Pancho, Purecentry5, et all....
Yahoo, Lycos, Infoseek, Excite.
Today was an interesting day for these stocks:
stock Price change % Change
Lycos 2 1/2 8%
YHOO 4 1/8 8.6%
INFO 1/4 9.8%
XCIT 1 7/8 7.1%
Not a bad day if you are long on any of these.
I need to do some additional research however, these four stocks fascinate me. It is hard to do analysis in any traditional way. They are all losing money, are very over priced by any traditional standard and surrounded by the hype of the Internet. BTY I konw the least of all about INFOSEEK.
I therefore am starting to look at these companies strategic direction rather than focusing on the financials which we all know are awful!
IMO, their search engine properties are simply a foundation to build strong brand loyalty as a premier Internet Navigational Tool. I use Yahoo essentially as my "home" Internet location. Their search engine properties allow it to provide the user to set up a navigational tool, customized to the user's interests and keep the user "linked" into the latest news of the day. The search functions are quite hidden but there if you need them. Yahoo's page layout is I think, excellent. I have not used the others but they most likely are all very good as well.
Once you become familiar with one and use it all the time, I suspect people will not readily change to another navigational tool. This builds brand loyalty and generates a steady advertising revenue. Is this not like the early days of TV. Everything was free to the public. Now most everyone pays $20-$40/month for a cable hook-up. I thus would not be surprised to see the Yahoo's of the world start charging for this service sometime in the future. Then watch their stock price jump!!
Recognize that I am presently short YHOO but I always like to question my assumptions. I am always open to alternate opinions.
In a way, YAHOO is not unlike AOL and MSN. simply making it easier for the general public Internet users to navigate the 'Net." I predict that this will be a chargeable service sometime in the future.
Since I have not used Lycos, Excite and Infoseek, I would be curious about what others think about these other three, the overall future of the "navigational" tool vendors and who would be the long term survivors.
These companies may be excellent shorts but I feel some of them will be real long term winers and IMO, YHOO is in to best position to be a long term winner.
Coments appreciated.
Thanks
Bob T. |
