —Red Herring

It's so cool that a robot company IPO'd! I refuse to let the fact that their robots are actually vacuum cleaners dampen my enthusiasm.

Toll Bros. selloff may signal bursting home bubble: "After years of heady gains driven by strong demand for housing and low mortgage rates, homebuilder stocks have been on a downtrend since August on jitters the housing market may finally be losing steam." —MarketWatch

Same story, better headline.

Largest Luxury Maker of Homes Cuts Forecast: "Toll Brothers said that the era of soaring home prices might have ended and that price growth appeared to be reverting to more historical patterns." —New York Times

Assume crash positions and brace for impact!

Entrepreneur trades in employees who work for startup equity : "The basic concept of tech executives working for equity isn't new. For years, founders of startups have compensated themselves and a few key employees with stock options instead of cash. Recruiters have occasionally placed executives in such situations and taken their own payment in the form of stock. But PeopleConnect is the first search firm to market a program of recruiting employees who will work for equity." —Scripps Howard News Service

Will work for options. Hmm. (Via Venture Intelligence India.)

Paul Graham on the Venture Capital Squeeze - or will founders be able to get VC funding AND partially cash out?: "Will a partial buyout clause make their way into early stage VC termsheets? I would say no, but then - there was a time when you had to give away percentage points of your company to find new digs... just because there was a lot of competition." —Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC)

Google hiring like it's 1999: "The search giant is stocking up on engineers and more as it races to keep pace with its own ambitions." —News.com

Money, money everywhere -- but no place to park it: "The latest firm to raise money is Cupertino's Bay Partners, which has just announced a $290 million fund. There have been several other funds raised lately, which we haven't mentioned, including Morgenthaler's $458 million fund announced earlier this month. " —SiliconBeat

Let me take this opportunity to say that the first offer of $20M at a $20M pre for Bubble 2.0 takes it.

The rebirth of tech: "Startups are hot—again. Valuations are nuts—again. Fortunes are being made—again." —CNN Money

Feel the waves of pleasure cascading through your body.

Overstock Pride Goes Before Fall: "'Q3 was rough,' [Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne] said in the press release.  'My bad.'" —Henry Blodgett

Sad to see one of the original Bubble 2.0 Index components (charts at right) fallen on hard times. Actually, that's not true. Hasta luego, Señor Wacko!

Innovation is bursting out again: "The last 4 years have been brutal, but innovation is happening again. Lots of new companies are emerging and you can feel the excitement again. VCs are investing again. Life is good." —Don Dodge

While it may sound strange coming from someone who writes a blog titled "Bubble 2.0", I honestly believe that the widespread bubble angst is not much more than shell-shock from Bust 1.0. Yes, it was bad. Yes, it hurt. But if you really remember it, you know that we're nowhere remotely close to Bubble 1.0. This is an exciting time. And as Don says, life is good.

VCs Talking Bubbles: Trying To Hold Down Valuations?: "Reading an article of VCs talking about how some areas are starting to overheat sounds an awful lot like VCs trying to keep valuations down so they can still invest cheaply, rather than any real attempt to invest smarter." —Techdirt

Get Your Head Out of the F**ing Tag Cloud: "The title aside, it’s actually a cheerful and upbeat bit of musing. Really. I mean it." —Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

I was on the phone with Paul the other day and he mentioned the title of his talk: "Pull Your Head Out of Your F**king Tag Cloud". I laughed so hard it almost made coffee shoot out of my nose. It looks like he's changed "pull" to "get" and "your" to "the", which makes it less offensive, but also less funny.

Yes, Google is a One-Product Company: "Suffice it to say that anyone who wants a reminder about what happens to the revenue and profitability (and stock prices) of one-revenue stream companies when the revenue stream falters should check out Yahoo! from 1999 through 2002." —Henry Blodgett

Henry Blodgett as the voice of reason, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Even if you're not buying the hype, you should at least buy the shirt:

From the Bubble 2.0 Store.

Built To Be Bought: "If companies are indeed again being built for acquisition rather than independence, venture investors are in for a rude re-awakening (that will be precipitated by a very loud popping sound). While a few companies being built for acquisition will be acquired, the vast majority will ultimately run out of money and be shut down (particularly as each new Web 2.0 idea doesn't just spawn one company but three or four). So when I hear large numbers of companies pitching themselves as excellent acquisition candidates before they've even gotten out of the gate I can't help but think to myself that we are in the heart of Bubble 2.0. Sadly, only one thing follows Bubble 2.0 and that is Bust 2.0. On the good side, there's always Web 3.0. " —David Hornik (August)

It's not a bubble until all these junky little "companies" go public. Until then it's just a time of cretaceous diversity.

