Pop Goes the Bubble

Grok Headline matches for Pop Goes the Bubble

Bubble or no bubble, that is the
question

Bubble or no bubble, that is the
question 04/14/2004 09:13 AM
"The real estate bubble's gonna pop!" You seem to hear that all the time... But dig deeper and you find that other people don't even think there's a bubble. Others think there's a bubble, but it's gonna keep growing. Then, just to make it interesting, you've got others who said the bubble was going to pop back in 2002. Why is first-time home-buying this friggin' difficult?!

UBL bubble

UBL bubble 01/04/2005 01:39 PM
Tim Bray points to a presentation by Brian Nielsen and Mikkel Hippe Brun on how Denmark is adopting the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL). Tim writes: Check out slides 4 & 5: they estimate the annual savings achievable from invoicing in UBL at somewhere between €100M and €160M. I may be out of step with the crowd but it seems painfully obvious to me that UBL is going to be huge and I don’t understand why more technology vendors (including my employer) aren’t refocusing their e-business strategy around it....

One more bubble, please.

One more bubble, please. 04/29/2004 02:42 PM
Word on the street is google has filled for an IPO. Hot Damn!

Bubble Snooker 1.0

Bubble Snooker 1.0 05/14/2004 04:49 PM
A game that combines the best features of Bubble Shooter, Pool, and Arcanoid.

Is China the Next Bubble?

Is China the Next Bubble? 01/18/2004 06:03 PM
Recent excesses suggest that China may be in a bubble now, especially on the investment side of the economy.

The Google Bubble

The Google Bubble 04/26/2004 05:27 PM

Everyone's talking about Google because the company has to release some key financial data this week, causing lots of folks to assume an IPO filing is in the works. No doubt that's true, but I keep wondering why -- except to make the insiders happy -- this IPO is going to happen at this stage. Here we have a successful company, making (reportedly) tons of money and investing it wisely. Does Google need the distraction an IPO will bring as much as the insiders -- especially the venture capitalists -- crave the cash-out? More on this in the next few days...

Bubble Trouble 1.0.2

Bubble Trouble 1.0.2 02/12/2004 05:00 PM
Give that cranky crab from “The Little Mermaid” a run for his money.

Ready for the Next Bubble?

Ready for the Next Bubble? 04/28/2004 01:10 PM
What does it mean for the economy if the housing bubble bursts?

The New Stock Bubble

The New Stock Bubble 04/13/2004 09:56 AM

Here we go again: Stocks in unknown and untested tech and biotech companies -- and supposed nanotech (my favorite new bubble category) --are soaring. Price to earnings? Surely you're kidding about the earnings part. The market is frothy again. Even solid companies are selling way above historical P/E ratios. Be wary. You think Wall Street has totally cleaned up its act? Get real. These guys are incorrigible. If you're going to jump in again, you should at least be double-sure that your broker's corporate parent isn't getting millions in fees from companies it's pushing at retail. Of course, they're probably working on some new way to con you. Meanwhile, I've had lots of e-mails recently touting micro-capitalized companies founded in in places like Nevada, headquartered in places like the Cayman Islands and claiming big plans to make a huge score in, say, China. Oh, sure, those have to be solid enterprises. I'm sympathetic to most scam victims. But anyone who buys a stock based on an unsolicited e-mail recommendation, or who even looks at such a thing with any intention other than derisive laughter, is an idiot who should not complain after losing his money. Period.

The Bubble About to Burst

The Bubble About to Burst 04/09/2004 04:02 PM
If you haven't refinanced your home yet (we've refinanced twice in the past two years), you're running out of time:...

