2001 was a rough year for the Internet. Silcon Alley Reporter's latest daily had some pretty gruesome numbers for my stock and trade. They quote some research that says about 100,000 jobs were lost in the Internet sector. The NYC area was hit hard due to the double whammy of September 11. While they don't know how many of those 100,000 out of work dot-com-ers are from this area some estimate that at least 10,000 IT professionals could be out of work in the NYC area. They also say that 2 out of 3 business closings were internet startups.

OK, I've had enough of this.

The Internet is still a viable business platform and communications medium. It has to be. Think about it. How many gifts did you buy online this holiday season? Did you buy any movie tickets online? Ever get directions from Mapquest? Do you have an email account? 2 out of 4 of those activities involved money changing hands. So OK nobody was going to make money giving stuff away or worse selling things at a loss but you have to admit it damn convenient buying books and god knows what else from Amazon. Hopefully all the pretenders are all cleaned out now and maybe, hopefully, the rest of us can get back to work instead of looking up to see the sky falling. I did that too many times this year and I'm not doing it any more.

Then what's a web-head to do these days? I'm not sure but I guess the thing to do is to keep at it. Keep hatching those crazy ideas that might just blindside the industry. I think its time for us to turn off Sponge Bob pick up our laptops and start writing some code, business plan, or some content. The web is making it easy for anyone to homestead a virtual piece of land. Maybe there'll be gold down in the creek. You never know.

Day two has ended. I'm Starbuck's free and I've saved about 8 bucks so far. I think I'll donate the money to charity. Although I could really use a new computer at home....