Why We Need Bubbles: "Preventing bubbles would do more to protect incumbents and inhibit innovation and economic progress than Sarbanes-Oxley squared and a ban on silicon and software combined. The capital raised in bubbles is the explosive charge which launches the technologies that change the world." —AlwaysOn Network

The Bubble Bowl: "It was just five years ago, although it seems like a different age entirely. It was a time of singing-sock-puppets, 21-year-old chief executives, gravity-defiant stock prices, revolutionary technologies and half-baked business plans. And in this atmosphere, during the final, halcyon days of the Internet boom, the St. Louis Rams played the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, a moment that will be forever remembered as the dot-com bubble's Waterloo." —Forbes.com

NYSE chief, at Davos, sees IPO recovery continuing: "New York Stock Exchange CEO John Thain, speaking at the World Economic Forum, said he believes a recovery in the number of initial public offerings will continue this year, reported AFX News." —MarketWatch

Buy.com: How Soon We Forget: "‘Cream is not the only bovine product to float to the top in a bull market.’ - Roger McNamee, 2001 Are we in a bull market again? You might think so, judging from what floated to the top today. Until this morning, I could only imagine what an aging hippy must feel like when he hears Jimmy Hendrix’s Purple Haze on the radio and has a ‘flashback.’" —BusinessWeek Deal Flow

Analyst cuts Netflix target price to $3: "Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter already had a 'sell' on Netflix going into the company's report of fourth-quarter results. Tuesday his firm added the DVD rental company to its 'focus list' as a recommended short sale with a $3 target. Arch-rival Blockbuster is on the list as a 'buy.'"—MarketWatch

NFLX is a proud member of the Bubble 2.0 Index, charts at right.

Buy.com bounces back to IPO market: "The company, founded in 1997, said in the SEC documents that it believes it can tap into the projected growth in the online retail market to achieve profitability. It cited a Forrester Research report that predicted online spending in the United States will rise from $145 billion last year to $316 billion by 2010."—News.com

Everything old is new again. This deal ("Commerce!") completes the trifecta started yesterday: "Content!" "Community!" Let's see... what's next? B2B? Disintermediation? Do I hear, "e-business Ideas That Turn On Your Brain"?

Google partying, but not quite like it's '99 : "Companies like Audible Inc., Varsity Group Inc. and the Knot Inc. that were worth millions in 1999, became jokes in 2001 and were all but given up for dead in 2002 suddenly seem viable again. Yahoo Inc. and other companies that were ridiculed because they boasted about their 'eyeballs,' or number of people looking at their sites, are making money on just that, reporting record profit based on online advertising revenue. Internet icons such as venture capitalist L. John Doerr, who dropped from the media scene, are back in the spotlight, again touting the virtues of the Internet Age."—MSNBC

Travelzoo's shares suffer Q4-related reality check: "If 2004 was the year in which investors could ignore valuations that might well have been deemed absurd, 2005 is shaping up as the year during which reality is setting in."—MarketWatch.com

Internet News Sites Are Back in Vogue: "Dow Jones won the bidding with a deal, expected to be completed today, for $519 million, about six times MarketWatch's 2004 revenue. The four-way frenzy among the companies to own MarketWatch outright may be the strongest sign that news and information sites, long thought to be dot-gone relics of 1999, are making a big comeback in 2005."—The New York Times

Friendster, Love and Money: "Since Friendster first attracted backing from two high-profile venture capital firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Benchmark Capital, the company has also served as a litmus test for the new Silicon Valley, haunted by its recent past but fiercely needing to believe that heady days lay ahead. In October 2003, the company was valued at $53 million, even though it was a fledgling start-up with less than a dozen employees."—The New York Times

U.S. venture capital up in 2004, ending declines: "U.S. venture capitalists reversed three years of funding declines in 2004, when they invested $20.9 billion into 2,876 deals, according to a new survey released late on Sunday."—Yahoo! Finance: GOOG

The Return of Returns: "If we had any doubts about the VC business returning to its former opulence, they disappeared last night at Onset Ventures' soiree at the Quadrus Center in Menlo Park, Calif. We're talking oysters on the half shell, 2003 La Crema Pinot Noir, Recchiuti chocolates, a jazz combo, and multiple art exhibits. Making the scene were Dick Kramlich from New Enterprise Associates, Heidi Roizen from Mobius Venture Capital, and too many others to mention. Maybe it was the occasion that made Onset spring for the good stuff--the firm was celebrating its 20th anniversary. But we think it may have just as much to do with the VC industry's recent returns."—BusinessWeek: Deal Flow