Where's the love for web 2.0?: "I'm happy to see silicon valley getting back to its core mission, that of creating and testing lots of new ideas. I'm happy for google's success and the amount of investment that that will bring back to this very necessary American endeavor." —Mark Pincus

They Get Paid For This, Part II: "What I do know is that Google’s growth last quarter was almost triple eBay’s and more than double Yahoo’s, and that margins are higher and free cash flow is higher and, oh, yes: the earnings revisions by Wall Street’s Finest this morning are far higher for Google than they were for either Yahoo or eBay." —Jeff Matthews

This is what Web 2.0 is all about: building an automated money-making machine that runs 24/7, throwing off cash and growing like crazy. Go, go GOOG!

Will mainstream people flock to Flock?: "Web 2.0 has to reach out to mainstream people, before the blogosphere implodes from all the 2.0 hype and anti-hype (the latter is worse than the former IMHO, because it has the added fuel of cynicism)." —Richard MacManus

Given the schizophrenic nature of this blog, which swings wildly between abject cynicism and irrational exuberance, we agree with Richard. No we don't. Yes we do. Kill the nasty hobbitses...

Seeing Is Believing: "My point here is that we're entering another period of Internet exuberance. Yes, a lot has changed since 1999, but it's amazing how many of the ideas being pushed are the SAME ideas, just empowered now by dark fiber, cheap broadband, and six years of Moore's Law." —Robert X. Cringely

Cringely runs the numbers and declares that Internet 2.0 is going to require a lot of hard drive space. Thanks, Bob.

Web 2.0: It's... like your brain on LSD!: "There's much fretting about what Web 2.0 really is. It's twice as cosmic, but what it is it?" —The Register

There's no cynic like a British cynic.

Speechless: "Google's stock price—shocking though it is—is much less amazing than Google's fundamental performance, which is simply not to be believed.  A 7 year old company with a revenue run-rate of $6 billion, an annual growth rate near-100%, 43% EBITDA margins, 100%-plus return-on-invested-capital, a dominant global franchise, and already about half the cash flow of Time Warner (a 100 year-old company with 85,000 employees).  As folks at net-relic Compuserve might put it: Wow." —Henry Blodgett

Banks Focused On Startups Upset That Others Are Crowding The Loan Business: "Historically, it's been quite difficult for a startup to get a loan, because the basis of most loans is your ability to pay the money back—and startups usually don't have enough of a track record to make lenders feel comfortable. So, for the banks that do offer loans to startups, it's often quite risky, and the rates can reflect that. However, with a new bubble forming, and with 'hedge funds' (which often aren't 'hedge' funds at all) forming left and right—some of those funds are getting into the business of loaning money to startups. So, the competition has the traditional startup lenders ('venture debt firms') pissed off that these hedge funds are driving down the rates." —Techdirt

Liar's Poker meets Accidental Empires.

Web 2.0 Bubble: "What we also have today versus yesterday are business models that can scale cheaply, be profitable, and throw off lots of cash.  Let's focus more on these concepts versus being Web 2.0, as I do not want to think about what kind of rebirth will come from another bubble." —Ed Sim (Dawntreader)

A VC who doesn't want another bubble is a VC who doesn't trust his own timing. Come on, Ed. Act like you've got a pair!

Cisco launches $100M VC fund , part of $1.1B India plan: "Cisco Systems Inc. said on Wednesday it plans to invest $1.1 billion in India in the next three years, including $100 million to fund Indian start-up companies." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

$100M is a nice round number and trips lightly off the tongue: "Hunnerd mee-un." Makes me proud to be, as our president says, a "merkin".

Off Topic: "Suck.com's pitch for Wordprocessor.com. A disturbingly accurate look into the future from October 1996." —Good Morning Silicon Valley

Funny then, fundable now?

Web 2.0 to be followed by F*cked Company 2.0?: "At the current pace, the industry will raise more than $27 billion in 2005. Astonishing, really, considering it raised just $3.8 billion in 2002 as it searched for solid footing in the aftermath of The Great Dark Time." —Good Morning Silicon Valley

The Flip 2K5:

—Anil Dash

Cafe 2.0: After the Gold Rush: "A hip Mission District cafe has become the unlikely nerve center for a new wave of software innovators, amid signs of a second internet gold rush. Ritual Coffee Roasters opened just this May, but thanks to free Wi-Fi, French-pressed coffees and gourmet espresso, it has already become a favorite temporary home to some of the best-known Web 2.0 startups." —Wired News

Close your eyes and try to imagine this story showing up in 2001.

"The Search" & Bechtolsheim's Balls: "Rather than haggling over price, Bechtolsheim flattered Page and Brin by saying their not-yet-incorporated company was worth even more than they thought, thus further ingratiating himself as a ballsy seed investor. A great trick that more venture investors could deploy selectively now and then." —Paul Kedrosky

Thus began the historic overvaluation of GOOG.

VC Fundraising Up 62%: "U.S. venture firms raised more in the first three quarters of 2005 than all last year." —Red Herring

Into the maw of the beast...

