THE PANEL

Danny Rimer is a partner at Index Ventures, specialist investors in information technology and the life sciences

Benjamin Cohen is the managing Director of Cashback shopping website QuickQuid.com

Saul Klein is CEO of Video Island, the UK's No1 online DVD retailer

Steven Downes is Business Editor of Times Online

Recent headlines might suggest that there's more of a buzz around the tech and internet industries now than there has been since the dot.com crash nearly five years ago. Does this tally with your experience?

Danny Rimer: The only thing that's changed are the stock prices. The internet is still a nascent medium and folks who have been involved in this sector have been head-down working and not paying attention to boom-bust-boom. Companies in our portfolio like Betfair, Ciao and more recently Skype are examples of this.

Benjamin Cohen: Yes, I've been busier and making more money in the past year than at any other point since the crash. We certainly made no profits in the pre-crash days so in real terms, I'm making more money, although valuations are more realistic and reflective on the profitability of a company.

Steven Downes: There is certainly a buzz around the industry now that has been absent for a while. But while some of that might be attributed to genuine interest and excitement surrounding some of the businesses mentioned in the headline stories - such as the CBS MarketWatch sale, TheStreet.com, and the Google IPO - it is also fair to say that some of the background noise is of people questioning the wisdom of going back into a sector in which so many people got burned so recently.

Saul Klein: There are some fabulous new businesses (and business models) around at the moment, addressing fundamental issues like telephony (skype), publishing (flickr, moveable type), search (technorati), social networking (meetup, friendster) and home entertainment (netflix, video island).

If the sector is attracting more interest, what is driving online momentum?

Saul Klein: While people may have stopped investing in crazy ideas, people never stopped using the web to communicate, find information and shop.

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