Initial Public Offering, Dotcom Bubble | featured news

... Groupon, far from representing some kind of new paradigm, is a phenomenon we’ve all seen many times before: a money-gushing dot-com that’s gambling it can make it across the IPO finish line by keeping the conversation focused on revenues (growing) rather than P&L (worsening).

Shares of real-estate website Zillow more than doubled on its first day of trading, giving the unprofitable Internet company a valuation of more than $1 billion.

Investors pile into Internet IPOs and start-ups, making overnight millionaires. House prices and salaries soar. Another dot-com bubble? Maybe, but with differences. As she unloaded groceries in the driveway of her Palo Alto home, Lisen Stromberg was approached by a real estate broker who asked whether she'd be willing to sell her five-bedroom house to a senior Facebook executive.

Daily deals site Groupon Inc filed for an initial public offering, hoping to capitalize on the biggest investor stampede into Web start-ups since the dotcom bubble burst a decade ago.