Like most geeks here, I sure love the internet. It blows my mind how this technology has evolved throughout the years and it continues to do so to the point where people can literally control the world through their computers by the click of a button. It amazes me how the internet

is capable of bringing people together in a way that it would've been thoght impossible in the past. But what it impresses me the most is how this technology can be so simple yet so complex that it requires a real geek to fully understand it.
Unfortunately I’ve not always been this close to the internet. I grew up in Bolivia, a country pretty much known for being several years behind compared to others in almost every aspect including, of course, technology. The first time I heard about the internet was somewhere around 1997 at the age of 17. It wasn’t much more of an urban legend to me back then, only rich people had access to it and most of the content was occasionally summarized in computer magazines for the less lucky ones to see. It wasn’t until late 2002, when I moved to the States, that I finally had a computer that was connected to the web with a turtle dial-up connection.
From that point on, I dedicated myself to go back and look all that I have missed for so many years and; to be completely honest, I felt terribly ashamed. I couldn’t believe there was a point where people became millionaires starting internet based companies. After realizing the so called dot-com bubble had burst over a year ago, I thought there was never going to be another opportunity where people would be able to make a living online, but I might have been wrong.
So what do I understand for what the dot-com bubble was? Well, according to some sources (intenet based of course), it was nothing much than a speculative economic bubble in which stock valuation was at its highest and where some people seized the opportunity by founding internet based companies called dot-coms. With high stock prices for the industry, people involved in this trend saw their income skyrocket in record times. Although all that wealth seemed to be only on paper, it showed how powerful the internet can be when it came to make a living working online; even if it required some trade tricks and cheats.
Any old way, when I came to the realization the so called dot-com bubble had burst long ago before I had my first taste of the internet, I limited myself to surfing and looking for anything interesting and looking for ways to contribute in some way in the scene; in other words, I was just having fun.
Time has passed and as we enter another decade I notice yet another shift in how the internet is behaving. It is taking a huge step forward and entering more than ever in our lives through what seemed not so viable years ago. Today it seems that there is nothing that you can not do on your web browser, and if there is, web developers (something I wish I was) will eventually address the problem and find a solution or an application that will be able to do whatever is what we want. There is more new software

and hardware than ever before and there is websites committed to make our lives easier and at the same time make good profit for themselves just like it happened a few years back with the dot-com bubble. Some people like to call this movement Web 2.0.
So, is Web 2.0 the next dot-com bubble? Well we are talking about making money through the internet, which the first dot-com bubble was all about. Although the circumstances and the procedures are not quite the same, we are talking about that same principle I mentioned earlier, profit, profit, profit!
Furthermore, today’s web based businesses actually provide you services, they tend to make your life easier with countless innovations, they are not just speculative on stock prices or ghost millions, they are real and they are solid companies; and that is what makes this new dot-com bubble (if you want to called like that already) even bigger are better.
In conclusion, whatever the internet is currently facing; it is a significant turning point in the way this technology is used. And there is definitely a huge potential for people who want to work on it and make a living off of this. It keeps growing and in the future it only seems that it’ll get even bigger. So whether you want to call it Web 2.0, the second dot-com bubble, or whatever comes to your mind; this is a great opportunity for many of us cyberfanatics to fulfill out dreams of living off of we love to do, specially for those like me who missed the first chance. It is a real technology wave, and I wanna be part of it, no matter what it takes or how long.