Entrepreneurs Everywhere: "A lot of people, intoxicated by Web 2.0 hype, are rushing to launch new ventures. Unfortunately, many of them are pursuing similar, and usually flimsy, business models. Rip suggests that all would-be entrepreneurs ask themselves two simple questions: 'How will you sustainably differentiate yourself? What will you do when 15 other similar sites appear in the next 12 months?' Don't assume, in other words, that low entry barriers make it easier to succeed. It's exactly the opposite. Where there are low entry barriers, there are also low barriers to competition." —Nick Carr

Run And Hide: Goldman Sachs Says The Internet IPO Market Is Back: "Goldman Sachs has declared from atop the mountain that the time for internet companies to go public is now back. Open up the floodgates and let the hype flow in..." —Techdirt

Oh man, reading this gave me chills. In a good way.

Gartner Heralds Second Internet Revolution: "Advances in broadband penetration, and the increasing trend of using the Web to deliver applications, will help pave the way for a 'second internet revolution,' industry experts predicted today." —NewsFactor

'Nuff said.

Web 2.01 Release Notes: "Web 2.0 isn't about the latest trend in technology—it's about 'harnessing collective intelligence,' involving customers in product development and taking advantage of the web's distributed nature." —Nick Bradbury (FeedDemon)

When I was at Vignette, we'd mercilessly ridicule statements like this by pinching our fingers together, bringing them to our lips, and saying, "Dude, man. It's like... the web is an organic outgrowth of our collective consciousness." Then again, we weren't smart enough to get while the getting was good.

The Web 2.0 Entrepreneur Bubble: "Reduced barriers to entry always look attractive to the entrants. But once you enter, you are an incumbent." —EarlyStageVC

Why the Sudden Interest in AOL?: "Thought to be nearly dead a year ago, America Online is attracting several powerful suitors who see the big bucks in tying up with the company's web portal." —Wired News

In Bubble 1.0, AOL was able to finagle $89M deals out of year-old startups. I can't wait to see the encore.

Net start-ups face odd problem: more VC cash than they need: "Many Internet entrepreneurs don't need the cash, because they're building products cheaply—using open Web technologies, often with two or three developers. So in return, they're demanding that VCs have a lot more to offer than just cash." —SiliconValley.com

But, says the cynic, a product does not a company make.

Another Sign Bubble 2.0: VCs Begging To Invest In Startups That Don't Need It: "In the first internet bubble, a big problem was that many entrepreneurs started viewing venture capital money as revenue—and therefore, it was all about raising more, rather than building a real business. The money was distracting and often took good ideas off course. If today's entrepreneurs can resist that temptation, put the money in the bank and stay focused on building good businesses, then perhaps that's a good thing. However, having lots of money around can often do funny things to startups." —Techdirt

Bubble 2.0 – The Long Tail of Supply: "Bubble 2.0 aka Web 2.0 is upon is.  Like every bubble, there will be opportunities to create great fortunes, opportunities to lose such fortunes before spending them, plain old opportunities to lose money, chances to get funding to do cool things, and some important changes to the way we live our daily lives." —Tom Evslin

Well said, and by the guy behind not only Microsoft Exchange but also AT&T WorldNet.

Tech people appear hyped about their industry again: "Everyone half-expected the Pets.com sock puppet to wander through, checking e-mail on its BlackBerry." —USA Today

Quote of the week: "Funny. I definately [sic] felt some of the late 90’s creep into last week. New startups abound, people building features instead of businesses, lots of hand waving and back-slapping. I feel very optimistic this time around, but Web 2.0 was enough to make me worry a bit that folks just can’t wait to go overboard." —Scott Gatz (Yahoo)

Web 2.0: Land of Opportunity, or Land of Absurdity?: "OK so there's a lot of hype. So the VCs are throwing money around. So get to work. Build something Web-based that mainstream people will need and want. Now's the time to do it." —Richard MacManus

Bubble 2.0 Meme Map:

Inspired by O'Reilly.

I'd like to note that this blog just had its first birthday. The inaugural post was made on October 5, 2004.

I got the idea for the blog while driving to a meeting with a VC firm in Austin. My partner and I were stopped at the light at 5th and Lamar and noticed the new Vespa store. We talked about Paul Graham's What the Bubble Got Right essay and decided that the hangover was starting to fade.

Exactly one year to the day after that initial post, I found myself in San Francisco at a $2,800 conference on "Web 2.0" where the hotel ballrooms were literally standing room only. Mary Meeker was there. So was Henry Blodgett. And so were at least two dozen venture capitalists, including, I might add, one from the firm that we had pitched—unsuccessfully—a year earlier.

VCitis: "This Web 2.0 stuff is all well and good but I can tell you what my next investment will be in—a mental health facility on Sand Hill Road." —David Hornik

Funny, I thought there was already such a facility at 2480 Sand Hill Road, Suite 101. My mistake.

