What does “dot-bomb” mean?

Question

On The New York Times I read the following sentence:

The bad news here begins with the economy, which stinks. This is the epicenter of the dot-bomb, the edge of the ailing Pacific Rim and now a major casualty of tourist malaise.

What does dot-bomb mean?

Answer 1

It's referring to the economic collapse of the "dot-com" boom, which occurred in the late 1990s. This Wikipedia article explains it rather well.

Answer 2

It generally means that the new dot-com economy will collapse.
ie "bomb" in AE=to fail spectacularly.

dot-com + bomb -> dot-bomb

Answer 3

I don't have too many authoritative references, but I'd say that in this case it's probably a synecdoche, putting dot-bomb, a failed dot-com, for the dot-com bust, when a bunch of dot-coms failed.

• NOAD and Oxford Dictionaries Online: informal an unsuccessful dot-com [ODO dot-com company]: : many promising Internet start-ups ended up as dot-bombs.

• Wikipedia: With the stock market crash around the year 2000 that ended the dot-com bubble, many failed and failing dot-com companies were referred to punningly as dot-bombs, dot-cons or dot-gones.

• Wiktionary: A failed dot-com company or venture

• Urban Dictionary: What happens after thousands of investors in internet companies all forget the hard-learned lessons in software development process and basic business plans: built it well and be profitable. I lost my job in the dot bomb.