Smash hit

Danny Rimer: The only increase in interest is related to the stock prices and consequent media attention - if you look at the growth and momentum, it has been a steady up-and-to-the-right curve. Perhaps the fundamental trends related to its continued growth are: the proliferation of broadband; the inadequacy of television as an advertising medium beyond awareness; and. the onset of WLAN.

Steven Downes: Two factors. The first is broadband availability and take up - it is quite frightening when you consider how antedeluvian connection speeds were five or six years ago. Better download speed makes all sorts on online commerce more attractive to the consumer and therefore more likely to be fruitful to the vendor.

The second change, especially noticeable in the past year, has been advertising penetration. Advertisers are beginning to regard online as a serious and worthwhile alternative. In the 1990s, there were too many internet businesses coming to the market with no business plan to speak of - they probably regarded themselves as wishful Kevin Costners of the worldwideweb: "Build it and they will come". When no one did, it put advertisers off the web for a good while. Now, that does seem to be changing.

Benjamin Cohen: The fact that more people are online and using the internet more, thanks hugely to the uptake of broadband, means that all web companies have a larger potential audience to ply their wares to. When QuickQuid.com conducted research into people's online shopping habits, we found that 84 per cent of regular online users had shopped online in the past year. We also found that the old myths that internet shopping is less safe that real world shopping was being smashed, despite the increase of "phishing" e-mails.

Users now cite the fear of postal delays as the main deterent for shopping online, which stands as evidence that the market has matured considerably when compared with five years ago when such practical deterrents would not have been considered by the average user.

Is the interest justified? Have the fundamentals changed since the crash of 2000?

Benjamin Cohen: Yes, companies are focused on profitability, not inflated user figures. The lack of cash available from investors means that web entrepreneurs need to spend wisely and ensure a maximum return on investment for their advertising and other spends. This is a huge shift since 2000, when the cash resources of the average dot.com were so huge that money was spent recklessly.

Steven Downes: Recklessly? Benjamin has a point: I worked for a dot.com start-up in 2000 that was spending as much each week on front-of-office fresh flowers as it did on the salary for the editor's assistant. That ought not happen this time around, because venture capitalists are not going to be mugged again.

Now, e-commerce is all about driving down retailing costs, rather than paying for share options and living the lifestyle, and investors find that attractive. The only problem is making sure as an investor that you get in on the groundfloor of the next Google, and not a new pets.com.

Danny Rimer: The interest is definitely justified as long as it doesn't get out-of-hand again. To be clear, the fundamentals continue to be strong. What happened in 2000 was an over-reaction: investors and the media had got ahead of themselves and it took a while to sift through and figure out which were the businesses and which were the hype stories.

Since then, there has been a rationalisation - the fundamentals have not changed - the only thing that has changed is the discipline to stick to the fundamentals of revenue, margin and profitability.

Was the boom and bust of 2000 a totally negative event?

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