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'''Martin's Heron''' is a housing estate on the eastern edge of [[Bracknell]] (a town in [[Berkshire]], [[UK]], just west of [[London]]). The name Martin's Heron is frequently misheard, and its name is a source of much confusion. It has nothing to do with the avian [[Heron]] but stems from the old English word for meadow - Hern.
'''Dot-com''' (also '''dotcom''' or redundantly '''dot.com''') '''companies''' were the collection of [[start-up]] companies selling products or services using or somehow related to the [[Internet]]. They proliferated in the late [[1990s]] '''dot-com boom''', a [[speculation|speculative]] frenzy of [[investment]] in Internet and Internet-related [[technology|technical]] [[stock]]s and enterprises. The name derives from the fact that many of them have the "'''.com'''" [[Domain Name System|DNS]] suffix built into their company name.
Martins Heron is well known locally as being the site of [[Harry Potter]]'s house. The recent filmed version of [[JK Rowling]]'s famous story was filmed partly on ___location. The external scenes with the actor [[Daniel Radcliffe]] playing Harry Potter at his house were shot on ___location at a house in Picket Post Close, Martin's Heron.
==Overview==
In 1994 the [[Internet]] came to the general public's attention with the public advent of the [[Mosaic browser]] and the nascent [[World Wide Web]], and by 1996 it became obvious to most public-facing companies that a public web presence was no longer optional. Though at first people saw mainly the possibilities of free publishing and instant worldwide information, increasing familiarity with two-way communication over the "web" led to the possibility of direct web-based commerce ([[e-commerce]]) and instantaneous group communications worldwide. These concepts in turn intrigued many bright young, often underemployed people (see also [[generation_X]]), who realized that new business models would soon arise based on these possibilities, and wanted to be among the first to profit from these new models.
[[Martins Heron railway station]] serves commuters travelling to [[London Waterloo]] and [[Reading, Berkshire]]. The train station is very small but is manned during office hours, and is equipped with CCTV. The train station is situated right next to a [[Tesco]] supermarket, and indeed was built by the supermarket chain, as a precondition of the supermarket being built.
The sudden low price of reaching millions worldwide, and the possibility of selling to or hearing from those people at the same moment when they were reached, promised to overturn established business dogma in [[advertising]], [[mail-order]] sales, [[customer relationship management]], and many more areas. The web was a new [[killer app]] -- it could instantaneously bring together unrelated buyers and sellers, or advertisers and clients, in seamless and low-cost ways. Visionaries around the world grabbed friends, developed new business models that would not have been possible just 3 years ago, and ran to their nearest [[venture capital]]ist.
Martin's Heron Tesco is also used for filming. It is one of the very few Tesco supermarkets in the country that is not open on Sunday, owing to concerns from local residents. It is therefore used as a filming ___location for all the Tesco television adverts featuring [[Prunella Scales]] and [[Jane Horrocks]] among others.
The venture capitalists saw the fast rise in valuation of other such companies, and therefore moved faster and with less caution than usual, choosing to hedge the risk by starting many contenders and letting the market decide which would succeed. The low interest rates in 1998-1999 helped increase the startup capital amounts. Of course a proportion of the new entrepreneurs were truly talented at business administration, sales, and growth, but the majority were just people with ideas, and didn't manage the capital influx prudently. This majority formed the bulk of the "dot-com" companies.
{{Berkshire-geo-stub}}
A canonical "dot-com" company's [[business model]] relied on [[network effect]]s to justify losing money to build [[market share]], or even [[mind share]], through giving their product away in the hope that they could eventually charge for it. (It's worth noting that [[Amazon.com]] and other successful survivors of the era proved this strategy sound in the long term, for a small few.) Many raised cash through public offerings on the [[stock exchange]]s, with [[stock]] often soaring to dizzying heights and making the initial controllers of the company wildly rich on paper. Dot-com companies were stereotyped as having extremely young and inexperienced managers wearing polo shirts with lavish offices including [[foosball]], free food and [[soft drink]]s as well as [[Aeron chair]]s. Companies frequently held parties or expositions where free pens, t-shirts, stress balls, and other trinkets were given away emblazoned with the company's logo. The companies were also stereotyped as requiring extremely long work hours and high pressure.
