Facebook recently bought Instagram for $1 billion. That’s quite a lot of money for a photo-sharing app that lacks a revenue stream. But if the Instagram purchase wasn’t enough to provoke concerns about a modern dot-com bubble, Facebook’s ensuing public stock offering — an IPO “dud,” by at least one estimation — only reminds us of the unchecked investment lunacy that occurred some 15 years ago.
Between 1995 and 2000, a slew of companies were either acquired or secured investment without turning a profit. That led to the big dot-com bust of 2001, and the subsequent auction of thousands of Herman Miller chairs.
But before everything went south, some of the ill-fated Internet companies used their investments to air TV commercials. In fact, a grand total of 17 Internet-related companies bought air time during Super Bowl XXXIV in the winter of 2000.
via Wired
June 13, 2012
