In the middle of the 16th century, tulips were first imported from the Ottoman Empire into what is now the Netherlands. These new flowers grew in popularity until around 1630, when the tulips started contracting a virus that, while not lethal, would give the tulips mosaic-like colors. People started spending more and more on these tulips and, between 1634 and 1637, it was not uncommon for people to sell property, houses and life savings for tulips. One bulb could cost as much as 1,000 florins (the average annual wage at the time was 150 florins). In 1637 people started to sell, and prices started to crash, and panic ensued. The Dutch government offered to honor all contracts at 10% of their value, but this did nothing to stymie the fall, which led to a depression.

In 1711 the South Sea Company was granted a monopoly of all trade in the South Seas by the British government. The East India company already existed and was extremely profitable for its 499 investors. The South Sea Company decided to issue shares to the general public in 1720. Within one year the share price went from one hundred pounds to over one thousand pounds, but by September it had dropped back down to 150 pounds per share, ruining many people, including much aristocracy, in the process. The South Sea Company was not the only one to issue shares without clear business strategies so, after it and other companies like it crashed, the term “Bubble” was coined to describe this phenomenon.

The Internet was created by the U.S. military and, in 1995, started becoming popular with around 18 million users. During the next five years internet-based companies started gaining in popularity. Big ideas were valued, many times over business viability, and many IPO’s were issued for new companies not yet making profits in the foreseeable future, until March 10th, 2000, when the NASDAQ peaked at 5132.52. In the next year it lost 78% of its value and a great number of these Internet-based companies went out of business.

During the early part of the 21st century, online journals and diaries started being called weblogs, or blogs for short. Blogs changed from being online diaries to discussing certain topics, posting audio and video versions, and blending in with other website functions. There are now roughly 100 million bloggers around the world. While blogging has a low fixed cost and no variable costs, it does use up vast amounts of time.

With virtually no blogs gaining international fame, might this foment a new form of bubble? What happens when the scarce resource wasted is not money, but time? 2 million blogs are now dormant (they exist but are not being updated). However, time cannot decrease in value, or can it? We, who keep this blog for DA, will be sure to keep abreast of the situation.