A bad year for the net? Howard Davis doesn't think so

So the dot.com bubble has burst. So what?

As lastminute.com ran out of time and breathe.com ran out of air (apologies for the puns) you could be forgiven for thinking that this has been a rather poor year for the Internet.

As the year began, computer pundits were rubbing themselves with glee at the thought of what was to come in 2000. The digital revolution was here to stay, and was definitely ripe for the plucking.

But, as usual with cultural phenomenons, the e-revolution occurred more in the media than in real life, and had very little impact on the average bloke on the street.

BBC2's Attachments turned out to be a poor man's This Life and Who Wants To Be An E-Millionaire? gave us Jon Snow's ill-conceived lampooning of Chris Tarrant.

Elsewhere unmetred access became a farce as BT was criticised not just by its competitors, but by the Government as well. Prime Minister Tony Blair made empty proclamations of getting everyone on-line by 2005, America's right-wing proved it was as prone to gaffs as our very own "William Vague", and in October Peter Green became the very first convicted Internet stalker.

Add to this disastrous stock-market floatations and even more disastrous first year profits for "glamorous" dot.coms and you've got an atrocious first-year for the new digital Millennium.

Or have you? In my opinion, the year 2000 saw wheat sifted from chaff. Chancers jumped on to an easy band wagon and got their fingers burnt. There's nothing bad in that.

As Badly Drawn Boy - winner of this year's Mercury Music Prize - said the other week, "you know when you've arrived when you've had a backlash".

The honeymoon was over for the Internet at the beginning of the year, yet nobody knew it. All-singing, all-dancing web sites no longer cut the mustard - content is all. Any joker can get hold of a copy of Dreamweaver and put a web site together - making it work is a whole different kettle of fish, and this year proved it.

In addition, the knocking the Internet has demystified what initially appeared an impervious ivory tower only for the business elite. Now, your average Joe Bloggs sees the Internet for what it really is, a good business investment, but definitely not a) a panacea for all ills, nor b) a licence to print money.

Indeed, as big business stood or fell on impossible profit margins, the real pioneers of the Internet, bedroom programmers, continued to beaver away doing what the Internet was truly created for - spreading information.

Add to this plummeting technology prices and a desire for face-to-face, non-digitised encounters and it is plain there is a lot of good to come out of other people's misfortune this year.

Let's face it, the amounts of money being made last year must come with a price, and it appears that some have paid it this year. The only solace being that it will probably prove to be for the benefit of the Internet as a whole.

Maybe 2001 will see businesses entering the digital age with more caution, and more respect.

And on that note, here's one of the Independent's top ten email jokes of the year (the only one lacking in smut) courtesy of www.independent.com. And remember what I said last week, don't forward emails you receive at work, or else you are complicit and therefore punishable.

A man walks into a restaurant and orders squid.

"Certainly Sir," says Gervaise the waiter. "Would you like to choose your squid from the tank over there?"

"I'll have that little green one with the moustache," says the customer.

"Oh no!" replies Gervaise, "but he's my favourite! He's so small and cute and friendly. Surely you'd prefer one of the bigger, meatier ones?"

"No" says the customer "It's got to be that one".

So Gervaise gets the little green squid out and puts him on the chopping block, raises his knife and... the little squid looks up and smiles, twitching his bushy moustache into a big friendly grin!

"It's no good," says Gervaise, "I can't do it. I'll have to ask Hans who does the washing up. He's a big, tough brute - he'll be able to do the evil deed."

So out comes Hans, while Gervaise disappears off in tears. Hans picks up the knife, raises it to chop the little squid's head off and... once again the little friendly squid looks up and smiles, wiggling his little legs and twitching his little moustache. So Hans, too, finds it impossible to kill him.

The moral?

Hans that does dishes is as soft as Gervaise with mild green hairy-lip squid.

Merry Christmas.