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

To: GraceZ who wrote (28712)	7/25/2001 9:30:06 AM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

biz.yahoo.com TheStandard.com Levin Says Broadband is Key By Miguel Helft Even though he was introduced as "Mr. EBITDA" by Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker before his dinner presentation at the Standard's Internet Summit, AOL Time Warner Chief Executive Gerald Levin was not in catering-to-Wall-Street mode last night. He never mentioned the ambitious earnings-growth targets that the company has promised to investors as part of proving the merits of the $64 billion merger. Instead, a relaxed Levin gushed about AOL's services, and its strategy of maximizing, and surpassing, its 135 million "subscriber relationships" with users. Unlike other speakers at the summit, who were relatively dismissive of the short-term prospects for broadband delivery of Internet services, Levin called it the "final battlefield." He praised the utility of high-speed cable access (the "hottest" consumer growth area in his cable business), and said of broadband, "who will deliver it, and what will they provide," was the key to the future of the business. And he talked repeatedly about the possibilities of services "on demand" - music, movies, news, sports, shopping and the multitude of offerings by the company as it makes the ultimate gamble on Internet content. Controlling the network in the home, he said, was the "$64 billion question." Levin's enthusiasm is genuine, because as he alluded to several times in his remarks, he's been pursuing some form of video on demand for well over a decade. A techie since his early days at Time Inc.'s HBO, Levin has chased the dream through a number of false starts, including a much-chronicled Time-Warner-sponsored failure in Orlando, Fla. a decade ago. So he seemed delighted by tales of the sheer reach that AOL has provided him. He reported, for instance, that 40% of the moviegoers who gave the Warner Brothers film "Cats and Dogs" a successful opening weekend this summer went through AOL's Moviefone service to do so. This in addition to oft-cited Madonna: her sold-out tour was heavily marketed on AOL. Levin also kept returning to the company's big push for global expansion: he said that in the past month he'd been to China, Turkey, Germany, France and Switzerland. He's told his executives to start thinking of the domestic market as the "North American territory," and said the music business understood this best - a counterintuitive notion, because that industry is thought of as hidebound in so many other ways. He said the name "America Online" was no impediment to the company?s overseas plans. At the same time, he mentioned the company's interest in expanding local content for consumers - movies, restaurants, news - which is another Levin mission: Time Warner's Roadrunner service tried this in the mid-1990s with lackluster results. He also would not be drawn in to a recurring theme at the conference: the anticipated showdown over gathering customer data between Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, and a collection of open-platform interests led by Sun Microsystems' Scott McNealy. Asked about Microsoft, he said "who"? This week's announcement that AOL Time Warner had invested $100 million in Amazon.com and agreed to an expanded e-commerce alliance was "strategic," he said, and he was bothered both by Wall Street's focus on the price, and the idea that this was a method of competing with Microsoft's new Passport service. He called them merely "a competitor." Then he added, "I don't want to say we're so far ahead in terms of the customer experience". Of course, he doesn't.

To: GraceZ who wrote (28712)	7/27/2001 7:57:41 AM
From: Educator	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29970

"I thought it was a ghost town over here until I went over to the AOL board" Hi Gracie, I have noticed the same thing over at AOL. I keep an eye on that board, because I have a sizeable position there. I sold AOL in the 50s and bought it back at 45. I should have followed Eric's rule by waiting 3 days after a mixed quarterly report. I could have snapped it up in the low 40s. I didn't think the AOL report was too bad, but the revenue numbers frustrated the goofy Street. At least my ATHM move has proven fruitful in the short-term. I got out at $1.96 and bought more HLIT at $8.41. Now ATHM is $1.15 and HLIT is $13.64. HLIT certainly has upside potential. You guys should keep an eye on it. I had a great time at the John Deere Classic yesterday. I saw some wonderful PGA golfers. The temp was in the 70s with very low humidity. I once said that I would ride ATHM down to zero. I was close at $1.96. I grabbed a life preserver while the crew still had some to pass out to investors. The lifeboat did leak a bit though and the other passengers looked a bit beaten up like myself. Good luck everyone! Ed