[[Category:Villages in Berkshire]]
An annual event started in [[1995]], the [[Webby Awards]] works to recognize the best websites on the Internet. The event was typically an extravaganza held annually in [[San Francisco, California]], near the heart of [[Silicon Valley]]. The ceremonies mirrored the flashy dot-com lifestyle with costumed guests, modern dancers, and [[faux-paparazzi]] to make guests feel important. The event peaked in 2001 with thousands in attendance. In 2002, it was a more somber event with only several hundred guests and little of the excess of the late 1990s. In 2003, the awards were reduced to a virtual event because many of the nominees couldn't fly to San Francisco due primarily to corporate belt-tightening and fear of losing their jobs.
==Soaring stocks==
A [[stock market bubble]] in financial markets is a term applied to a self-perpetuating rise or boom in the share prices of stocks of a particular industry. The term may be used with certainty only in retrospect when share prices have since crashed. A bubble occurs when speculators note the fast increase in value and decide to buy in anticipation of further rises, rather than because the shares are undervalued. Typically many companies thus become grossly overvalued. When the bubble "bursts", the share prices fall dramatically, and many companies go out of business.
The late [[1990s]] boom in technology dot-com company stocks is a good example of a bubble, which burst in late [[2000]] and through [[2001]].
The dot-com model was inherently flawed: a vast number of companies all had the same business plan of [[monopoly|monopolising]] their respective sectors through network effects, and it was clear that even if the plan was sound, there could only be at most one network-effects winner in each sector, and therefore that most companies with this business plan would fail. In fact, many sectors could not support even one company powered entirely by network effects.
In spite of this, vast fortunes were made by a few company founders whose companies were bought out at an early stage in the dot-com stock market bubble. These early successes made the bubble even more [[buoyancy|buoyant]]. An unprecedented amount of personal investing occurred during the boom. Stories of people quitting their jobs to become full-time [[day trading|day traders]], while not representative, were common in the press.
==Free spending==
The dot-com boom had a [[jargon]] of its own including "dot-com millionaire", "[[burn rate]]", and [[IPO]] (initial public offering). The phrase "Get large or get lost" was received wisdom as a window of opportunity beckoned to hopeful entrepreneurs and investors.
At the height of the boom it was possible for a promising dot-com to make an initial public offering of its stock and raise a substantial amount of money even though it had never made a profit, making its principals and employees, who may have been partially paid with [[stock option|stock options]] instant dot-com millionaires. But then the matter of burn rate came into play as capital was expended in operating of a company with no profit and no viable [[business model]].
In February [[2000]], stock prices for e-business and "Dot-com" companies started to fall. Many companies had very weak and optimistic business plans, failed to raise renewed funding, and had to lay off workers and close down operations.
In [[Europe]] the vast amounts of cash the [[Mobile phone|mobile]] operators spent on [[3G]]-licences in [[Germany]], [[Italy]] and the [[United Kingdom]] for example led them into deep debt. The investments were blown out of proportion regardless of whether seen in the context of their current or projected future [[cash flow]], but this fact was not publicly acknowledged until as late as [[2001]] and [[2002]]. Due to the highly networked nature of the [[Information technology|IT]] industry this quickly led into problems for small companies that were dependent on contracts from operators.
The downtrend first reached the highly specialized and financially shaky dot-com companies, but soon spread to computer manufacturers, telecom, and industry in general.
An example of the free spending by dot-coms is visible in comparing advertisers for the 2000 and 2001 [[Super Bowl]]s. The January 2000 Super Bowl featured seventeen dot-com companies who each paid over $2 million for a 30-second spot. In January 2001, just three dot-coms bought advertising spots.
The dot-com boom had major impacts on certain urban areas such as [[Silicon Valley]], the [[Research Triangle]] area in [[North Carolina]], the greater [[Seattle, Washington|Seattle]] area, and [[Austin, Texas]].
Historically the dot-com boom can be seen as similar to a number of other technology inspired booms of the past including [[Railway mania|railroads]] in the [[1840s]], radio in the [[1920s]], transistor electronics in the [[1950s]], computer time-sharing in the [[1960s]], and [[home computers]] and [[biotechnology]] in the early [[1980s]].
