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Its been almost 7 years since the dot com crash in March of 2000. I have always been interested in stories of how people made millions..this is an article that ran on the five year anniversary of the dom com boom and details what exactly went wrong.
Thursday March 10, 2005
The Guardian
As celebrations go, it will be a muted one. But at 9pm this evening, anyone who tried and failed to make a fortune in the dotcom boom can be forgiven for sitting back, pouring themselves a glass of millennium bubbly, and thinking about what might have been.
It will mark exactly five years since the Nasdaq, the US technology index, closed at a dizzying peak of 5048.62 - more than double its value just 14 months before. That Friday night, the young investors who had won millions in funding at networking events such as First Tuesday - and who were pumping much of that cash into marketing their patches of dotcom turf - probably felt little reason to worry. The net was the future, and they were part of it.
It was all downhill from there. In the next day of trading, the Nasdaq lost 2.8% of its value. The day after - as Lastminute.com floated on the London stock exchange, briefly achieving a market capitalisation of £800m - it fell 4%. By October 2002, it had plunged to 1114.11, a total loss of 78% against its peak.
Along the way, companies such as Boo.com, Clickmango.com, Ready2Shop.com, Pets.com, Toysmart.com and many more went from being leaders of a revolution to tombstones in dotcom graveyards chronicled by the likes of ****ed Company - and the business pages of a delighted tabloid press.
Survivors, of which Lastminute was one, were left battling to turn a profit in a market where business to consumer websites were as unfashionable as a fur coat in summer. Full story
Thursday March 10, 2005
The Guardian
As celebrations go, it will be a muted one. But at 9pm this evening, anyone who tried and failed to make a fortune in the dotcom boom can be forgiven for sitting back, pouring themselves a glass of millennium bubbly, and thinking about what might have been.
It will mark exactly five years since the Nasdaq, the US technology index, closed at a dizzying peak of 5048.62 - more than double its value just 14 months before. That Friday night, the young investors who had won millions in funding at networking events such as First Tuesday - and who were pumping much of that cash into marketing their patches of dotcom turf - probably felt little reason to worry. The net was the future, and they were part of it.
It was all downhill from there. In the next day of trading, the Nasdaq lost 2.8% of its value. The day after - as Lastminute.com floated on the London stock exchange, briefly achieving a market capitalisation of £800m - it fell 4%. By October 2002, it had plunged to 1114.11, a total loss of 78% against its peak.
Along the way, companies such as Boo.com, Clickmango.com, Ready2Shop.com, Pets.com, Toysmart.com and many more went from being leaders of a revolution to tombstones in dotcom graveyards chronicled by the likes of ****ed Company - and the business pages of a delighted tabloid press.
Survivors, of which Lastminute was one, were left battling to turn a profit in a market where business to consumer websites were as unfashionable as a fur coat in summer. Full story
