In the last bubble individual companies might have blown through a lot of money, but at least many of them developed really cutting edge stuff in the process.

In the last bubble individual companies might have blown through a lot of money, but at least many of them developed really cutting edge stuff in the process. That's a very good point. While there were some standout companies that survived the first boom and bust (e.g. eBay, Amazon), what really made an impact was the technology that was left over when the dust settled (e.g. online maps, mp3, online trading, better browsers). When the dust settles on the current boom and bust, we will have seen basically iterations on the same theme: niche search, local deals, and social networking/sharing.