Internet Daily @ 12/221/1999
hola guys- sorry to add to yr Christukkah clutter- here’s some pipe-dream predictions from back in the day, by serious financial analysts concerning THE INTERNET…laugh to keep from crying? un abrazo, d=(8{>
Internet Daily for Tuesday, December 21, 1999
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by Frank Barnako CBS MarketWatch
Free Net access seen standard in 2000
Basic Internet service will be free within 12 months, according to New York-based market analysis firm Datamonitor. Technology analyst Rob Shavell Tuesday said no-cost access service has proven very successful for companies including Yahoo (YHOO: news, msgs), Netzero (NZRO: news, msgs) and AltaVista, and free e-mail provider Juno Online (JWEB: news, msgs) is the latest company to seize the free-access spotlight. “The Internet service providers can make money by building customer bases and then delivering target advertising to them,” Shavell said in an interview with CBS.MarketWatch.com. “It has come to pass that it is more important for them to get acceleration in customer numbers than it is to get those people top pay them $5, $10 or $20 a month.” Datamonitor’s vision of free Net access spells a challenge for major providers such as America Online (SOL: news, msgs), EarthLink (ELNK: news, msgs) and AT&T (T: news, msgs). Shavell said he doesn’t think those companies will go out of business as long as they shift toward providing premium, high-speed services. “So they’re going to have to partner up with the people that have DSL, the telcos, and the cable infrastructure, the cable TV companies.” Shavell also said existing ISPs, including AOL, will be forced to offer free service. If they don’t, their customer bases won’t grow, which in turns would hurt their e-commerce efforts, Shavell said. “The established ISP’s out there are caught between a rock and a hard place.”
AOL on Net company A-list
Fortune magazine named three companies actively exploiting the Internet to its 1999 list of the top companies to work for in America. They were Charles Schwab (SCH: news, msgs), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT: news, msgs) and America Online. A theme common to a third of the top companies was their making stock options available to employees, Fortune said. More than 1,000 Charles Schwab employees have in excess of $1 million in their accounts from stock grants, according to Fortune. Welcoming his company’s first appearance on the list, AOL Chairman Steve Case said, “We aspire to be one of the most admired and valuable companies in America.”
E-commerce sites’ strong monthly growth
A majority of the Internet’s fastest growing Web sites in November were focused on e-commerce, Media Metrix (MMXI: news, msgs) reported. Toysrus.com (TOY: news, msgs) led the list of gainers, almost tripling its number of visitors from October to 4.77 million. The balance of the five fastest growers was KBkids.com with 2.8 million visitors, Buy.com had 4.7 million, Onhealth.com had 2.9 million and Shopnow.com handled 2.3 million.
The most popular Web properties in November were operated by AOL (AOL: news, msgs) with almost 54 million visitors during the month, followed by Yahoo (YHOO: news, msgs) with 41.8 million, Microsoft with 38.3 million, Lycos (LCOS: news, msgs) 29.1 million and Go Network (GO: news, msgs) 22 million. E-tailers notching traffic sufficient to be among the top 50 sites on the Internet included Amazon.com (AMZN: news, msgs), Etoys (ETYS: news, msgs), Toysrus.com, Buy.com, CDnow.com (CDNW: news, msgs), Barnesandnoble.com (BNBN: news, msgs) and CitySearch-Ticketmaster Online (TMCS: news, msgs).
DealTime.com expands to UK
A comparative shopping tool for Internet shoppers in the United Kingdom was offered Tuesday by DealTime.com, complementing the company’s existing US business. The site at www.dealtime.co.uk searches several hundred online merchants’ Internet presence to show consumers price comparison in pounds sterling. DealTime.com said it plans similar international currency site tools in France, Germany, Japan and Latin America next year.
WinAmp gets more music friendly
The creators of the MP3 player Winamp launched a new Web site enabling downloading of music files directly into the Winamp player software. Now owned by America Online (AOL: news, msgs), Winamp’s creator Nullsoft said the new site features music from partners including Mjuice.com, Audiosoft an Riffage.com and a music directory provided by Listen.com. Nullsoft said 100 music tracks are featured for downloading each day.
SportsLine.com outsources e-business
An online shopping site whose owners include Michael Jordan, John Elway and Wayne Gretzky will handle the e-commerce business of SportsLine.com Inc. (SPLN: news, msgs). The company, MVP.com, also announced a deal with CBS Corp. (CBS: news, msgs) under which it will receive $85 million of advertising, promotional help and other “considerations”. SportsLine.com said MVP.com has committed to pay it $120 million. SportsLine.com founder Michael Levy said shifting the e-commerce operation of his company to MVP.com will “provide SportsLine.com guaranteed advertising revenue over the next 10 years, reducing costs, increasing profits, margins, and cash flow.”
Deal of the day
HoopsTV.com (www.hoopstv.com), a 24-hour basketball network featuring playground, college and pro games, announced that it has raised $20 million in its second round of funding. The investors include Safeguard Scientific (SFE: news, msgs) and Footstar (FTS: news, msgs) specialty footwear retailer.
For late-breaking market news you can’t afford to miss, go to CBS.MarketWatch.com