SiliconValleyWatcher.com: "VeriSign is about to announce it acquired Moreover Technologies, the San Francisco based news aggregator. The acquisition price is around $25m according to SVW sources." —SiliconValleyWatcher

I remember Moreover from when they subleased office space from my wife's architecture firm... in 1999. Still, $4m and change a year isn't too bad.

A Healthy Skepticism about Web 2.0: "I hope that during this next boom we remember to critically test all ideas and notions with a healthy skepticism. I didn’t sense much of it over the past few days in San Fran, but I suspect that it will follow after the lessons we’ve learned." —David Beisel (Masthead)

My favorite thing about this quote is that it takes "this next boom" for granted. Yes!

Another Bubble?: "We're clearly experiencing now another upsurge of both rational and irrational exuberance. Is it another bubble?" —Kevin Werbach

Sure seems like a popular notion.

Internet Outsider: Ruh Roh. Web 2.0 Rocking Like It's 1999: "Here's to praying that the exuberance is not a herald of rough times ahead. And here's a toast to all the inspiring, fascinating, and massive opportunities to come." —Henry Blodgett

OK, that's it for the Web 2.0 Conference-related posts. But I don't know what's weirder: the fact that Henry Blodgett is the one calling for calm, or that he's doing it on hisblog.

Froth Central at Web 2.0?: "Both entrepreneurs and VCs tell me things are getting crazy again, especially in consumer Internet ventures. Things have been heating up for some time, but it appears they're reaching a boiling point." —BusinessWeek

Mary's Back - The Internet, China and Bubbles: "Mary [Meeker]’s reappearance and the general atmosphere at the Web 2.0 conference (not to mention some of the recent acquisition prices of early stage Internet companies) have prompted a lot of people to worry about whether we are entering another bubble (of course, they’re not really worried about the bubble, what they’re concerned about is a Bubble 2.0 - there's actually a blog by this name, with slogan 'Please, God, just one more bubble!' - to be followed by a Bust 2.0)" —John Hagel

I'm a huge fan of John Hagel's work, which includes Net Gain, Net Worth, and The Only Sustainable Edge, which I'm reading now. Thanks for the mention and the link, John!

VCs Want Bloggers; But The Feeling Is Not Necessarily Mutual: "We have also heard from a number of blogging networks about the calls that they are getting from venture capitalists. The VCs, it would seem, are hearing over and again from the ad networks that content is king again." —alarm:clock

Henry Blodget is back for Web 2.0: "Henry Blodget, the famous internet analyst for Merrill Lynch, is back on the scene just in time for Web 2.0." —Don Dodge

Let it be known that I'm setting a 12-month target for my Web 2.0 bar bill at $400.

YouTube Gets Sequoia’s Cash?: "The Web 2.0 funding frenzy is in full effect. YouTube, a self described ‘Flickr of Video’ was one day being told to go raise less than a million dollars and grow the business. A few weeks later the word is that they have raised $5 million from Sequoia Capital at pre-money valuation of $15 million. Well that’s the story these days with Web 2.0 companies." —Om Malik on Broadband

Media whoring: "I don't know what's up, but I've been getting scads of press calls this week -- NY Times, Newsweek, The Economist, NPR, Congressional Quarterly, and Wired, just since Wednesday. All on different topics. Perhaps just a coincidence, or maybe it's another data point that the tech hype cycle is a-boilin' once again." —Kevin Werbach

Or perhaps it's yet more evidence of Bubble2.0™.

Whois BUBBLE20.COM:

Domain Name: BUBBLE20.COM
Registrar: NEW DREAM NETWORK, LLC
Whois Server: whois.dreamhost.com
Referral URL: http://www.dreamhost.com
Name Server: NS1.DREAMHOST.COM
Name Server: NS2.DREAMHOST.COM
Name Server: NS3.DREAMHOST.COM
Status: ACTIVE
Updated Date: 15-aug-2005
Creation Date: 15-aug-2005
Expiration Date: 15-aug-2006

How long until Verisign buys it for $2.3M?

Bubble 2.0: "Ed Bott and others like Rex Hammock are calling the AOL-Weblogs Inc. deal Bubble 2.0. Word is also starting to leak out about new contracts the bloggers will be required to sign." —Steve Rubel

Looks like I should I should have trademarked "Bubble 2.0™".

Bubble or Bubble-let?: "Mary Meeker called where we're at now a 'boom-let'. We've gone from boom to bust to boom-let (presumably a precursor to the next boom). She thinks the first 10 years of Web were just the warm-up act for what will happen next." —Richard MacManus

Yesterday I saw Mary Meeker, Henry Blodgett, and Esther Dyson in the same room. It kind of freaked me out.

