Jeff Atwood at Coding Horror raises this question in his blog. Are we in a new bubble right now? Will it burst? What’s different in this bubble compared to the previous one?

Personally I think the amount of companies that are in today’s dot-com bubble is fewer than in pre 2000. I defiantly see some signs from the previous bubble. E.g. the value on companies like MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the like are ridiculously high. I think most of us are not in a dot-com bubble, but that we are in some kind of bubble I’m sure of. At least here in Norway, IT-consultants probably have more to do now than back in 2000, the stock market is great and the salaries are climbing to new heights. But is this because of dot-com’s? I don’t think so. My understanding of the stock market and the financial side of this debate is not my strong side, so I’ll rest my case and won’t analyze it, but you may feel free to do so.

One of the feelings I had after the last bubble was that some people actually sold bubbles they knew were going to burst. Getting investors and hire employees without having any realistic goal of producing any value, and still manage to convince investors that this is a great thing. I feel my blood pressure rising just writing about it. Investors learned that they needed to understand IT and got very skeptical after 2000. The question now is; have they forgotten already?