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By Lisa Kirschner
Earlier today, Daya Baran at Webguild Silicon Valley posted an interesting article entitled “Nine Years After the Dot Com Bubble.” She includes a rather dramatic chart showing the NASDAQ composite index from 2000 to present. Can you guess what it shows? Yep, a steep and significant decrease.
She also poses the question, “Are you better off today than you were nine years ago?”
While it’s true that we’d be hard-pressed to find too many people or companies who can admit that things have greatly improved over the last nine years, we are making some positive progress in the world of web development…
Cloud computing and SAAS solutions have decreased costs for some companies, while Web 2.0 technologies and social networking have truly changed the way we communicate as business owners, managers, employees and consumers. Surprisingly robust low-end content management systems and open source tools have enabled even the smallest businesses to take control of their web properties and interactive marketing campaigns. Most importantly, the collective knowledge and experience of everyone in the web field has grown exponentially and made our current pool of resources more intelligent, more cautious, more proactive and more successful than in our early pioneer days.
It’s true that the dot com bubble floated–indeed, soared–sky-high in its heyday before bursting. Those of us who lived it can attest to that. But I, for one, wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.
What do you think? Are we truly worse off than we were nine years ago, or do you think the web development world is in a better position these days? Interested to hear your thoughts…
Lisa Kirschner
President and Founder, Flair Interactive Services Inc.
Managing Editor, Content 911 Blog
