March 10th, 2000

BBC News has an article up reminding everyone of a special date in stock market history, the effects of which are still being felt now.

Five years ago today, on March 10th, 2000, the Nasdaq index of leading technology shares hit it’s highest point ever, marking the beginning of the downward turn in their prices and bursting the so-called dotcom bubble.

This was, as BBC News writer Jorn Madslien states, “the end of an era, where online entrepreneurs behaved like snooty rock stars in their meetings with venture capitalists.”

The information technology workforce found itself without the employment demand to face the flood of incoming workers and recent graduates attracted to the promise of big money in the field of computers, networks and the “Internet economy”.

Of course the naysayers who pounced on the chance to declare the Internet economy dead weren’t correct either. While the days of blockbuster IPOs for small Internet startups is over, e-commerce has become a common source of income for many companies small and large.

With the increasing broadband Internet user-base, online transactions, be they dealing with your bank accounts through the web or purchasing music from online retailers, are now everyday acceptances by most consumer and corporate sectors.

In the end, the Internet economy is still here, just without the rock star hype.

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