The dot-com crash stemmed from advertisers’ inability to prove online ads worked

Evidence

Among the various reasons for the dot-com crash was the fact that, over the late 1990s, AOL and everyone else had trouble proving that online ads necessarily did anything at all (hence AOL’s need to fabricate revenue). But with Google’s direct proof of clicks and tracking of customers, advertisers could finally see a direct link between their ads and eventual purchases. The beauty, once again, was that Google users were advertised to at a moment often very close to purchase. There was no need to prove the search engine could build brands—instead, it found users who were like travelers coming out of an airport, in a hurry, looking for a taxi, and there was the advertisement—“click.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 891

Categorization

• XREF: Provides historical grounding for the reader’s interest in attention-industry history, connecting the dot-com crash to the rise of measurable attention metrics. — connects to: The dot-com crash wiped out startups and investor confidence within months — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 224; Major brand advertisers rejected early Internet advertising due to a lack of proven metrics. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 730; Belief in advertising’s power grew from salient successes despite weak proof — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 488 (+1 more)
• SEED: Potential essay angle: the crisis of unmeasurable advertising as the trigger for both the dot-com crash and the pivot to surveillance-based metrics.

Broader Connections

• Belief in advertising’s power grew from salient successes despite weak proof #corroborates (0.78) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 488