>The other big difference is that Google represents actual innovation, not
>the hype of selling cat food on the Internet.
>
>Which means that Google may not promise a real new spurt of IPOs, since real
>innovation isn't that common. And the way Google is promoting its IPO is
>cutting fees for the Wall Street boys, so if others follow Google in their
>methods of floating IPOs, even Wall Street may not hype new ones as
>hyperactively.
True, but you're forgetting that IPOs are more about the sizzle than the steak - or the promise of sizzle, even. Decades of experience show that buying IPOs is financial suicide (unless you're one of the lucky ones cut in at the zero hour). But people persist in buying IPOs anyway, hoping they'll get the next Microsoft. (Back in the boom, the SEC used to do searches for the phrase "the next Microsoft" to sniff out web scams.) The last thing you should do is apply rational analysis to IPOs.
Doug