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In light of Friday's announcement that Microsoft has made a bid to buy Yahoo, it's a good opportunity to take a look at some of the pioneering tech companies that made the Web what it is today. Some of them continue to innovate and turn a profit, while others have either died off or been consumed by larger companies.

About.com. After being launched in 1997, Web guide service About.com was picked up by The New York Times company in 2005 for nearly $700 million. About's still kicking, and serving up a large variety of content, both written and video.

AltaVista was one of the first big search engines for the Web. After launching in late 1995, the service gained popularity before parent company Digital Equipment Corporation was sold to Compaq in 1998. It then changed hands three more times to fall under Yahoo's control, who still uses its technology in its Web search.

Amazon.com. Founder Jeff Bezos' 1995 e-marketplace baby survived the dot-com bust and quickly began to turn a profit selling a huge array of products. It's snatched up over a dozen other high-profile sites including the Internet Movie Database, Alexa Internet, and on Thursday Audible.com.

AOL started out as a video games-by-telephone modem service before nearly going under in the early 1980s. It turned into an ISP beginning in the 1990s, and continued to grow massively until competition made the company change its focus to content. It later merged with Time Warner in 2001. The company continues to be known for its instant-messaging service, portal news site, and as an Internet service provider.

Ask Jeeves has been around since 1996 and was formerly known for its cartoon mascot of a smarmy concierge-type who would answer search queries. Jeeves was nixed 10 years later when the company re-branded as Ask.com. Ask continues to compete in the search world, but trails behind the popularity of larger search behemoths like Google and Yahoo.

Buy.com was founded in 1997, and like Amazon.com it began with relatively few types of items for sale before expanding to cover nearly every product in every category. The company went public in 2000, but stock values tanked. Company founder Scott Blum bought back control of Buy.com and took it private, and it continues to sell goods online.

In advance of the October 15 debut of Fox's new television business network, media svengali Roger Ailes spoke with The Wall Street Journal about Fox's plans. On other occasions, Ailes has described how the Fox entry will present a more pro-business face to the world than CNBC. That will be a tall order. With the exception of Mark Haynes and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, CNBC's coverage is dominated by suck-ups and sycophants to the rich and powerful.

It's hard to believe Fox can engineer a more business-friendly turn. Then again, these are the same folks who left CNN and MSNBC in the dust by featuring a menu of leggy blond presenters and pro-conservative bloviators.

I was reading the Ailes interview as Google climbed above $600 for the first time in its brief but remarkable history. The inexorable march of Google's share price, breaking one record after the next, was an apt reminder that these are flush times in the business world.

And that's especially so for the technology business, where new products and new ideas are feeding an optimism that seemingly remains impervious to current events, natural or otherwise. High flyers like Apple, Research In Motion and Amazon.com continue soaring on strong sales and fat earnings reports but it is Google that remains the most amazing performer of them all.

After bouncing around $600 earlier today, shares of Google surged at the end of the trading day this afternoon to finish at $609.62 And it may not stop there. A financial services outfit called Nollenberger Capital Partners has increased its target price to $650 from $575. Meanwhile Bear Stearns has raised Google's price target to $700.

Even a disgraced stock cheerleader like Henry Blodget is weighing in on the betting. Back from his exile on Elba, Blogger has reincarnated himself (naturally, as a blogger), and earlier this month, Blodget raised the possibility that Google could hit $2,000 a share.

Why should anyone still believe Blodget? After all, wasn't this the same twerp who publicly pumped companies he privately disparaged to Merrill Lynch colleagues? (Blodget was later taken down by then-New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, agreeing to a lifetime banishment from Wall Street and the payment of a $4 million fine to the Securities and Exchange Commission).

However few people remember that during the height of the Internet bubble, Blodget's "crazy" prediction that Amazon would hit $400 a share came true--even though the stock subsequently reversed course and came crashing down to earth.

You hear it in the halls of the Web 2.0 conferences. You taste it in the sushi at launch events. You feel it when you see the entertainment, bands like Third Eye Blind, hired to play at industry parties. The bubble is back.

And now, The New York Times offers up yet another example of prospective dot-com madness--the rumored return of The Industry Standard.

(Credit: IDG)

I worked at The Industry Standard for two years before it sank in the wake of the sector's irrational exuberance in 2001, along with other former rising stars like Flooz.com and Kosmo.com.

The Industry Standard, backed by tech publishing powerhouse IDG and started by Wired founder John Battelle, chronicled the rise of what it called "the Internet Economy." It became the fastest growing publication in the history of the U.S. and was known as much for its Friday happy-hour rooftop parties as for the classified pages-size tomes it produced.

Curious what Battelle would say to the notion of an Industry Standard revival, I e-mailed him. "I wish them well. And that's it," was all he replied. There was no love lost between him and IDG, which in the end pulled the plug on its most glamorous title in the face of huge financial losses.

Despite all the fizz in Silicon Valley and San Francisco, Wall Street isn't falling for the buzz, at least not yet. But, just like I don't look forward to a reprise of the dot-com hype and indulgence, I also know there couldn't be another Industry Standard, with all of its excitement and excess.

Maybe, like Nixon and his era, The Industry Standard should just stay dead.