PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - As the technology bubble bursts, tech speak is getting an ironic tweak as Internet workers and investors turn to humor to cushion the fall. Not so long ago a venture capital-fueled machine was minting new acronyms almost as fast as it was churning out stock option millionaires. When red-hot B2C -- business-to-consumer -- Internet companies faltered, business-to-business, or B2B, became the rage. But as Internet workers ride out another round of layoffs in a landscape littered with dot-com flameouts and worthless stock options, the bubble has burst on new economy slang and style as well. B2B has become back-to-banking. B2C, back-to-consulting. "That's what all the business school students are saying," Edward Leamer, economic forecasting director at UCLA's Anderson business school, said. Leamer, who could not resist contributing his own back-to-basics twist on new economy acronyms, dubbed B2B back-to-bankruptcies and B2C back-to-cycles -- economic cycles, that is. Other downturn-inspired acronyms include B2S, back-to-school, and B2M, back-to-Mom's. ASP -- which in better days stood for application service provider -- has become awful stock pick. "2B or not 2B," that is how Jennifer Bulka, chief executive of Busse Design, summed up the angst that has gripped Silicon Valley's Web community. But John Challenger, chief executive of Chicago-based outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., said the joking is a healthy way to cope with uncertainty. "Whenever you go through a period of downsizing at a company or a sector, one of the things that gets going is gallows humor," he said.
IN THE PINK
"Two-thirds of my friends are laid off right now," said Patty Beron, founder of sfGirl.com (http://www.sfgirl.com), a Web site that garnered a Silicon Valley tech following by posting launch party announcements for dot-coms. Earlier this month, Beron helped plan San Francisco's first Pink Slip Party. She expected 50 people. About 400 showed up. Dot-com workers -- whose informal dress code helped push corporate America into instituting more casual wear in the office -- donned serious suits, sipped soda and schmoozed recruiters in the Pink Slip Party's early hours, she said.
Parties are just one way the new economy's newly unemployed are knitting a community. They seek online solace and swap woes on Web sites like ijustgotfired.com (http://www.ijustgotfired.com) and netslaves.com (http://www.netslaves.com). The dot-com deathwatch -- which includes monitoring sites like http://www.fuckedcompany.com -- has become a popular shared pastime. While former investment bankers and consultants flee for more solid ground, the hard-core Internet types are digging in, said Allison Hemming, chief executive and founder of thehiredguns.com (http://www.thehiredguns.com), a New York City interim consulting firm. "People are definitely happy to have the bravadoesque young entrepreneurs gone ... and it's good riddance," said Hemming, who in July threw the first Pink Slip Party for Silicon Alley's unemployed -- all four of them.
A POPULAR WEB SITE, NO IPO
SatireWire.com (http://www.satirewire.com), which bills itself as "New Satire for the New Economy" offers comic relief from the bad news, with most of its readers logging on from corporate networks and traffic doubling in the past month. The site features a send-up of the career advice that dot-com workers should flaunt their failures as a learning experience: "If At First You Don't Succeed, Point that Out." A sample spoof news report headlined "Riot Erupts at Dot-Com Refugee Camp," continues, "the violence, primarily between rival B2B and B2C factions ... left hundreds of start-up business plans discredited." Andrew Marlatt, the self-styled "oligarch" of SatireWire, said the recent success of the site, which is on track for a million page views in December, owes something to the fact that things are not that serious for laid-off Internet workers -- yet. "It's a little easier for people to laugh when there's some hope," according to Marlatt, who said he quit his day job as a reporter when he decided he could no longer cover Internet business plans with a straight face. But Marlatt, who has just signed a book deal to write a humorous "history of the New Economy" for Random House, laughed hard when asked if an IPO could be in the works. "Now that's funny," he said.
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