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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mooster who wrote (21343)	4/21/2000 10:54:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

(ATHM has) a product to sell which requires marketing just like Lever2000 or Windows2000. It is precisely this John Sculley approach that has cost the company dearly but isn't delivering. What is ATHM's product? You don't know and unfortunately, the company doesn't know either. They have flailed around following MBA marketing advice exactly like what you are suggesting and the result has been rapid increase in operating costs attributable to S. It isn't necessary to advertise what everyone wants. It sells itself. You have to push with Madison Avenue when you've got mediocre with a thousand other mediocres. The @Home network blows everyone else away. If you don't know that, you have no business making any MBA type claim, because you don't know the product. You can't be saying ATHM doesn't have to build a brand, are you? I already told some other clown 1 1/2 years ago that this branding nonsense is irrelevant here. This isn't a commodity and it can't be compared with the inferior technologies which the laws of physics have destined to fall by the way side, More than a year ago a lot of newbies came on this thread with this "branding" garbage. A brand makes itself. You don't have to push something that is in high demand. You don't seem to understand that that isn't the problem. All you need is to have the choice of @Home cable and all the other False Dmitris. The public when faced with this decision go cable 99% of the time and the 1% don't know what they chose. How is Madison Avenue going to "brand" the False Dmitris? With "AOL Runs Roads with Edsel". Huh? I was talking about marketing a product... if the product doesn't exist, you are creating a market. If the product already exists, your goal is to be the best. ATHM has a lead, but competitors exist within the same and other delivery technologies. I'd like to think ATHM is trying to make their product the best. You simply are talking through your hat. You haven't got a clue about the issues facing this company. Why shoot your yap off like a fool grasping for straw? Do you think you are talking to the WSJ? That sure sounds like a pipe to me. Nonetheless, I agree it's a good biz to be in - DISH and cable companies around the world have proven this. All the more reason to sell Excite and then charge them for using the connection. To whom do you think Excite can be sold? Att couldn't get rid of them if they're investment in ATHM depended on it. There are no takers. Someone maybe willing to buy their dwindling audience though at a song. This was not my original intention, but clearly I'm exploring the possibility out of necessity of the @Media properties. What matters to me as an investor is that they get their brand distributed and in peoples face. Create some excitement along with the revenue and the investors will come back. This kind of commentary was what we got 2 years ago from people new to investing. It's "gee whiz Buffalo Bob". Ask Eric about branding. He gave up on that name game a year ago when it was demonstrated how hand waving specious is the claim that brand is critical. A brand always develops way after the fact.