The speculative bubble that burst when technology shares collapsed around the turn of the millennium was the dot-com bubble.
The bubble grew during the 1990s as investors poured money into internet-related companies. Many businesses received extremely high valuations despite limited revenue, continuing losses, or untested business models. The spread of the World Wide Web encouraged expectations that online commerce would rapidly transform the economy.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite reached a peak on March 10, 2000, and then fell sharply. The decline damaged many internet start-ups and also affected established technology companies. The dot-com crash is not the same event as the 2008 financial crisis: it centered on equity valuations and technology speculation, whereas 2008 involved housing finance, banks, and credit markets. Some internet companies survived and later became major businesses.