==Work==
Management within dotcoms was often fashioned by mainstream media as the battleground of intergenerational warfare: The young up-and-coming professionals were displacing the older generation. New skills, new programming languages, and new attitudes were said to be needed to survive in the "new economy". Coders and programmers were scrapped by age thirty-five, support staff, and marketing specialists trapped by their own psychographic profile ended up looking for work in other industries.
Some of these companies were "[[digital sweatshops]]". {{dubious}} 24-7 pressure blurred ‘touchy-feely’ investment language and the hi-tech ‘aura’ with confrontational hard-selling, pyramid-like organizational structures and egocentric CEOs. There was a lot of divide in Silicon Alley between the liberal arts majors and the business majors. Human Resources let the [[Peter principle]] run amok, hiring people beyond their skill-set or professional competencies.
==Thinning the herd==
Over 1999 and early 2000, the [[Federal Reserve]] had increased interest rates six times, and the runaway economy was beginning to lose speed. The '''dot-com bubble''' burst, numerically, on [[March 10]], [[2000]], when the technology heavy [[NASDAQ Composite]] index [http://dynamic.nasdaq.com/dynamic/IndexChart.asp?symbol=IXIC&desc=NASDAQ+Composite&sec=nasdaq&site=nasdaq&months=84] peaked at 5048.62, more than double its value just a year before. The NASDAQ fell slightly after that, but was attributed to correction; the actual reversal and subsequent [[bear market]] may have been triggered by the adverse [[findings of fact]] in the [[Microsoft antitrust case]] in the US. The findings, which declared [[Microsoft]] a [[monopoly]], were widely expected in the weeks before their release on [[April 3]].
[[Image:NASDAQ IXIC - dot-com bubble small.png|center|frame|The technology-heavy [[NASDAQ]] IXIC index peaked in March 2000, reflecting the high point of the dot-com bubble. Even the Russian default in late 1998 was only a temporary setback for US stock traders.]]
Another reason may have been accelerated business spending in preparation for the [[Year 2000 problem|Y2K]] switchover. Once New Year had passed without incident, businesses found themselves with all the equipment they needed for some time and business spending dried up. This correlates quite closely to the peak of U.S. stock markets. The Dow Jones peaked in [[January 2000]] and the Nasdaq in [[March 2000]]. Immediately, hiring freezes, layoffs, and consolidations followed in several industries, especially in the dot-com.
By [[2001]], the bubble's deflation was running full speed. A majority of the dot-coms have now ceased trading, after having burnt through their [[venture capital]], often without ever making a gross [[profit]], thereby becoming ''[[dot-compost]]''. A number of companies associated with the dot-com boom have been accused of or convicted of [[fraud]]. The dot-com phenomenon has been described with a number of unflattering nicknames, including ''dot-con'' and ''dot-bomb''. A few established dot-com companies including [[Amazon.com]] and [[eBay]] have survived this turmoil in good shape, and appear to have a good chance of long-term survival.
==Aftermath==
The dot-com boom produced other economic problems, based on the theory of growth of dot-coms and the need for [[broadband access]] that was assumed to follow in its wake. Many people believed that the amount of [[fiber optic]] and copper cable needed to service [[network]] traffic would [[exponential growth|increase exponentially]] because of the continuing explosive growth of the dot-coms. This appears to have been inspired by a famous quote made by a [[WorldCom]] [[executive]], who claimed that network traffic would double every hundred days for the foreseeable future. Based on this continuing assumption, many of these networking companies (like the dot-coms) took on huge debts to finance massive network expansions. Their [[IPO]]s were incredibly successful, since many investors also believed that they would also soon be party to an explosion in network traffic.
Many networking companies found themselves in trouble slightly before and certainly after the bubble burst because of their debt loads and the collapse of network subscriber growth; a few were even accused of [[accounting scandals]] used to make them appear profitable when they were not. Several were also forced to declare [[Chapter 11]] or [[Chapter 7]] [[bankruptcy]]. When these companies went bust, a significant portion of the fiber optic infrastructure went unused and became so-called "[[dark fiber]]". Some analysts believe that there is so much "dark fiber" worldwide that only a small percentage of it will be "lit" in the decades to come. See [[NorthPoint Communications]], [[WorldCom]], [[Global Crossing]], [[JDS Uniphase]], [[XO Communications]], [[Covad Communications]].
