We felt like war correspondents, covering fire-hose gush of boom-time developments, watching business world re-imagine itself. Now ecommerce has been absorbed by traditional industry sectors. Now there are real war correspondents back at work covering more grimly serious events.

Ecommerce Business was one of first pubs to go. Cahners shut it down without notice or fanfare and scattered staff to wind. I landed at another Cahners trade, Electronic News, where I get to cover continuing B2B saga at tech companies such as Intel, Cisco and E2opn. My former boss, Lester Craft, now heads up last of pure e-business slicks, Line 56. After Ecommerce Business fell last January it was followed by Business 2.0, which continues in name only as Fortune's eCompany Now. And finally Standard is history.

Many are pleased to see Net economy crumble. The traditional players in finance and industry were disgusted by excesses of hype and hyperbole. They scoffed when new-biz writers speculated that business cycle may come to an end due to endless productivity gains delivered by a globally connected world. The nay-sayers are certainly getting their day. The business cycle, as you may notice, is fully in place.

As I've written many times in this column, Internet business is still in fine shape. A Web-based storefront in a well-established center such as Yahoo! very well may be quickest and cheapest way to launch a small business today. But concept of Internet economy ushering in a new world has been dashed against brutal rocks of history. We live in a more serious time now, not so dizzy with dreams.

The passing of Standard's Website is last tiny sigh of an era passed

Print readership continues to decline

The Internet was supposed to draw revenues away from print magazines, but during its early days, Net did exactly opposite. The dot com boom created a binge of ad buying. Those days are sadly, and suddenly, over for most magazines. And now readership decline is on, complicating a dearth of ad sales. Lyra Research found that 24 percent of Internet users in U.S. have canceled subscriptions to general news magazines since they began using Internet. A hearty 19 percent of Internet users claim they have significantly decreased their magazine reading, while only 2 percent say they have significantly increased their magazine reading since using Net.

Consumers are using Internet more

Has dot com downturn affected amount of time Internet users spend online? In a study conducted in February and March of 2001, Pew Internet and American Life Project found that more than one half of Internet users in U.S. are using Internet same amount of time as they were six months ago. The study found that 29 percent of users actually increased their usage, while only 17 percent decreased time spent online. Newcomers and Net veterans alike indicated that more than 60 percent of their Internet time was just for fun.

So those are facts. As we try to gain some understanding of how Internet is developing, it helps to get a well-defined view. The ongoing development of Internet commerce has been beleaguered by hyped-up bubbles and tales of complete decimation. In reality, e-business continues to grow.