Are we really not in a bubble?
Just finished reading Battelle’s article in The New York Times about the current IT situation and whether we are in the middle of another bubble or not. I certainly agree with him that “the Internet is exciting again” but I disagree that we are not in a bubble just because “the financiers aren’t driving” and there is a “lack of public offerings” (there are some though, unprofitable buy.com is filing to go public).
I think that one of the main differences between this potential bubble and the previous one is that the exit strategy is not to IPO anymore but to be acquired by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or AOL, witness Keyhole, Picasa, WeblogsInc., Flickr and many others. Even now there are rumors that Riya, a web site that automatically categorizes pictures with people’s names using face recognition technology, is being acquired by Google for up to $60MM (other rumors claim a $40MM price). That web site is still in Alpha testing and has no customers (and presumably no revenue stream) so when someone like Google is willing to pay that top dollar for it, it makes me think that we might actually be on a bubble.
Carlos
