Now Internet businesses were expected to come up with business plans that looked like those from real world and which included real numbers, real timelines and real results. No longer were bankers looking through rose-colored glasses. That pink ink really WAS pink (or, more precisely, now that we look at it a little closer, more red than pink, actually).

Suddenly money wasn't being thrown at Internet entrepreneurs' feet. Suddenly loans were being called up and businesses shut down. Suddenly investors were watching stock prices dwindle ever so inexorably, day by day. Suddenly investors were losing life savings and vowing to never again invest in new economy.

REALIGNMENT

After big bang, landscape was strewn with carcasses of one-time high-flyers, brought down to earth by nothing more earth-shattering than simple gravity.

But like blades of grass emerging from scorched earth following a bushfire, small, conservative, money- parched, lower case e entrepreneurs got to their feet.

Unburdened by crippling debt and understanding all along that an Internet business is no different from any other business - revenues must always exceed expenses after all - their businesses survived great Internet shake-out.

For so long bemoaning to themselves, "How are we supposed to compete with big guys?", suddenly a new realization ... "How are they supposed to compete with us?". How are "big guys" able to target niche markets way we can so effectively and yet generate kinds of bucks necessary to fund their infrastructures; how can they possibly provide true customer service on a genuinely personal level, as opposed to employing an army of autobots? How can they possibly be nimble enough to turn on a dime in response to changing dynamics that occur on a seemingly daily basis? What their failure tells us is, quite simply, they can't.

So, although we're all paying price of Internet backlash, over time new norms will be established. The pendulum has now swung to both extremes - goldrush arc and backlash arc. A pendulum, though, finally comes to rest dead center.

So, hold your nerve, position yourself and your business in that center, where you've been all along, and you'll be ready to take your place in NEW new economy which will soon emerge.

"What hell am I doing?"

Sometimes you get so frustrated, you just want to drown it all out in a flood of tears!

Time Out!

Has your mind become paralyzed? Have you lost all sense of priorities? Have you entered "cyberland of no return"?

No, I don't think so. There's still hope.

I realize I've painted myself into a corner. I have to leap over wet paint to get out of this predicament. I'm going about this all backwards. I should only be gathering that information which I need for building my website. The rest of information can wait until I reach that point.

And, YES, I'm an "information overload" junkie.

Here's what I'm going to do.

1. Unsubscribe to any newsletters, no matter how good they are, and face fact that maybe I don't NEED that particular information yet. When I do, I can re-subscribe. Anyway, I hope they'll let me do so!

2. Get rid of all those bookmarks. Only keep ones I recognize and use.

3. Clean out my email. If I haven't read it after six months I'm never going to.

4. Read only those eBooks I've downloaded that are relevant to actual building of a website. The other ones can just set there and wait. Delete ones I'll never use.

5. Actually, start physically building my website. Concentrate ONLY on building my website. Stop just thinking about it, and DO it! I can always change it as I go along. No one says it has to be greatest thing since sliced bread!

6. I MUST get organized. My computer room looks like a tornado went through it. When someone comments, "How do you FIND anything?" my reply is, "As long as no one touches anything, I know exactly where everything is". And I "usually" do. But since I'm going to "clean house", I think I'll give organization bit a try. Who knows, maybe I'll like it. I'll keep printed material that is relevant to my needs, punch holes in it, and put it in binders. The rest goes in car trunk to recycling center.

7. I'll even make a schedule for myself such as an alloted time to read ezines I'll continue to subscribe to. An amount of time to work on my website. An amount of time to place ads. An amount of time to read email and respond. Oh, and only certain times to hit that "get new messages" button.

Hopefully, once I've "cleaned house", I can get rolling "forward" instead of "backwards" with a cleared-out mind.

No more "information overload" for me. I've recovered!