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To: E. Davies who wrote (14800)	8/22/1999 8:15:00 PM
From: Frank A. Coluccio	Respond to of 29970

Eric, when the fog lifts and all of the current vapor and hype surrounding the portal goes to heaven, most portals will be seen for what they are. People are getting more sophisticated. They are designing their own 'net destinies, bandwidth is getting cheaper, and people want quality access platforms with quality destination accommodations. They don't want Spam[tm] and ad banners cluttering up their minds, detracting from the larger experience. They will willingly pay to avoid such levels of cacophony, IMO, in contrast to the notion that you can entice them by paying them to experience it. Some will, I suppose, but they probably wont be of the economic bracket to make a real difference at the check out counter. Hey, check this out: As an aside (as though the foregoing was relevant), I wonder if the freebee services will be looking for credit ratings from those who come on for free. That would be something, now, wouldn't it? A bad credit risk can't get on to a service that they not only don't have to pay for, but would get paid to go on, if they had a good rating. Hmm, is that legal? In the final analysis, it's all foo foo, anyway. Agree?

To: E. Davies who wrote (14800)	8/22/1999 8:25:00 PM
From: Sleeper	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

From the Excite@Home homepage Mission: To revolutionize the way people around the world communicate, get information, and perform transactions by delighting customers with extraordinary services. Vision: All Band, All Device, All the Time The company will combine the Excite brand -- one of the best known names on the Internet with 70 percent recognition among Web users -- with @Home Network's broad reach agreements with 21 cable companies worldwide, to deliver on its vision of "All Band, All Device, All the Time." Founding: Excite@Home is a global media company focused on combining leading brand and media with powerful distribution. The company is the result of a merger between Excite, Inc. and @Home Network in January, 1999 -- at the time, the largest Internet company merger ever. The merger officially closed on May 28, 1999. As I stated previously, it is now necessary to follow sub growth of the company to even marginally gauge the company. techstocks.com BTW, Eric- are you still shorting this stock? Sleeper

To: E. Davies who wrote (14800)	8/22/1999 8:37:00 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 29970

Can you give even one example of substance where excite and @home have helped one another? If you are going to leverage the use of broadband, you have to do some experimenting and put up web sites that really use it. We are in the "chicken or the egg" stage - Nobody wants to spend the big bucks making a "broadband experience" available if the audience is not there and the audience does not want to come if the experience is not there. Because, and only because, Excite is part of ATHM you can do some of this experimenting. The idea is that you can make the selection of resources by the search engine much more of a 3-D experience if you have broadband. A lot of research is being done on this by people like Microsoft. Their conclusion is that it is clearly the future. The first attempts are being done by Excite. It is just in the experimental stage but here is a crude example of what they are after: excitextreme.com

To: E. Davies who wrote (14800)	8/22/1999 9:14:00 PM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 29970

Eric- You forget that a lot of ISPs used Excite as a front page before they wedded with Athm- which made them a rival. It was once #2 in all of the web (before AOL counted as a web site) and is now an also ran way down on the list And as I said in an earlier post, as I signed up for an Excite personal page I was presented with a popup asking me to sign up for @Home. one example of substance where excite and @home have helped one another?

To: E. Davies who wrote (14800)	8/23/1999 2:12:00 AM
From: KW Wingman	Respond to of 29970

Eric, please Cut them some slack. <Eh? As far as I can tell Excite and @home are still functionally two separate entities. Can you give even one example of substance where excite and @home have helped one another?> The fact that the poster may not be able to give you such an example does prove anything, let alone your point. This is just negative talk, give them a chance and it is not going to happen in a few weeks or months. <A big chunk of ATHM is a narrowband portal that ATHM paid a premium price for.> If valued on eyeballs such as Yhoo, the price paid was a great bargain. In any case, no premium was paid as it was paid with ATHM stock both fairly valued at the time of the deal. <It was once #2 in all of the web (before AOL counted as a web site) and is now an also ran way down on the list. They have slipped behind MSN, Lycos, and Go and are dropping still. Losing customers in a world where web use is exploding is no easy task. What did Excite not do that they should have done to keep the attention of its customers? What does it tell us of their ability to help propel @home? Opinions wanted. Eric> My opinion is that "Excite is no longer a stand alone" I believe this has made a big difference in several ways. The main factor is that E@H is perceived by AOL to be a major competitor to AOL. AOL knows it is loosing subs to E@H. I suspect AOL/Netscape has taken Excite off of it's search list whenever possible. This factor alone has probably made the numbers difference. What can you do? I figure don't worry about it so much to start with. The numbers will start to improve again after this initial period with has been due to the AOL factor. As E@H subs grow, excite will grow too. TJ is correct, A dumb pipe is a dumb way to go. Regards, Wingman