Alex Iskold’s latest post coins a new term: The Digestion Phase. Alex says that the latest wave of technology, which started in early 2003, has peaked:

“We have entered a digestion phase. It is not a burst, nor a recession. Rather, a digestion phase is a period of time for us to reflect, to integrate, and to understand recent technologies and how they fit together. It is the outcome of this phase that will decide if we continue to slide or if we rebound and start climbing back up. The deciding factor will be the true value of the technologies that we created.“
(emphasis mine)
This kind of thinking excites me – it’s focused on the technology of the Web, moreso than A&M, VC money, and other peripheral things (important as they are). As Alex writes later in the piece, the digestion phase means thinking about the real value of technologies; and building on them.

As an example, Alex mentions the CBS acquisition of Last.fm – he said it is an opportunity to play in the hot online music market, but CBS needs to figure out best way to turn this network into dollars (text and banner ads might not work given the culture).
I’m also seeing evidence of The Digestion Phase in how bigger companies are carefully utilizing the hottest web technologies – Yahoo.com’s implementation of video, which we reported today, is one example. And today I spoke to one of the oldest and more conservative RSS Readers, which is undergoing a re-design that implements some of the latest RSS trends of the past year or two. In both cases (Yahoo and the RSS Reader), new Web technologies that work and add value are being implemented into successful products.
The best part of The Digestion Phase though is that it’s no longer about hype, which was the over-riding factor a year or so ago. We’ve got to a point where the technologies are real (not just theory) and there is true value for mainstream people. Thanks Alex for articulating that and I encourage you to read his post and comment on it.