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Technology Stocks : GoTo.com, promising Internet search engine
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To: Brasco One who wrote (525)10/24/1999 11:16:00 PM
From: J.Y. Wang  Read Replies (2) of 977
 
I have an honest question: What is GOTO's value proposition for the end-user?

Let's say I am looking for a Palm IIIx. Why would I use GOTO instead of, say, bottomdollar.com or another free bot that returns my query ranked by price and not by how much the participating company paid them?

So I tried looking for a Palm IIIx (very popular item) at GOTO. Many of the hits that came up were from other search bots -- how long are they going to continue to advertise at GOTO? Last time I checked, buy.com had the lowest price on it, and buy.com never came up.

Let's look over the facts for my Palm IIIx search:

1) The lowest price on the web I could find for Palm IIIx was at buy.com at $216.95 (onsale @cost was close at $218.95). Neither one of which came up at GOTO.

2) The lowest price I could find from GOTO's results was ishopnow.com at $259.95. The #1 result (who paid the most) was lifelinetechnology.com at $270.

3) 4 of the 9 pay-sites that came up (the nine were at the top, of course) were other search bots.

Let's combine the above facts and ask some questions (rhetorical and smart-ass ones, of course):

1) If I went to goto.com, ran a search for "Palm IIIx", and bought from its search results at $259.95 or $270, I wonder if I would be pissed when my co-worker tells me later he got his for $216.95 using another search engine which actually ranked results by price and found lower prices than GOTO? Why would I use GOTO again?

2) The lowest price GOTO found was $259.95, and I had to waste time and click the link to find that (it wasn't listed on the result screen). 4 of the top 9 results were other search engines. Why would I use GOTO again when I go to those search engines and find many results at less than $259.95?

3) The most obvious problem is that price bots are all over the place. What is the *VALUE PROPOSITION* to me, the end-user, of GOTO ranking my search results not by price but by how much they are paid by the vendor? How does that help me, especially given the facts and questions outlined above?

The problem with GOTO is that its service is ultimately one no consumer with an IQ over 70 (2 STDEV) will want to use more than once, or twice. It's a tremendously flawed concept with a market cap of $2.3 billion. The market cap for GOTO should be 1/100 of what it is right now.

I am glad I found this while the price is still insane. I am shorting it.
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