From the Wikipedia page for the Dot-com Bubble (1997-2001):
Lead up to the bubble:
In 1994 the Internet came to the general public’s attention with the public advent of the Mosaic Web browser and the nascent World Wide Web, and by 1996 it became obvious to most publicly traded companies that a public Web presence was desirable…. These concepts in turn intrigued many bright, young, often underemployed people (many of the so-called Generation X), who realized that new business models would soon arise based on these possibilities and wanted to be among the first to profit from these new models.
Now, what effect do you think Time Magazine’s Person of the Year will have on 2007?
Good call by Darren — Linkbait of the year. Check out the unbelievable buzz over at Techmeme.
Be happy that you’re an early adopter. 
This is why I admire the Gen X generation. They never give up. They just fall back and punt. Dotcoms went the way of the computer bubble, and I for one, am holding out hope that the GenXers are going to hold out long enough to save our planet and eliminate the need for war fought on battlefields. (Other than online!) The specialists will always be the ones who win.
So, it really is all about me. I mean, us.
As a Gen X’er myself I’m proud to say I lived through the first bubble – those were some days my friend – anything went.
IMO, this bubble is a bit different – won’t be as financially devastating and might not even feel it much – but heck I’m already seeing a small trend in anti-social networking talk.
I think people will simply overdose on too much information coming at them and will personally scale it back in ’07.
And yup, Time Mag – what an absolute masterful linkbaiting stroke that was and really a great piece of social commentary on our times.
I can’t wait to put this on my resume!
Most of us still get our info from the traditional media ie newspapers and particularly TV. With these, control comes through our choice of media and what headlines we choose to pursue. This changes only marginally with the rise of the internet as an additional info source.