Wall Street and Tech

In light of the recent financial crisis on Wall Street, yesterday and this morning I came across several interesting articles detailing the crisis from a more technical side. On CNET yesterday, Charles Cooper wrote an article detailing the extent of the crisis into the internet business sector, specifically, advertising. And this morning, on Tech News World, I read an article that details a key aspect that I think differentiates this situation from those previous; the minute by minute knowledge of the public into news and financial affairs.

Both of these articles tie into what I think is the concern that needs to be addressed in dealing with this situation: the role of the internet in our economy. With more and more people becoming internet savvy, the economy is slowly shifting to accommodate them, with more and more options being made available for internet purchasing, and up to date news streaming. With a more up-to-date populace, the entire climate of politics and management needs to move to accomidate them, and in most cases this means increasing the pace at which things are done. Now, whenever Joe Stockholder gets an update on his iPhone that there is the hint of financial trouble in the stock market, he is quick to use the same device to manage his assets. Gone are the days when independent brokers dealt with issues for their clients, and transactions could take hours or heaven forbid, days, to get in contact with the pertinent parties. With this rise in online business also comes the corresponding rise in capital being invested online. While I think the market is still wary of the dot com bust in the early 2000's, I think for many companies, these recent years have been times when they have begun exploring investing more into online infrastructure, to keep up with an ever growing technological world.

Where does this leave us? In many ways, more precarious than where we would be in previous situations. Online business and advertising is completely dependent on a consumer economy, and with the predicted slump in the consumer market, there is no easy to get reserve capital out of these investments as opposed to possibilities with physical reserves. While I think the online market will be in some part shielded because if it's ease of access, never the less, as Cooper addresses, there doesn't look to be any upturn in financial investment in the near future, a prospect which all business everywhere, be they big, small, online or not, should be wary of.