The Dot.Com Bubble Phenomenon: The rise and fall of the first e-stock

When the internet first made an appearance in the business world, outside of government and military use, the term dot.com was introduced. The technical term â€Å".com† is defined as a suffix used to describe a company that uses the internet as a primary or only marketplace for transfer of goods and services. It was being used as a suffix to the several existing web addresses. It only took a few months for .com websites to become the dominant form of business transaction (Simpson & Simons, 1998). The phenomenon behind this story lies in the rapid rise and fall of the dot.com companies and the players, events, and mindsets that accompanied the bubble boom and bust (Simpson & Simons, 1998). In 1995 Netscape was one of the first dot.com businesses to enter the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, an automated exchange which has, since the Dot.com power struggle, become associated primarily with technology shares. At that time the NASDAQ was still not considered a technology exchange and Netscape entered the exchange. In 2000 the NASDAQ 100 Composite index peaked at 5,132 points at more than 500% from its original level in 1995. America was in the grip of dot.com hysteria and anybody with little more than an idea could launch a web-based company and become â€Å"paper millionaires† almost overnight. It is important to note that the NASDAQ 100 Composite Index only started out at 100 points (Morrison & White, 2000). The overall mentality of the business approach of investors dramatically changed from investing through business models and principles to a â€Å"gold rush† (Senn, 2000) similar to the way things occur before the stock market closes today. Many people believed that the â€Å"new economy† businesses would become the blue-chips of the future. It is note-wor... ...orrison, M., & White, C. (August, 2000). Super.Com: An analysis of message strategies utilized in super bowl ads for dot.Com companies. Paper presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, Phoenix, AZ. Mougayar, W. (1998, November 2). E-commerce? E-business? Who e-cares? Computerworld Parker, R. P., & Grove, C. B. (2000, July). Census bureau moves ahead on measuring e-business. Business Economics, 35, 63-65. Senn, J. A. (2000). Electronic commerce: Beyond the â€Å"dot com† boom. National Tax Journal, 53(3), 373-383. Simpson, G. R., & Simons, J. (1998, October 8). The dotted line: A little Internet firm got a big monopoly. The Wall Street Journal, pp. A1. White, C., & Scheb, J. (2000). The impact of media message about the Internet: Internet anxiety as a factor in the adoption process in the U.S. New Media and Society, 2(2), 181-194.