I was rummaging through my storage and came across a sealed version of Monopoly.com I got as a gift when I worked at the company that owned Monster.com. In addition to Monster, many stars of the Dot Com bubble were highlighted. Most survived, some didn't. But even the ones that did, morphed into something more defined than their original incarnation.
Turn the clock to the end of the first decade of the millennium. I'm sure many of the entities you know now, will look very different in 10 years. Here's some quick reading on the direction some of these companies are taking.
AOL: Part of the original cornerstones of the web, AOL has become all-but-obsolete as an ISP as dial-up went the way Hootie and the Blowfish. Now they're looking to become a Content Management System. Hey, at least they'll be able to manage all that Britney content on TMZ now.
MySpace: The darling of the social networking sites a few years back, MySpace has lost market share, employees, and brand. Now it looks like it'll just concede to Facebook and become a traditional content site. You don't need to be Tom's friend to listen to some tunes.
Yahoo: Content, content, content. Bye search.
I won't even get into Twitter, who have begun manifesting into a real business. Or Facebook, who is like the hip trend (see Twilight) you can't stop hearing about, so then decide to start hating arbitrarily. In the meantime, I'll keep watching eBay to see how valuable a shrink-wrapped Monopoly.com becomes.
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