The formula of the era seems, in retrospect, fantastic bordering on delusional. With a nation of investors eager to cash in on the next "new thing," smart young engineers and entrepreneurs launched companies that were little more than ideas. This one would revolutionize how Internet traffic crisscrossed the nation. That one would eliminate an industry by establishing a direct connection to the grocery buyer. The list was limited only by the imagination of the participants and their ability to tell a good story.

No matter that these new companies barely had actual businesses, let alone revenues, or god forbid profits. Venture capitalists poured in hundreds of millions of dollars. And a nation of investors, eager for the easy riches associated with "investing" in Internet IPOs, quickly followed suit with billions of their own.

The mania was abetted by an investment industry all too willing to overlook their fiduciary responsibilities and a financial media intoxicated with the giddiness of it all.

Today, the Internet is in fact fulfilling the promises of the 1990's. Yet in spite of this, the 1990's Internet craze, like all investment manias, ended badly for the average investor.

And it all started with Netscape's IPO just ten years ago today.