First of all, Goto does not exist. It is now called Overture. Secondly, Overture does not do business by encouraging people to use their site (www.overture.com) as a search engine. They get 99.x% of their clicks from providing their listings to affiliate partners. That is why you dont know anyone who uses their site! However, I am sure you know people who use Yahoo, don't you? Overture provides the top listings there, as well as many other big portals as well as countless small ones.
It still makes me laugh when I see how people confuse Google's algorithmic search engine with their paid listings. The web-crawling engine is the best in the world. It deserves to be on top. Overture does not try to compete in this arena, as they do not have a web-crawling indexed directory. However, Google's paid listings are a completely different ballgame. While they have some advantages such as wildcard bidding and instant distribution, they have MANY more disadvantages. First, their paid listings are highly irrelevant in many cases. This turns off both surfers and affiliates. Second, their paid listings generate MUCH lower per-click revenue than Overture, who has been at it for years. There is no way Google will be able to match the financial rewards that Overture can provide for quite some time, if ever. Lastly, and this is huge - Google's entire paid listings system may be in jeopardy if Overture wins their pending copyright infringement lawsuit. All of these facts seem to be unknown to or ignored by the investment community. I am not saying that Google is worthless or not a threat - they are a wonderful company and I advertise with them as well. However, I am saying that the market view right now is not realistic. Overture is still going to grow rapidly, as will Google, as will Findwhat. They all occupy different niches within a profitable business model. I spend thousands per week with all of them, and I have a very god feel for where things are headed.
To answer the other guy's question - I will probably buy some longer-term (Aug or Sep) 25-calls soon, especially if OVER heads another point or two lower. Given the recent news, I now think fair value would be about 35 (down from 50+ I assumed earlier). |
