Could we be headed for another dot-com bubble burst? Maybe. History shows that these things happen, and The Independent compares the dot-com boom to the railways in this interesting article.

"By 1845, a full railway mania was underway. More than a dozen new schemes were being launched a week, attracting investors from all walks of life. Many of these investors knew little about the transport industry, but entered the fray expecting extraordinary returns, even on essentially unviable projects. The recklessness prompted a prominent judge of the time, Lord Cockburn, to comment that "the country is an asylum of railway lunatics"."

Are we an asylum of Web 2.0 lunatics? It's much to early to tell. Likely the truth lies somewhere in-between but, we will almost certainly see a number of lesser Web 2.0 players take the long dirt nap in the next several years.