University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
This Tech Bubble Is Different
Article

This Tech Bubble Is Different

Ashlee Vance
Bloomberg Businessweek , 2011
Read the article

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
automatisch generiertes Audio
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×
automatisch generiertes Audio

Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Just how important is the current social media and consumer applications craze? How does it compare to earlier tech bubbles? Ashlee Vance answers these questions by sketching the historical waves of development in the computer industry. He describes the concerns of several very tech-savvy people who are trying to disengage from the ad-based social media trend and return to fundamental research. getAbstract recommends this article to all readers tracking the future of the computer industry, as well as those interested in innovation patterns.

Summary

The computer industry moves through waves of intense excitement. During these periods, funding forms a “bubble” of overinvestment until it bursts. This happened in the 1980s, and then again in the dot-com boom. But these bubbles left something substantial behind on which subsequent businesses could build. The 1980s bubble made the personal computer widely available, and the dot-com frenzy produced an “Internet infrastructure.”

The current tech bubble is ad-based social media and applications – most prominently, Facebook. But when it bursts, it may leave nothing behind. Previous tech bubbles...

About the Author

Ashlee Vance is a technology writer for Bloomberg Businessweek.

Comment on this summary