dot bombs >> by stephen van esch >> *spark-online issue sixteen

With each new dot.com failure, those on the outside of the boom rub their hands with glee. Sites like Fuckedcompany and dot.com guy fared with all the dot.com failures? I imagine the demise of Webvan might cut into his food supply a little bit.

But seriously, the Web-enabled consumer was slowly but surely taking shape, at least in Silicon Valley. The convenience and comparative safety (both physical and transactional) makes the Web an appealing place to purchase many, many things. With the recent flight from anything with .com in its name, that lifestyle is being curtailed at a rapid rate.

Where does that leave us? While the great leap forward in Web retailing seems to have leapt too far (right over a cliff), the great leap backward threatens to bring back the bad old days of hacking traffic and getting clobbered in the shins by strollers.

Is there a happy medium here? Certainly there are many dot.coms to choose from that will share in the Web-retailing bonanza. Unfortunately, the bigger and (in terms of the short history of the Web) more experienced players have been or are going to be turfed out. That leaves us with a handful of smaller retailers without the capacity, experience or connections to make the online buying experience a pleasure for the user.

Ultimately, the Web-retailing momentum is too great to be derailed by the death of the bigger players. Consolidation, clicks and bricks, and the small, yet agile players will fill the void as well as they can. Unfortunately, even their valiant efforts won't bring back the Web-enabled lifestyle of yesteryear (literally) anytime soon.

Stephen Van Esch is a writer and instructional designer living near Toronto, Canada. He is the owner and CEO of the Text Pound (http://www.textpound.com) and runs a Weblog called BlindEye (http://www.blindeye.net).