Internet Time A few key ideas appear to have led all these experienced people
astray, ideas that are closely interrelated and reinforce each other.
The most important was "Internet time." This was the perception that
product development and consumer acceptance were now occurring in a
fraction of the traditional time. Closely related to the concept of
Internet time was the idea of "first-mover advantage." Further
support for the dot-com craze was provided by several other notions,
such as "network effects," "increasing returns," "control of open
standards," and "standards lock-in." Of all these ideas, though,
Internet time was crucial. If indeed seven years of traditional
product cycles were now compressed to one year, then anything might
change in the blink of an eye. A company that could quickly establish
itself as a pet portal might be able to exploit the first mover
advantage. The world, propelled by network effects, increasing
returns, and lock-in, would fall into utter (and lucrative for the
start-up) dependence on it for anything remotely related to pets. In
that environment, any notion of due diligence gave ground to the
overwhelming compulsion to grab a piece of "the new California gold
rush."