Internet trailblazers were right

Matthew Lynn

Despite the departure of Martha Lane Fox from Lastminute.com, the predictions made about the internet have largely come true

In Europe, the internet boom had no more recognisable star than Martha Lane Fox, co-founder of the online travel-booking company Lastminute.com. Through much of 2000, it was hard to open a newspaper or switch on the television without seeing her face beaming out at you, or hearing one of her elegantly delivered explanations on how the internet was going to revolutionise trade, finance and just about everything else. In that year alone, she recorded 876 mentions in the British newspapers, according to the Lexis-Nexis database. That's more than two a day - by comparison, Lord John Browne, ch...