Zen koan:

First, there is a bubble
Then there is no bubble
Then there is

If Everyone Thinks It's a Bubble, It's Not a Bubble: "Our Web 2.0 conference is prompting allsortsofpeople to declare that the Bubble-with-a-capital-B is back, Web 2.0 is over, and here we go again. The only problem with this is, if everyone agrees it's a bubble, then it isn't a bubble." —Marc Hedlund, O'Reilly Radar

Sun Shares Rise on Google Talk: "Sun Microsystems shares get a lift after it talks about closer ties with Google." —Red Herring

In Bubble 2.0, just being associated with Google makes you more valuable. Amazing.

Location, Location, Location: "I'm beginning to suspect that another casualty of the dotcom bubble, location-based services, are about to make a big comeback. This is another topic I wrote about five years ago in Release 1.0, but the market was clearly ahead of itself back then. Now, though, things are different." —Kevin Werbach

Futurists are never wrong, they're just early.

WebMD Stock Rises Rapidly After IPO: "WebMD, the health information spinoff from the original WebMD (the other company is now called Emdeon) debuted its IPO today and its stock rose as much as 71 percent in its first day of trading. It opened for trading at $19.80, up from its $17.50 IPO price, then rose rapidly, hitting a high of $30 a share. WebMD drew strong investor interest despite its poor financials. The company has been profitable in just one year—2004—since 2001, and its losses have been mounting recently, with expenses outpacing rising revenue." —PaidContent.org

Google: "We are going to explore space.": "No. I am not making this up.   A company which to this date has made 99.99% of all its revenue by selling advertising is now planning to branch out into nanotechnology and spaceflight.  Because as we all know, running a business selling tiny classified ads on people's blogs translates perfectly into orbital mechanics and life sciences. WHAT. THE. F.? Methinks some people did a few too many drugs at Burning Man this year.." —F---edGoogle

My Quest For The World Record In Conference Attendance: "It was the first conference I can recall in which entrepreneurs were asking questions for the sole purpose of publicly touting their new companies in hopes of attracting venture money. And there were certainly enough VCs in the room to oblige." —VentureBlog

OK, this one's almost three months old, but it certainly fits with the Bubble 2.0 theme.

Venture-backed execs pay up 15% since 2003: "Top executives of U.S. venture-backed companies are receiving compensation packages about 4 percent higher than last year and more than 15 percent more than two years ago, a new report said on Wednesday." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

Apparently they didn't figure Larry and Sergey into their calculations.

Exuberance leads to asset drops-Greenspan: "Asset bubbles fueled by 'market exuberance' invariably burst and policy-makers cannot safely pierce them, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Tuesday in what some economists took as a warning to bond market and housing speculators." —Yahoo! News: Business

Podcasting Goldrush Is On: "There's money in them thar audio files! Not much, yet, and obstacles abound, but podcasters are mining everything from commercial sponsors to paid guest appearances in the quest for profitability." —Wired News

Internet Revenue Hits New High: "Internet advertising revenue for the first six months of 2005 hit a record new high, according to a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers, released at the Mixx Conference and Expo yesterday." —AdAge.com

Monetize those eyeballs!

SaveMyAss: "From the guys who brought you Evite and HotorNot comes SaveMyAss. If you're a successful professional whose career demands the bulk of your time, you know the problem. You want her to be happy, but you're busy and it's hard to be on top of flowers when you have deals closing, decks to finish, or code to debug. Sign up for this service once, and we'll take care of the rest. She'll be happy, you'll be happy. This sounds vaguely familiar. Hasn't this been done before?..." —SiliconBeat

Whitefish, Montana: the "new" Aspen: "I was talking with someone who expressed some frustration about the recent popularity of Montana, she said rather sarcastically that you spend all that effort building a home there and you end up with 15 of your neighbors from Woodside." —Jeff Nolan (SAP Ventures)

Venture capitalists blogging about the travails of centimillionaires. The revolution will be syndicated.

Bubble or return to pre-bubble? Sequoia raises more money: "Acquisition fever and venture capitalist interest in tech companies is driving up the value of private companies, especially the more mature ones. And we're wondering if Sequoia Capital might be barometer of sorts." —SiliconBeat

I promise I don't just search for the word "bubble". It just seems to come up a lot when people write about VC's investing in tech startups these days. Which is a great indicator to this contrarian that we're doing just fine.

