Dotcom shakeout ('the times they are e-changing')

The first great Dotcom Shakeout took place in Spring 2000. As with the classic stockmarket falls (1929, 1987) the market reached an all-time peak, looked over the edge, held its breath and jumped. Clickmango.com (an American healthcare operation) and Boo.com (a European retailer) were 2 of the famous casualties. Lastminute.com symbolised the predicament for many. Its shareprice was fractioned but, by 2003, its fame and its alliances allowed a period life after death. Profits are widely predicted.

At the turn of 2000 analysts began to review the shakeout and the following points emerged from a Radio 4 discussion:

  1. The question 'what do dotcoms do?' yielded 2 main answers: publishing and retailing
  2. The question 'what can a dotcom do well?' yielded another 2 answers: cut costs and win market share

These principles are likely to guide the next stage of the dotcom revolution:

  1. All-brick operations must learn click-business, so there will be heavy investment in web design and web infrastructure. The cost of a web division is relatively small for a big company, and those who don't make the change may be left by the wayside. See retail dilemma.
  2. Cash is king' will replace 'Landgrab' as the leading idea behind web business
  3. Website architects must learn to care deeply about good navigation, web usability, user satisfaction and revenue generation: they must learn to monetize web content

As with the nineteenth century railway companies, only a few large pure dotcoms survived the Great Dotcom Crash: Amazon.com, Yahoo.com, Ebay.com. But some new Dotcoms have grown great since the crash Google.com has been a brilliant success. Walmart.com is doing very well.

As Bob Dylan put it, the times they are a-changing:

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And its raging
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changing

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