Venture investing in tech companies rises: "Electronics and information services were big winners as VC investing in tech rose to $11.3 billion last year, report says."—News.com

WSJ: Google Gets Liquid: "An infographic from today's WSJ on the massive impending share-lockup expiration at Google..."—Paul Kedrosky (UCSD)

Stalking The Killer IPOs: "Profiting in this market is tough. Here are a few tips on what to look for and what to watch out for."—Forbes

VCs Shuck Their Shellshock: "For better or worse, venture investment typically follows a 10-year pattern, and 2005 could be the start of the next cycle. With new funds raised last year, many investors find themselves with a clean slate and a decade to produce returns. It's time, many believe, to take some risks and delve into some tough, company-building deals."—Business Week

Go Daddy's Super Bowl Story: "After hiring an advertising firm and a media purchasing firm that we were comfortable with, I suggested we kick the entire campaign off with an ad in the Super Bowl. At first this was a bit of a joke, but the more we thought about it and looked into the cost and benefits, it appeared to us that starting things off with the Super Bowl made quite a bit of sense indeed."—bobparsons.com

I have five words for you. Dot. Com. Super. Bowl. Commercial. Bubble On!

Google riches outed on the Web: "'The whole culture's really strange when there are two people in the same cubicle and one's worth $1 million and the other is worth nothing and they both know it,' said one person close to the company. 'It's created this asymmetry where some people feel more entitled than others.'"—News.com

Ah, the stress of working at a Bubble darling.

Tech Startup 2.0: "Everywhere you look, signs of life are emerging in startup land. Entrepreneurs are huddling in their garages and dens, tapping out software code. Venture capitalists prowl Stanford and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, checkbooks in hand. Then there's the fairy-tale rise of Google from obscurity in 1998 to a recently public, $50 billion colossus that stands tall among tech's titans. It may not be the halcyon days of 1999, but it's a long way from the dog days of 2002. 'The valley and the tech community are ready for the next wave of companies and opportunities,' says Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang." —BusinessWeek

Software startup goes up for sale: "'We are seeking strategic alternatives for the company, which could include the sale of the company or the sale of its assets,' said CEO Mike Vollman, who added that he hopes to complete a transaction before the end of March."—Austin American-Statesman

The One Far West Curse continues.

Another The Startups Are Back Article: "It's beginning to feel like the sort of thing where people think if they say it enough, maybe it will be true. Over the past few months there have been a lot of 'the startups are back! the startups are back!' articles going around. The latest is from Business Week which is pretty much just filled with anecdotal stories. The fact is that startups never went away. And, some of these startups they're talking about aren't exactly new. They've just been around and quiet over the past few years. About the only thing that's clearly back is... the buzz. That can be fun, but it's also ridiculously distracting."—Techdirt

Things are loosening up: "Maybe it’s just the fact we’ve entered a new year, but twice this week during meetings and calls the phrase 'things are loosening up' has been uttered with reference to venture capitalists' willingness to invest and customers' willingness to spend."—Red Herring

Check out a new blog directory that must be cool since it points to my blog. PhatInvestor, "Financial Blogs organized by topic into categories."

Bubble On!

Options not out yet, VCs say: "'This doesn't become law until the SEC approves it,' says Floyd Kvamme, partner emeritus at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Sand Hill Road venture capital firm. 'We hope to talk some sense into the SEC. We are still in the game.'"—Silicon Valley Business Journal

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Tech IPOs 'rise from the ashes': "The 2004 market debuts of some dot-com era survivors bode well for IPOs in the coming year."—News.com

How bullish are newsletters today vs five years ago?: "The bull market of the past two years has not been an exact replay of the Internet boom/IPO mania of late 1999, of course. But the current market environment contains some intriguing similarities."—CBS MarketWatch

Wall Street's Designs on '05? A Merger Boom: "After years of self-doubt and housecleaning in the wake of Enron, corporate America has gotten a bit of swagger back in its step."—New York Times

Yeah, baby! Bring it on!

IPOs of Venture-Funded Cos. Raise $5 Bln: "The initial public offerings of 67 venture capital-funded U.S. companies raised $4.98 billion in 2004, more than tripling from the $1.41 billion raised in 22 deals during 2003, VentureOne said on Saturday."—Reuters via Yahoo! News

It was a long, dry winter. But we're back, baby!