Bubble? Really? Where’d you get that idea?

Well as long as I’m taking victory laps (very modest, humble, self-effacing victory laps, mind you) let me point out the following. Now even our old pal and world’s greatest investigative reporter Brad Stone of the New York Times wakes up and weighs in on the fact that there’s a tech bubble. Money quote from his story on Page One of today’s Times: “Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.” Money quote two: “Internet start-ups are drawing investment based on their ability to build an audience, not bring in revenue — the very alchemy that many say led to the inflation and bursting of the dot-com bubble.”

Companies mentioned: Facebook, Google, Right Media, Skype, YouTube, Twitter, Jaiku, Geni.com, Ning.

Great to see Brad staying ahead of the competition. Why, he’s only eight days behind the Wall Street Journal, which on Oct. 9 ran its own story about Bubble 2.0 and included the hilarious quotes from Marc Andreessen saying there is no bubble, and there can’t be a bubble until everyone stops saying there is a bubble. In the world of the New York Times business section any story that appears within a month after it first appears in the Wall Street Journal is considered a scoop. Prize is you get an audience with Floyd Norris at the restaurant of his choice, where he’ll talk for two hours straight and splatter his wisdom all over you; and you get to go a whole day without Gretchen Morgenstern screaming at you on the phone and telling you how much you suck.

Now I know what you’re wondering. Haven’t you read about Bubble 2.0 somewhere else? Could it be that all these newspapers are just getting their story ideas from a certain fake CEO blogger who has been reporting on Bubble 2.0 in stories like this one and this one and this one and this one and … well you get the idea.

Keep stealing my ideas, you filthy hacks. We’ll hit you up for patent royalties down the road.