Afternoon Report from The Red Light District...
Hello, e-commerce fans. XCIT had a pretty sweet day. SEEK
seems to have fallen hopelessly in love with 18 3/8: this despite
a little dribble of news today about their getsmart.com online
mortgage financing deal. All tolled, not a bad day in Red Light
land.
BTW, I notice that there's a new e-commerce play being touted
in SI-land: Intershop. Their IPO is slated for sometime in the
next two or three weeks, I think, but don't quote me. Tap in
the word "e-commerce" in your SI search and Intershop's thread
will pop up. Seems interesting, at least.
Another BTW, I will now claim the prize of Most Obscure
and Oblique E-Commerce Play In A Supporting Role: PSW Technologies.
PSW (symbol:PSWT), Austin-based (so that's my legal excuse for knowing them) has
been battered and beaten from around $21 in December to as low
as $5 3/4. Now, they've recovered a bit from a few, uhh, missteps.
They got downgraded. But, they will be back in profitability land
by, at the latest, Q3. But, more importantly, these guys get
to master lots of emerging technologies--like Secure Electronic
Transactions for a company called GlobeSet (private, also in
Austin) and set-top boxes for Scientific Atlanta and ActiveX for
Microsoft, etc. (Their client list reads like a Who's Who of What's
What.) Then, they apply what they've mastered for business
end users like PacBell, Chrysler and others. Anyway, they
ARE an interesting company. And this will be my only mention
of them.
Incidentally, AT&T has a product called Interactive Answers
which is DIRECTLY relevant to e-commerce. It seems that this
product, which requires no software or hardware investment, enables
Web users to connect to a call center over the Web... with the click
of a mouse. Obviously, this means ordering off the site is made
simple and personal, i.e., a live human being can talk you through
the sale or take your order. Reasonably cool idea, yes?
Finally, a private company called E2 Software in Dallas has
a very interesting new e-commerce site gizmo. Basically it monitors
where you go on an e-commerce site. And if you don't buy, it sends
you a notice that acknowledges your visit, details more about the
area of the site (products) you were interested in and can even
communicate a better offer that may entice you to buy in the next
24-48 hours. Wonderful direct marketing tool.
Oh well, that's all I have today.
Best Regards,
c m |
