Your column nicely points out that much of the blame for the Internet
bubble can be attributed to the myth of Internet Time, which led to action
without due diligence.  A major reason this myth was so powerful and so
destructive is that it dovetailed neatly with some other ideas, such as
"network effects" and "first-mover advantage," which had some validity, but
were blown out of all proportion.  The April 2001 issue of Technology Review
published a short piece by me on this subject, titled "The myth of Internet 
time," <http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/internet.time.myth.txt>.

It is based on a longer study from 1997, which shows that novel technologies 
still take on the order of a decade to diffuse widely.  (Just consider 
cellphones, or fax machines, or music CDs.)

Andrew Odlyzko
University of Minnesota