"Leaks in the Wi-Fi Bubble"

"Leaks in the Wi-Fi Bubble" 11/17/2003 03:01 PM
The San Jose Business Journal looks at cut backs at Trapeze and Vivato, referring to the setbacks as "leaks in the Wi-Fi bubble": The story also looks at Cometa's scaled down ambitions and is the fist place I've seen a Cometa spokesperson note that the company's original plans were overly optimistic. Cometa has gotten some flack for delivering on a slower pace but not admitting that its plans had changed. The story also notes that Vivato has 40 customers, which is more than I thought. I think the piece unfairly picks on Trapeze for requiring customers to use its proprietary APs--all the WLAN switch vendors require customers to use their APs. Otherwise they couldn't offer all their whiz-bang features. But ultimately those whiz-bang features may not be worth it for customers who don't want to replace existing APs or who don't like to feel forced to buy only a certain AP. I keep reading about increasing sales at companies like Bluesocket and Reefedge which both offer beefed-up security solutions to customers regardless of the APs they use....

Is There An Online Ad Bubble?

Is There An Online Ad Bubble? 04/15/2005 04:49 AM
Back in the mid-90s, during the original internet bubble, just about every consumer business plan (that wasn't about e-commerce) was about online advertising. Everyone was focused on getting eyeballs and making their sites "sticky" for advertisers. However, the bottom fell out of that market when the bubble popped -- and people realized that online ads weren't that effective. So, now that everyone's focused on online ads, some are beginning to wonder if th is is a bubble that will pop as well. There certainly are a few differences this time around. First off, more (and bigger) advertisers are willing (and eager) to jump online -- especially as other advertising, such as television, is having problems. Second (and perhaps more importantly) the technology for targeting ads has gotten much, much better, thanks in large part to the paid search world. However, those who are relying solely on internet advertising for revenue would be silly to assume that the cyclical nature of the advertising world won't come back to bite at some point again. The media business is a very tough business, and just because the internet is the hot spot for advertising these days, it doesn't mean that will last.

Frozen Bubble 1.0.0a

Frozen Bubble 1.0.0a 11/06/2003 05:02 PM
Match similarly colored bubbles to win.

Five Years After the Bubble

Five Years After the Bubble 04/15/2005 11:58 AM
F ive Years After the Bubble is a collection of ten links from the perspective of those who were neck deep in the whole thing. I found the link while reading up on Andy Kessler, who had an interesting piece in today's WSJ, and is giving away his new book.

It's Maybe a Bubble, but a Selective One

It's Maybe a Bubble, but a Selective One 02/05/2005 09:04 PM
Is the Internet bubble half empty or half full? The tale of two trajectories among Internet leaders like Google and eBay has prompted a debate.

Is the bubble coming back? It sure looks
like it

Is the bubble coming back? It sure looks
like it 07/29/2004 03:24 AM
The first sign was the $13 million investment in Friendster, a company with millions of eyeballs but no visible business model or profits, led by my old investors Kleiner Perkins and Benchmark. Then came the hype and frenzy over the Google IPO, which is reportedly going to value Google at something like $36 billion. Then I read earlier this week about all the cash trying to get into VC funds, at the same time that research shows: The optimal fund size, Professor Kedrosky and others say, is a $250 million fund managed by four partners. "There's 25 years of data that shows that funds roughly this size give the best returns, but it's like everyone went temporarily nuts for a while," he said. The smaller the fund, Professor Kedrosky said, the more a firm's partners can focus on individual companies, which often rely on venture capitalists as much for advice and help as for cash infusions..... Sequoia... ended up saying yes to only 82 of the 400-plus institutional investors who sought to give it money this time, turning away around $2.5 billion in potential investments, according to Mr. Romanello of Thomson It certainly seems like there is a lot of money chasing a lot fewer good ideas. Not a good sign. Plus, the Bay Area housing market has gone insane, and traffic is starting to get bad again. There are lots of signs that we are headed towards another period of irrational exuberance. I just hope the slope up is flatter, so that the slope down will be as well. I also wonder what, if anything, the Valley learned from the bust?...

The Housing Bubble Builds

The Housing Bubble Builds 07/08/2004 02:12 PM
The real estate market remains strong despite rising interest rates.

The Housing Bubble, Continued

The Housing Bubble, Continued 06/19/2004 12:14 PM

Mercury News (reg req): Economy boosts valley home prices. The median price of a home in Santa Clara County reached $590,000, up 20.2 percent from May 2003, according to DataQuick Information Systems. A total of 2,149 resale houses changed hands in the county last month, a nearly 30 percent increase from a year earlier.

