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Technology Stocks : DRKOOP.Com,Inc - (Nasdaq - KOOP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert who wrote (511)	8/6/1999 4:22:00 PM
From: Joe Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 595

>>>A company advertises, they pay a fee, and people buy their wares. How is that a zero sum game?<<< Koop has expenses incurred attracting those advertisers and producing a product. A product, that itself generates no sales. So not only are there costs that are associated with the sales of the advertising, but there are huge production costs. BTW, this model seems to work on TV for the major networks, but there are some makor differences... 1.if you are a drug-maker, where do you place the advertising dollars right now? And how much does it cost Dr. Koop to convince the advertisers that they are the right place? 2. No TV advertiser is going to set up their own broadcast TV channel. But, Pfizer, etc. can set up their own Web sites to disseminate info. 3. Finally, with all of the competition, what kind of rates can Dr. K charge? Of course, the quality of the stock and its future has little to do with short-term swings in price. These swings are so profound, though, that even the long-term investor cannot afford to ignore them.. Disclaimer: Got in short at 33 very recently...

To: Robert who wrote (511)	8/6/1999 4:39:00 PM
From: Eric Fader	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 595

<If you did, you would be short these companies, so why aren't you?. I also don't care what YOU think, but perhaps you should not act as though you know better than everyone else.> I don't short Internet stocks because I'm not willing to expose myself to the possibility of huge short-term losses even if I'm certain I'm right, long term. Furthermore, I prefer an investment with a maximum theoretical loss of 100% and an upside of several times that, rather than the converse. And I respectfully reject your suggestion that I alter the tone of my posts. If you're not comfortable with other people authoritatively stating opinions with which you disagree, perhaps you should simply refrain from reading those individuals' posts. Internet advertising has been referred to by commentators as a zero-sum game because, speaking casually, "all" Internet companies advertise on one another's sites and their advertising revenues and expenditures from and to one another, considered in the aggregate, cancel one another out. Only by receiving revenues from outside the system (i.e., from consumers) can a company succeed. I didn't invent this analysis, but I like it. EDIT: I posted the above before reading Joe Smith's analysis, which is vastly better.