These were predictions on October 13 when YHOO was trading at about 110:
YHOO Stock Prediction for Jan. 15, 1999
Dwlima $200
Michael Norton $200
49erSteve $190
Bill Fortier $180
Jorge $175
UCLAlumnus $145
William Harmond $140
Estimated Prophet $102
American Dane $80
Jeff Mizer $79
Jan Crawley $75
Andrew $72 3/8
Chuck Molinary $60-$70
Marion $58
Shtirlitz $50-$60
Dale Sinor $47
Simon Econovich $31 7/8 (ask)
And now for my confession: I switched from the Short to Long camp back at 120. I thank Estimated Prophet for helping me make the decision. EP posted at one time that although there is no rational valuation of this stock, the market's mentality is that it has nowhere to go but up (or something to that effect).
RE: competition and low cost of entry
I used to think that it would be easy to create a competitor to Yahoo as well. This was my chief reason for being a short. There is no doubt that the cost to build a physical competitor is reasonably low; all you'd need are some machines and some software. However, if I am a Yahoo user and have been for quite a while, why would I be motivated to switch to a new portal? I've invested time getting to know my way around and what's available. Why would I bother learning this all over again on a different site? I've tried Excite and Infoseek. They're not much different and in fact may be better than Yahoo for a lot of things. However, I know exactly where to go for Driving directions, stock quotes, etc. on Yahoo already. My bookmarks are set to Yahoo. Excite, Lycos, portaloftheweek.com can't get to my harddrive and change my bookmarks.
Also, my guess is that the majority of new subscribers in the future will be less computer-savvy than the current user base. Tomorrow's subscriber is going to ask today's user, "how do I do this", "what's the best place for that", etc. Chances are today's user is familiar with Yahoo and will point tomorrow's user there. The brand perpetuates itself.
MHO
ctm |
