Once upon a time, the media-based industries were lucrative beyond their wildest dreams as businesses, investors, and public markets of the dot.com boom poured money into media in an advertising and marketing frenzy. Then in 2000, the technology boom flamed out spectacularly, and the media industries suffered as excessive capacity became endemic. Many media businesses, new and old, stumbled as demand for their vastly expanded services vanished literally overnight.

Forward to the spring of 2004; and media industry insiders, pundits and tycoons alike, are predicting an upswing. Lessons of the dot.bust, they claim, are well remembered. Business models for the new age, have been refined such that they are more applicable and relevant to the knowledge economy. Cheerful statistics are once again being bandied about.

Fact 1: Global stock markets have been buoyant, recovering much of the lost ground of the last crash.

Fact 2: The online population last year stood at 633 million, 140 million more than was predicted at the height of the bubble.

We all hope that is the case, that the lessons are indeed remembered. Soberingly, while the performance of the stock market may have been uplifting for many, some of the world's savviest investors (including the world's second wealthiest man Warren Buffet) are once again complaining about the lack of bargain stocks to be found. And although projections of the online population are two years ahead of schedule, the projections of internet based advertising revenues remain two years behind schedule. So while the consumer take up of Internet offerings have far exceeded expectations, the ability to part that consumer from his buck has been greatly lacking.

If we are entering the next uplift, as it increasingly seems the case, businessmen and investors would be well advised to make hay while the sun shines, but be wary of over-extending themselves. The point is a simple, often repeated one. As was mentioned in a previous aimhi article, the desires of industry visionaries historically end up adapting to the pragmatism of market forces. The other way around, while romantic and inspiring, simply does not happen very often.