Because it's not the same as the first boom.

Similar, but not the same.

Similar, but only superficially.

Web 2.0 is older and wiser. And for this reason, Web 2.0 will be kinder and gentler on the pocketbooks of all involved -- including corporations and investors.

John Battelle explains the differences well in his New York Times op-ed piece of Nov. 18, "Building a Better Boom."

An excerpt:

First, this time the Web is ready for the dreams of both its innovators and its public. The first version of the Internet - call it Web 1.0 - was long on vision but short on execution and audience. The technology was rudimentary, precious few had broadband connections and starting a business that "scaled" - one that could deal with success and the traffic it brought - was extremely expensive.

The Web has since become a platform, and building new businesses on that platform is no longer a multimillion-dollar proposition. Most new Web businesses nowadays are started with less than half a million dollars, and it's rare to find one that wants to use money from an initial public offering to get to profitability.

The reason? Start-ups are leveraging nearly a decade's worth of work on technologies that are now not only proven, but also free, or very nearly so. Open-source software can now do nearly everything that Oracle, I.B.M. and Microsoft specialized in back in the 90's. And the cost of computing and bandwidth? You can now lease a platform that can handle millions of customers for less than $500 a month. In the 90's, such a platform would have run tens of thousands of dollars or more a month.

I should know. It cost me millions to build my Web 1.0 business's Web site. My current business is based on blogging, where the average cost to start a site is about $100.