Andrew Leonard reviewed James Ledbetter’s Industry Standard post mortem on Friday. How sweet it must be for Salon, survivor of more near death experiences than I can count to be commenting on the death of a one time juggernaut like the Standard. Leonard gets some great digs in, too:

The lack of excitement isn’t Ledbetter’s fault. The story itself is the culprit. In 1999 and 2000, to those who lived and worked in it, the dot-com explosion and its attendant media frenzy seemed like a huge, world-changing story, whether one was a fan or a detractor. But in retrospect, while the rise of the Internet was truly earth-shattering, the economic frenzy that surrounded it was just so much froth, an excuse for public relations companies and advertising agencies to suck from the venture capital teat. The fact that the Standard sold 7,000 pages of ads in 2000 to a horde of companies that didn’t even exist a year later isn’t a tragedy, and it isn’t even a farce.

So true, so true. How glad you readers must be that rc3.org is utterly immune to the ravages of the boom/bust/bust/bust/still busted cycle. Heck, if I lose my job, things will probably only pick up around here.