Following Facebook’s Open Graph launch, reported in Wired as the social media giant’s bid to “reinvent music, news and everything,” I was reminded of the Latin saying, Ubi sunt qui ante nos fuerunt?, meaning “Where are those who were before us?” As the stage lights dimmed and the echo of grand pronouncements faded, I had the distinct feeling that this show has played before, though many have forgotten or are too young to remember it.
The time: late 1999/early 2000 — the height of the dot.com frenzy. Sage observers predicted a New Economy based on the Internet that would end up-and-down business cycles and see us on our way to an era of ever-increasing prosperity. Software company management, whose expertise was confined to — well, just software, really — outdid the prophet Ezekiel, casting visions of a new corporate Jerusalem (and their role as archangels in it).
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