It's much more than the economy at work here. It's a mindless, dangerous bubble that shows what a short attention span human beings have when they are infected with greed and/or panic. This particular news story ends witha local public defender who found a lender that offered a "zero-down" loan -- that is, loaned the full selling price with no down payment. I can understand the borrower's motive, though I think it's an incredibly risky move, but the bank making this loan is just irresponsible. So is the real-estate industry that promotes this kind thing, but that's par for the course. Of course, the lender will now push this mortgage into the national market, offloading it to some other company. This is how we have such liquid markets, and the system was a boon in the past, greased as it has been by the likes of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the giant federal home-loan operations that act as though they have the full faith and credit of the U.S. taxpayer behind them even though they do not. But it is not sustainable, yet nobody in power dares mess with this machinery. What we'll see eventually, if we don't find a way to slowly deflate this bubble, is a massive collapse of the housing market that will in turn spark a severe recession. The truly scary scenario, still not the most likely but growing in probability every day, comes when falling prices for housing lead to massive collapses in the financial industry. But if that occurs, the Fannie Maes and Freddie Macs and the money-center banks with big exposure will be considered too big to fail. We taxpayers will bail them out to the tune of several trillion dollars, an amount that'll make the S&L bailout of the 1980s seem tiny. And the only way that will work will be to re-ignite inflation on an absolutely massive scale, because the only way to make it work will be to ratchet up the money supply in unprecedented fashion. This is a bubble. It will deflate. If it doesn't deflate gently, the nation is in for the worst kind of pain.

Who Cares About the Housing Bubble?

Who Cares About the Housing Bubble? 04/13/2004 10:07 AM
A swig of Pepto and a small perspective shift is overdue.

Bursting Motorola's Bubble

Bursting Motorola's Bubble 07/28/2004 02:33 PM
A number of outlets are critical of the Motorola Wi-Fi/cell phone: TechDirt and TheFeature emphasize how limited the phone's use will be because it only operates on 802.11a. Also, as we noted yesterday, it sounds like this platform would make a tough sell because it requires APs from Avaya and Proxim or upgrades to existing Proxim APs. The solution isn't ideal and neither is the HP/T-Mobile device, which doesn't include voice capabilities over Wi-Fi. These are pretty typical first attempts and they'll certainly improve with future iterations. However, the enterprise solutions like Motorola's will have a tough road ahead of them. Cellular operators are typically very slow to embrace change, especially anything that may be perceived as threatening their voice business, which voice over Wi-Fi may. I'll be interested to see which operator Motorola actually launches this with and which enterprises actually use it....

Bubble Dreams Come True

Bubble Dreams Come True 12/22/2004 01:52 AM
Grab your sock puppets, order some bags of dog food to be delivered, and start selling pots and pans to the gold miners: Broadband usage has passed dial-up in the United States! I bet all the people that Om covered in Broadbandits must be rolling over in their prison cells....

Annals of the Housing Bubble

Annals of the Housing Bubble 05/21/2004 10:01 PM

Mercury News (reg req): Median home prices pass half-million mark. The median price of resale houses sold in the Bay Area reached $520,000 last month -- the first time that figure has exceeded the half-million point.

Lunacy.

Frozen Bubble For Series 60 0.90

Frozen Bubble For Series 60 0.90 06/08/2004 06:51 PM
A Frozen Bubble port for Series 60 devices.

Gadget Magazine Bubble

Gadget Magazine Bubble 06/07/2004 09:06 AM

Om Malik picked up an issue of Primedia's Connected magazine and was so disgusted by its lack of good gadget news and insight that he did what no other angry internet writer would dare to do -- he wrote a blog entry. Fortunately, Om knows what he's talking about, especially when he compliments me and my online colleagues by claiming that a simple aggregation of a few blogs collectively kicks the ass of almost any dead tree magazine around. What's more useful to you: publications with 90 day lead times or blogs that measure scoop time by the minute? Thank god there are a few magazines out there doing it right. I was pleasantly surprised by Mobile PC Magazine's recent laptop comparison issue that used the paper format to show life-sized pictures of each notebook's keyboard -- exactly the sort of thing that leverages (synergizes!) the strengths of the paper medium. But for up to the minute news, what's the point? The internet wounded magazines years ago, and blogs have refined the technique to a deadly art.

