The Great Dot Com Crash

Since the early days of this column I have always stressed that the Internet is a very powerful medium of communication. I think it's time to stress this point again after the great dot com crash. The rise and fall of the dot coms does not, in any way, reduce the importance of the Internet as a medium of communication.

The dot coms that crashed really deserved it. If you spend your entire budget on advertising and leave nothing for content creation, what else do you expect? Great advertising can draw one-time visitors to your web site. How to make them come back again and again depends on what you deliver.

Not so long ago, the media was full of success stories featuring 18 and 21 years old dot com wizards. Stories about how eyeballs could be valued in millions of dollars. Everyone wanted to start a dot com business, or at least an e-commerce web site for the existing business. There were people who were registering new domain names by the dozens. There were e-extremists everywhere, ushering in the dot com revolution. Then something went wrong with the last part of the success stories - the dot com wizards didn't live happily ever after.

The big bad villain suddenly appeared on the scene, asking for business models and revenue generation. There was panic every where and the great dot com dream crashed with a big thud! The same glossy business magazines, which carried the great dot com success stories, came out with special issues, telling us how foolish these dot com guys had been. Some even came out with recipes for surviving the dot com crash. There were extremists every where again, taking a 180-degree turn and spreading the word around how useless the Internet was.

I have seen quite a few companies who were on the verge of web enabling their businesses; suddenly changing their minds and abandoning their plans for web enabled business. This kind of reverse extremism is also bad for business. If few people burn their fingers with fire, you don't stop using fire to cook your meals. It all depends on the way you handle a powerful tool. You can win a race with a fast car on the ground. If you try to fly that car in the air, we all know what will happen. Don't blame the car for it; blame the advertising agency that made you believe that this fast car can fly!

Existing business rejoice!

People who already have a functioning business should make a special note, that the Internet is still a very powerful medium of communication and ignoring it or running away from it will be a serious mistake. In fact the early crash of the dot coms should come as good news to those businesses that felt threatened by the dot com era.

They can now feel safe that virtual businesses cannot easily take away their customers. They can do better with the help of the new medium of communication, if they use it effectively rather than foolishly. It's a lot easier to improve your existing business by using the Internet effectively than setting up an entirely new business on the web. It's a lot easier for a computer reseller to learn how to use the Internet effectively than it is for an Internet expert to learn how to sell computers.

I always like to compare the Internet with the fax machine. Successful businesses existed even before the fax machine was invented. With the availability of the fax, they were able to conduct their business more efficiently. It was a powerful communication tool that helped in improving your business communications. However, no one could start a great new business just by buying more and more fax machines.

The same is true of the Internet. If you already have a business which is up and running, the Net will only help you to run it effectively. You can't create a great new business just by setting up a web site with an attractive domain name.

The dot com crash was not bad at all, except for those who invested in the dot com dream at the wrong time and had no time to get out of it before it came crashing down. The short-lived dot com era has produced many millionaires and billionaires. A lot of money went into development of newer and more powerful technologies and tools that will be effectively used by the serious users in future to improve their business. So much of rapid development wouldn't have been possible without the dot com frenzy of the last few years.

All the people, who jumped on to the Internet bandwagon because it was fashionable, are now abandoning it. But that is simply good news for serious users. Now is the time to clear the debris and get on to the road ahead with a well thought out Internet strategy, that will really take you into the 21^st Century..