"Even a chimpanzee could raise $100M": "There's been a lot of news lately about new venture capital firms getting off the ground. Primack has a summary here, of the various players, and some of them based in Silicon Valley. There's Menlo Park's Formative Ventures. There's Panorama Capital, the name chosen by the VC team from JP Morgan Partners. And there's the 'Brooks/Levine Fund,' raised by former Mayfield general partners Todd Brooks and Peter Levine, who Primack says are looking to raise $200 million for their first fund as a duo (story here). We don't at all imply that Michael Moritz, partner at Silicon Valley firm Sequoia Capital, meant to target these firms, when he reportedly said the following: 'I believe today even a chimpanzee could raise $100M for a venture capital fund.'" —SiliconBeat

EBay and Skype: "In the end, I worry that high multiples produce dysfunctional behavior, as we saw in the Internet bubble at the end of the 1990s. Two big warning signs of dysfunctional behavior have emerged in the discussion surrounding this acquisition." —Edge Perspectives with John Hagel

Fighting to Get in on the Next Little Thing: "'It's a really good time to be an entrepreneur,' said Peter Thiel, who helped found PayPal, which eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002. 'If you have a halfway decent idea, you can get it completely funded.'" —The New York Times

Shorts find ways to bet against US housing bubble: "Late last month Bank of America lowered its rating on Countrywide to 'sell' from 'neutral,' citing concerns about declining credit quality among borrowers. It also cut ratings on IndyMac Bancorp Inc. and Golden West Financial Corp to 'neutral' from 'buy.'" —Reuters

Startups More Valuable, or Just More Expensive?: "Most analysis of recent data showing that startup valuations are up 16% year-over-year draw a dubious conclusion. They persist in saying that the companies are more valuable, as opposed to saying that they are more expensive. There is a difference folks." —Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

C'mon, Paul. Value is in the eye of the investor.

AllAbout IPO Soars 727%: "Japan’s answer to U.S. information portal About.com makes a splash in its first day of trading in Tokyo." —Red Herring

Keywords: portal, IPO, soars, Red Herring.

Startup Valuations Rise in Q2: "Acquisitions and more later-stage funding are driving up startup valuations." —Red Herring

Yeah, baby!

Baidu sinks on valuation concerns: "Shares of Baidu.com Inc. plunged more than 20% Wednesday morning as analysts at Goldman Sachs and Piper Jaffray began coverage of the Chinese search firm with 'underperform' ratings due to concerns about its valuation." —MarketWatch

Q: How do you say, "Pop!" in Chinese? A: "Baidu!" I think this justifies a new addition to the Bubble 2.0 Index: BIDU!

WebMD Health Files $90M IPO: The New York City-based company also admitted other risks, including competition from other health web sites, such as DrKoop.com..." —Red Herring

Murdoch Grabs IGN for $650M: "Going forward, Mr. Flanagan said Fox’s acquisitions may look a little different. 'I would be surprised if News Corp added any more online sites with similar content, like games or social networking,' he said. 'Likely the company is rather looking to acquire an e-commerce site or an online search site.'" —Red Herring

So we're back to buying eyeballs, are we? Bubble on!

Time for another bubble?: "Like Silicon Valley, back are frothy forecasts and risky investments. More than $15 million in three download MP3 file start-ups - what do you call that? We already have seen a Broadcast.com type deal - eBay-Skype you know! Henry Blodgett is back to being a reporter, and any day you can expect him to get a job offer from some VC fund. George Gilder came out of hiding at the Always On Conference. And now the news the Queen of the Net, Mary Meeker, is starting coverage of China Internet Stocks, in addition to her regular pounding the table of stocks like Google. This is as good a time for another bubble…. not that there is anything wrong with it." —Om Malik

Damn right it's time for another bubble!

So, You Wanna Fund a Startup?: "Tired of waiting for the next blockbuster IPO? Hoping to get in on the next Google before the herd? Pre-tycoons with a strong stomach for risk have a few options for investing in promising startups." —Wired News

Two startup stories in a row from Wired. Makes me all giddy inside.

Stars Rise at Startup Summer Camp: "An innovative corporate incubator keeps student hackers stocked with ramen and Coke over the summer in exchange for a stake in their fledgling ventures." —Wired News

Wasn't this the IdeaLab! model?

Did Sequoia Invest in SimpleFeed?: "RSS is the new HTTP it seems, and the high and mighty of Silicon Valley are lining up to invest in RSS related companies. Never mind clear RSS models are yet to evolve! " —Om Malik on Broadband

Online Gambling Running Out of Steam: "After a meteoric rise, online gambling companies appear to be taking a beating now with the loss of 33% in PartyGaming stock. Apparently the novelty is wearing off and no new players can be found. Why have you stopped playing?" —Slashdot

Now It's eBay That's Supposedly Ridiculously Overpaying For Skype: "No, please. Make it stop. Seriously. We thought that Skype's hype bubble might be deflating a bit after people began to realize that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft were all in a position to offer a nearly identical offering. However, the Skhype continues." —Techdirt

It's ICQ all over again, but this time with another 0 on the valuation.

