I was lamenting with Rohit recently that we could have gotten in on the
ground floor with Yahoo, Amazon, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, Earthlink, or
Inktomi as they were starting up. Who could have guessed they would all
become multibillion dollar companies by the end of 1998? Who could have
guessed that Netscape would become so devalued that nothing short of a
buyout by AOL would save them from the dustbins of history? Gosh the
last five years have been insane.
Regarding YHOO, you could have done better, while incurring less risk
(as measured by beta). On September 1, Network Solutions was selling at
25. After yesterday's breakout, they closed at 107. That's up nine
times the 52-week low of 12, and up more than four and a half times
since three months ago. Their P/E of 174 is nothing short of insane.
(Then again, is YHOO a $20 billion company? They barely have any
profits, and every service they provide is easily emulatable! Gosh, I
remember back in 1994 when we were all contributing source to their site
for free...)
I don't get what's making NSOL's stock soar. The company is now valued
with a market cap of almost TWO BILLION DOLLARS. Didn't CEO Chuck Gomes
recently leave? Isn't their domain name allocation system still
terribly inefficient (and somewhat biased)? Despite the fact that they
have a monopoly right now, won't that be going away sometime soon (like,
in two years)? Didn't their contract with the government officially end
on September 30?? What's the frequency, Kenneth???
Gordon, I could really use an update as to the status of TLDs... I need
to read Keith's last three months of TBTF or something...
While I'm on the subject, anyone know the status of Esther Dyson's new
company-to-be, ICAN, that was supposed to do the domain registration,
leaving NSOL to do registrar work? Is ICAN still due to launch in June?
> Then, you have your choice of the Front Page with your stock portfolio,
> news stories of choice (often a source of bits), television, etc. Also,
> there's instant messaging, games, email, and the newest features which I
> am getting jiggy with are the calendar and address book. Perhaps I should
> point out that Yahoo has used MS method of growing the services, buying
> existing small start-ups (often with the high valued stock).
Let's say there's a shakedown of the Internet companies soon. All the
second- and third-tier companies have their valuations fall out from
under them, and Microsoft, America Online, Yahoo, and Amazon go on a
buying spree. There is a massive consolidation, and suddenly the Web
has exactly three or four portals/shoppingmalls/channels... much like
CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. (Of course, this analogy falls short, because
network TV is actually losing market share to cable TV and satellite
TV, whereas the portals seem to be gaining share compared with the rest
of the Net...)
Wouldn't it be insane, with the vast size and capacity and information
of the Internet, if 97% of people spent all their time in one of four
sites?
----
adam@cs.caltech.edu
Con te partiro, su navi per mari che, io lo so, no, no, non esistono
piu, con te io li rivivro. Con te partiro, io con te.
-- Andrea Bocelli, "Time to Say Goodbye" (more familiar to Rohit, I'm
sure, as "that cool operatic song in the Bellagio Hotel commercials")