(P.S. Magazine editors, I am available for freelance.)
Read [GigaOm]

I80 Color Bubble Jet Printer

I80 Color Bubble Jet Printer 05/04/2004 10:44 AM
This printer's portability and excellent output override our gripes about the small and multicolor ink tanks. The only real issue is price. By Niko Coucouvanis, MacAddict (via MyAppleMenu)

Tech bubble banker down by law

Tech bubble banker down by law 05/06/2004 04:44 AM
Contempt for SEC sank Frank Quattrone

Frozen Bubble for Series 60

Frozen Bubble for Series 60 06/03/2004 06:38 PM
First release is out!

Bubble Gum in Kabul [Flickr]

Bubble Gum in Kabul [Flickr] 09/11/2004 02:13 AM

Housing Bubble, Continued

Housing Bubble, Continued 04/11/2004 01:19 PM

Mercury News: As offers pour in, cutthroat market a boon for sellers. The fast-paced, competitive nature of this spring's Bay Area housing market has participants and observers alike speculating on the reasons -- particularly after three years of severe job losses.

The story goes on to offer all the usual reasons, such as a shortage of houses and low interest rates. But there's another very good explanation: rampant speculation of another kind, inducing panic buying like the kind that occurred in the stock market in the late 1990s. This is a bubble that will deflate eventually. It's happening elsewhere, as this NY Times story notes today. The mania will end here, too, and it'll be ugly.

Bubble Golden Pack 2

Bubble Golden Pack 2 12/04/2003 08:28 AM

Freddie Mac: No Housing Bubble

Freddie Mac: No Housing Bubble 07/30/2004 12:20 PM
Salim Haji gets the scoop on why Freddie Mac believes that the U.S. real estate market today is rational.

The Coming Corn Bubble

The Coming Corn Bubble 03/17/2005 03:37 AM
We really need to move to Ethanol-powered automobiles.  And I mean soon.  Not because of energy efficiency, or to reduce farm subsidies.  People in America are getting really fat.  We need a more profitable product for corn than High Fructose...

Gadget Magazine bubble?

Gadget Magazine bubble? 01/26/2004 07:34 PM
i think all magazine trends can be traced to opportunities that were identified 18 months before their launch

Blogs Bubble Into Business

Blogs Bubble Into Business 01/28/2004 05:38 PM
Great in-depth article in Computerworld on how enterprise weblogs are being adopted....

doing the math on the friendster bubble

doing the math on the friendster bubble 11/03/2003 03:16 AM
comparison of Friendster and eBay .. Sippey does some math .. analysis

sippey.typepad.com/filtered/2003/10/thinking_throug.html
track this site | 4 links

Googlescape: Are we headed for Bubble
II?

Googlescape: Are we headed for Bubble
II? 02/13/2004 07:52 AM
Forrester Research CEO George Colony says the imminent arrival of Google's IPO has generated too much hype and silliness.

Pop Goes the Global Housing Bubble

Pop Goes the Global Housing Bubble 06/17/2005 04:21 PM
The Global Housing Price Bubble is bursting. Prices are already declining in Australia and Britain. The Economist has another story that outlines how a global bursting of this bubble could be deleterious to the world's economy. The bubble is bigger than the stock market bubble of the late 90s. Will there be a smooth landing or will spending collapse when it cannot be funded on housing price gains?

Lasting Benefits of the Dot-Com Bubble

Lasting Benefits of the Dot-Com Bubble 03/13/2003 10:24 AM

Bubble bursting for Napster

Bubble bursting for Napster 02/19/2004 02:19 PM
Analysts have predicted multiple casualties in the online music business by year end. Napster 2.0 may be heading for the endangered species list.
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Pop Goes the Bubble

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