Billion-Dollar Baby Dot-Coms? Uh-Oh, Not Again: "Valuations are hardly at 2000 levels, but, Mr. Zachary said, 'we're seeing the same dynamic as then.'" —The New York Times

S.F. luxury home prices set record in second quarter: "Luxury home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area set a record by posting a double-digit gain in the second quarter compared with a year ago, according to a survey by First Republic Bank and Fiserv CSW Inc., a research firm." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

Better times for VC seekers: "Entrepreneurs seeking venture financing in the second quarter found a more receptive audience, according to a study by the law firm of Fenwick & West." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

Internet Mergers: Who's Next?: "Dealmaking has returned to the Internet sector with an intensity not seen in years. Web companies have shaken off the stigma associated with the Nasdaq crash of 2000 and are attracting big buyers from both the on- and offline worlds." —BusinessWeek

Idealab Reloaded: "If this were 1999, the roster of Idealab startups would be much longer. Idealab housed as many as 50 dot-coms simultaneously at the height of the Internet craze, when Gross, with his superkinetic inventiveness and geeky charisma, seemed to embody the promise of the web. " —Fortune

Equity Is Altering Spending Habits and View of Debt: "Homeowners took $59 billion in cash out of their houses in the second quarter, double the amount in the 2004 quarter and 16 times the average rate of the mid-1990s, according to data released this month by mortgage giant Freddie Mac." — Yahoo! News

Greenspan warns of end of housing boom: "U.S. home prices could fall as the housing surge 'inevitably' slows, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Saturday as he cast doubt on central banks' ability to sway such asset values." —Yahoo! News

Greenspan: Investments Won't Soar Forever: "Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Friday cautioned Americans against thinking the value of their homes and other investments will only go higher, saying 'history has not dealt kindly' with that kind of optimism." —Yahoo! News

Strategy Shift for the Fed?: "Greenspan is still chary about making it policy to deflate perceived bubbles, but he now admits that inflated asset prices can't be ignored" —BusinessWeek

Mr. Housing Bubble: "Not only is this hilarious, but its also a good use of distribution... the website gives let's me create HTML to blog their t-shirt with. Good tradeoff. They give me funny I give them traffic."



—Charlie O'Donnell (Union Square)

Why the PodShow investment makes sense - at least to me: "At the end of the day, the worst that can happen is that they lose their $9M (or whatever they will have invested) – and all things considered (in their context), they certainly won’t lose sleep over that. And the business model, and the exit strategy will take care of themselves – eventually." —Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC)

I'll be sure to mention in my next VC pitch that the worst that can happen is that they lose everything.

Be Warned: Mr. Bubble's Worried Again: "Today, nine years after his lunch with Mr. Greenspan and five years after the markets finally did crash, Mr. Shiller is sounding the same warning for real estate that he did for stocks. In speeches, in television and radio interviews and in a second edition of his prophetic 2000 book, 'Irrational Exuberance,' he is arguing that the housing craze is another bubble destined to end badly, just as every other real-estate boom on record has." —The New York Times

Thanks to Seth Levine for the link.

VC Funds Jump 165% in Q2: "Investors show confidence in venture capitalists by plowing more than $6 billion into VC funds in the period." —Red Herring

Housing hasn't stumbled yet: "The whole nation, it seems, is listening intently for the hiss or pop or bang or kaboom that would signal the end of the housing bubble. They won't hear it in the coming week's housing data, which cover home sales in July, though." —MarketWatch

NYU finance professor: GOOG's share price is insane: "Using even the most optimistic forecasts for Google's performance over the coming decade, he arrived at a price target of only $110 per share- and that's assuming a 1,400 percent increase in revenues from Google's current levels.  This professor literally wrote the textbook on pricing companies ('Investment Valuation'- John Wiley and Sons, 2002) and he concludes by saying he's 'baffled' that anyone would pay close to $300 per share for Google." —F-edGoogle

Optical network market shows first growth since 2000: "Industry figures out Thursday show that the optical network equipment market, long frozen in the tundra of the telecom winter, has finally started to thaw." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

IPO Watch: Sounds of Money: "Since the beginning of August, the Street has been alive with the sound of IPOs, songs unheard for a number of years." —Red Herring

Open Media, Meet The VCs: "A lone cautionary voice of reason, a meat-and-potatoes investor, who will remained anonymous, pointed out that with so much money in the Valley, some of the late 1990s mentality is creeping back. A lot of people are looking to invest outside their comfort zone, on the logic that something’s got to sick. High stakes poker seems safer, but that’s just me." —Om Malik on Broadband

Repeating history in Internet time: "Now, 10 years after Netscape and 5 1/2 years after the AOL-Time Warner merger signaled the popping of the Internet bubble, investors are finally returning to the Web with some of that old zeal, rightly or wrongly." —MarketWatch

Rightly, man, rightly!

Blogging as a business: "Ahh, many of my friends are making fortunes. It sure is starting to get tempting out there. Speaking of fortunes: watch for several acquisitions in the next few months of blog services. The money is starting to flow. The consolidations are starting to happen." —Robert Scoble

BitTorrent, seeded, now waits for VC funds: "The podcast start-ups of today are like Wine.com today, while Bit Torrent is Cisco of the digital content revolution." —Om Malik on Broadband

In the words of Anthony Michael Hall, "This is getting good."

