bubble

“Yahoo!Xtra Bubble” - sounds like a kind of gum, doesn’t it?  But it’s actually a new service that should soon become available to customers of Telecom New Zealand, and it’ll “offer a suite of premium services accessed through a personalised homepage - all at no extra cost.”

Ad revenue dropped for every major Internet player but Google in the second quarter of this year. Whispers of the last dot-com crash have begun to surface again.

Dave Winer says we'll know Web 2.0's bubble is popped when Google's stock crashes.

Barry Diller, the head of IAC/InterActiveCorp, thinks the market for Internet companies is priced well above what they are truly worth.

Hmmm, Bill Gates is reported to have said "we're back kind of in Internet-bubble era in terms of people thinking: OK, traffic. We want traffic. We want traffic. There are still some areas where it is unclear what's going to come out of that."

The burning question, as Internet giants make a ritual of dining on user-generated startups, is about whether this bubbly climate can continue, and what, exactly, makes a good candidate for acquisition.

Despite denying that online video phenom YouTube could be priced or bought for a bubbly $1 billion, founder Chad Hurley is warm to the idea of an initial public offering.

Sources say that unnamed people at the two tech companies have reportedly been discussing a potential merger. Allegedly.