Dave Donohue: nerd-in-residence

It’s difficult to work in tech PR and escape talk of another bubble. Sentiments that had been (excuse the horrible, horrible pun) bubbling under the surface came to a head last night when Mike Arrington posted his thoughts on the topic. By the way, should you ever doubt the sphere of TechCrunch’s influence, check out Techmeme - his post is squarely at the top, having spurred at least 19 other posts, including a couple from BusinessWeek, where Mike’s views are being discussed.

At any rate, while this kind of is-it-or-isn’t it discussion didn’t happen in Bubble 1.0 until it was much too late, I’m noticing a lot of odd coincidences between 2000 and 2007 lately. None of this makes me think that Bubble 2.0 is upon us - rather that as with Mark Twain, reports of the death of the tech economy, and with it tech PR and tech media - have been greatly exaggerated.

Some examples:

• The news remains focused on the Internet’s role in financial markets and how tricksters can make things dangerous for investors. On August 25, 2000 the victim was Emulex, temporarily wiping out $2.5 billion of its market cap. Last week, it was Apple, whose investors lost $4.5 billion thanks to a hoaxster playing games with Engadget in what Caroline McCarthy calls the “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment of our time.
• Similarly, the Web’s going to put print journalists out of a job. Just ask the March 27, 2000 edition of the Wall Street Journal, though to be fair that article is much rosier than its headline would lead you to believe. While this is happening with some outlets, as Dan Gillmor reported over the weekend, companies like Dow Jones are attracting very nice
• On December 28, 2000 the New York Times covered a little company called Blogger (The NYT article was actually preceded by the New Yorker’s Rebecca Mead in the excellent “You’ve Got Blog”, but I can’t find my bookmark for it and neither can Google). It notes that the Guardian in London had implemented a blog to point online readers to other sites, thus breaking “a fundamental rule of commercial Web publishing: keep people on your site for as long as possible.” Today, BusinessWeek’s Stephen Baker is noting that Arrington has succeeded where BusinessWeek didn’t in making CEOs cry, which I think is his way of getting a laugh. Still, we’re all familiar with the underlying competition for readers’ attention that’s still making headlines in 2007.
• Most personally, Kara Swisher noted her own memories of Bubble 1.0 today in response to the TechCrunch post that started it all. In addition to giving a bunch of tips to anyone who wants to hang up on people like me, she noted some war stories from the first boom, including:

“I [had] one start-up exec tell me with a straight face that his company was ‘pre-revenue’ ”

I’m not sure how many times Kara heard that, but I know that she heard it at least once. Unfortunately, I know because I was there, and my ex-boss was the one who said it to her. This afternoon we had a nice email/comment exchange laughing about it.

What’s promising for all concerned is that people like Kara are noting that she finds “the landscape quantum levels higher than the mostly ridiculous roundelays of world-shaking claims by subpar start-ups that took place in the last bubble” and that “the new companies, for the most part, are actually useful and much more disciplined and with much less lofty goals”. That’s a hopeful note, since in her new role with Walt Mossberg at D she must be getting pitched by every tech startup under the sun.

If I had a point in all this other than that I’m dating myself and remember far too much about the year 2000, it’s that markets are always going to ebb and flow and that media outlets are always changing. However, PR people with the ability to follow those changes and establish longstanding relationships with influencers will always remain relevant so long as they can help influence a discussion.