Bay Area hiring picture brightens: "Nearly 4 out of 10 Bay Area executives surveyed say they plan to hire more people in the next six months, according to a report released Wednesday." —Silicon Valley Business Journal

PodShow Inc nets $8.85m in financing from sequoia and kleiner perkins: "There is little that gets Valley girls and boys as hot and bothered as when an Internet company gets funded by both Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. So it's worth noting that the iconic venture shops have participated in an $8.85 million Series A round for PodShow Inc., according to a regulatory filing. For an added bonus, both John Doerr and Ray Lane have taken board seats, joining both Jerry Newman of Bear Stearns and omnipresent angel investor Ram Shriram (Google, Plaxo, Zazzle, etc.), who is representing shareholder Harris MyCFO Inc." —John Furrier (BroadDev)

I hope their boardroom has really wide doors to accommodate the egos!

Hot IPOs, M&As, and More: "Investment pro Tom Taulli says the recent action 'can't be an anomaly. It's a sign of strength in the whole market.'" —BusinessWeek

Marking the 10th year of Street's love of Net IPOs: "When Netscape Communications Inc. shares more than doubled on their first day of trading 10 years ago today, Netscape became the first in a long line of dot-coms to complete blockbuster IPOs." —MarketWatch

Brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it?

Baidu's wake-up call; 3 implications: "There are a lot of lessons we can learn from Baidu's IPO, not the least of which is that we haven't learned all the lessons from the dot-com days." —MarketWatch

That Hissing Sound: "Bubbles end when people stop believing that big capital gains are a sure thing. That's what happened in San Diego at the end of its last housing bubble: after a rapid rise, house prices peaked in 1990. Soon there was a glut of houses on the market, and prices began falling. By 1996, they had declined about 25 percent after adjusting for inflation. And that's what's happening in San Diego right now, after a rise in house prices that dwarfs the boom of the 1980's." —The New York Times

Bob Metcalfe, Vint Cerf, and George Gilder: "The power of the network was in uber-abundance this week. We have the story behind Bob Metcalfe’s Law, from Bob. Vint Cerf’s view of history and future of the Internet, by Vint. And the next batch of disruptive technologies as viewed by George Gilder, by the Telecosm Guy himself." —AlwaysOn Network

A Bubble 2.0 three-bagger. Nice.

Yahoo May Buy Stake in Chinese E-Com Firm Alibaba: "Yahoo is in talks to purchase a 35% stake in China's biggest home-grown e-commerce company, Alibaba, for almost $1 billion, in what would be the biggest investment by a foreign company in China's Internet industry to date, reports Forbes.com." —PaidContent.org

Baidu IPO jumps 354% into the record books: "Shares of the Chinese Web-search-engine operator Baidu.com vaulted 354% Friday in the IPO market's biggest splash in at least five years." —MarketWatch

<Insert lame joke about being hungry for another IPO in 30 minutes here.>

Top 10 dot-com flops - CNET.com: "These are the celebrity victims of the [old] new-economy bust." —c|net

Yeah, that's right, I've gone old school with the c|net capitalization/punctuation. Chalk it up to the nostalgia. I sold software to 4 of these 10 companies.

Baidu.com prices IPO above range: "Chinese Web search engine Baidu.com late Thursday priced its initial public offering at $27 a share—above the company's recently raised range, according to reports citing the underwriter." —MarketWatch

Venture Capital: Startups are coming back—quietly: "Here's a sign that Seattle's startup community is back on track. A number of well-known technology entrepreneurs are quietly operating in 'stealth mode'—keeping a low profile and purposely hiding details of their business plans." —Seattle Post-Intelligencer

I can't wait to hear what Brad "Inspector Gadget" Husick is up to.

Baidu.com is IPO of the week: "Included in this week's busy IPO lineup is a deal that could prove to be one of the hottest offerings of 2005. The company goes by the name of Baidu (pronounced 'Buy--do'), a fast-growing, ad-supported online search engine in China, and it has been referred to by many in the investment community as the 'Chinese Google.'" —MarketWatch

Zero. Zip. Nada.: "The US personal savings rate fell to zero in July – its lowest level since the latest spending binge started (post 9/11) and the 2nd lowest since the Great Depression. You can read the full government report here (be sure to check out some of the tables – very interesting information). " —Seth Levine (Mobius VC)

VCs party like it's 1999 with Brilliant Shopper deal: "Silicon Valley venture capitalists with no Internet experience are rushing to fund Internet companies. Sound like 1999? Think again. We're in 2005, and it's happening again—at least in some quarters." —SiliconValley.com

A Return to Dot.Bomb?: "Domain name pricing creeping up on marketable top level domains." —Designtechnica

10-year yield, S&P 500 reach Fibonacci targets: "The S&P 500 has also apparently broken out, as it reached last Thursday (1,245.15) the highest price seen since June 13, 2001." —MarketWatch