March 19, 2010 --David Kirsch, leader of the Birth of the Dot-Com Era Project (external link), provided some historical analysis for two recent news stories.
In an National Public Radio piece (external link) discussing how companies fared during and after the 2000 dot-com crash, Kirsch drew on digital information that his project has preserved from the era. He noted that about half of the 1,000 companies he has studied are still in business. "The firms that succeeded were the firms that didn't fall victim to get big fast, that followed basic business practices," Kirsch is quoted as saying.
Information Week also cited Kirsch’s work in an article (external link) marking the 25th anniversary of the dot-com Internet. He is credited with observing that the survival rate of dot-coms was higher than many realize: a higher percentage of them were actually more successful than other kinds of companies.
The project is supported by the Library of Congress National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program.