==List of famous dot-coms==
*[[Amazon.com]]
*[[Chemdex.com]]
*[[boo.com]]
*[[DoubleClick]]
*[[eBay]]
*[[Kozmo.com]]
*[[Napster]]
*[[PayPal]]
*[[Pets.com]]
*[[UKeU]]
*[[WebMD]]
*[[Webvan]]
*[[Yahoo!]]
*[[XOOM]]
==List of the original dot-coms==
The following are the 75 oldest still existing registered dot-com domains:
Rank Create date Domain name
1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM
11. 19-Mar-1986 IBM.COM
11. 19-Mar-1986 SUN.COM
13. 25-Mar-1986 INTEL.COM
13. 25-Mar-1986 TI.COM
15. 25-Apr-1986 ATT.COM
16. 08-May-1986 GMR.COM
16. 08-May-1986 TEK.COM
18. 10-Jul-1986 FMC.COM
18. 10-Jul-1986 UB.COM
20. 05-Aug-1986 BELL-ATL.COM
20. 05-Aug-1986 GE.COM
20. 05-Aug-1986 GREBYN.COM
20. 05-Aug-1986 ISC.COM
20. 05-Aug-1986 NSC.COM
20. 05-Aug-1986 STARGATE.COM
26. 02-Sep-1986 BOEING.COM
27. 18-Sep-1986 ITCORP.COM
28. 29-Sep-1986 SIEMENS.COM
29. 18-Oct-1986 PYRAMID.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 ALPHACDC.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 BDM.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 FLUKE.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 INMET.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 KESMAI.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 MENTOR.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 NEC.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 RAY.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 ROSEMOUNT.COM
30. 27-Oct-1986 VORTEX.COM
40. 05-Nov-1986 ALCOA.COM
40. 05-Nov-1986 GTE.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 ADOBE.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 AMD.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 DAS.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 DATA-IO.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 OCTOPUS.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 PORTAL.COM
42. 17-Nov-1986 TELTONE.COM
42. 11-Dec-1986 3COM.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 AMDAHL.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 CCUR.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 CI.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 CONVERGENT.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 DG.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 PEREGRINE.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 QUAD.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 SQ.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 TANDY.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 TTI.COM
50. 11-Dec-1986 UNISYS.COM
61. 19-Jan-1987 CGI.COM
61. 19-Jan-1987 CTS.COM
61. 19-Jan-1987 SPDCC.COM
64. 19-Feb-1987 APPLE.COM
65. 04-Mar-1987 NMA.COM
65. 04-Mar-1987 PRIME.COM
67. 04-Apr-1987 PHILIPS.COM
68. 23-Apr-1987 DATACUBE.COM
68. 23-Apr-1987 KAI.COM
68. 23-Apr-1987 TIC.COM
68. 23-Apr-1987 VINE.COM
72. 30-Apr-1987 NCR.COM
73. 14-May-1987 CISCO.COM
73. 14-May-1987 RDL.COM
75. 20-May-1987 SLB.COM
==See also==
===Terminology===
*[[Bankruptcy]]
*[[Cube farm]]
*[[Digital Revolution]]
*[[E-commerce]]
*[[Irrational exuberance]]
*[[South Sea Bubble]]
*[[Spin-off]]
*[[Stock market bubble]]
*[[Tulipomania]]
*[[Techno-utopianism]]
===Media===
*[[e-Dreams]]
*[[Fucked Company]]
*[[SatireWire]]
==External links==
*[http://www.stock-market-crash.net/nasdaq.htm The Nasdaq Stock Market Crash] - Learn about the spectacular rise and downfall of the Nasdaq.
[[da:Dot com]]
[[ja:インターネット・バブル]]
[[ru:Дотком]]
[[Category:U.S. economic history]]
[[category:Electronic commerce]]
[[category:Information technology management]]
[[category:Digital Revolution]]
[[Category:Economic bubbles]]
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