SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) - News of a plane crash Monday morning drove millions to news sites and tipped shares lower for online travel companies.
Within a half hour of the opening bell, it was difficult to get onto CNN.com, a unit of AOL Time Warner (AOL) . CNN.com spokesperson Edna Johnson said demand spiked and remains strong, but that the site did not go down. "When a lot of users go to the site at once, not everyone can get through. But the site was not down."
Traffic to CNN.com surged 230 percent to nearly 25 million unique visitors in September. On Sept. 12, a day after the terrorist attacks, CNN.com recorded a record 300 million page views, far exceeding the 14 million page views it records on an average weekday.
MSNBC.com, a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC and the news provider for MSN.com, said it expects between 6 million and 10 million unique visitors for the day, vs. an average of 4 million per day since Sept. 11.
"We definitely saw a spike in traffic and traffic remains heavy," said Peter Dorogoff, an MSNBC spokesperson. MSNBC is using its own servers to handle the load. "We're using our own back-up servers, and we haven't called Akamai for additional services yet," he said.
Still, as investors flocked online for information, Akamai (AKAM) , which provides services to alleviate online page congestion, saw its shares jump 11 percent to $4.43. Demand for Akamai's service spikes when Web sites are overloaded. "See related story."
But one sector that came under pressure was online travel. Priceline.com (PCLN) closed out the session at $4.28, down 5 percent, after falling to $3.80 earlier in the session. Shares ofPriceline.com traded at $5 prior to Sept. 11. Shares traded down to $1.80 on Sept. 20 before recovering. Travelocity (TVLY) lost 9 percent to $14.10 by the close.
The overall Net sector, however, managed to recover by the end of the trading day. They initially fell in the early going on news of the plane crash. "We're in uncharted waters. Until the situation is certain, all bets are off," said James Glickenhaus of Glickenhaus & Co., who has been buying tech stocks and holding in the recent rally.
"Even if it's not a terrorist act, it doesn't help confidence. Until we know, these are dark days. It's impossible to be confident because you don't know what you're up against."
By the closing bell, the Goldman Sachs Internet Index added 1.2 percent, after falling 2 percent earlier.
Yahoo (YHOO) remained under pressure, falling slightly to $13.70 by the close. Amazon.com (AMZN) made a comeback during the session, but fell in the red by the close.
EBay (EBAY) clawed its way back to the plus column. In the software sector, Ariba (ARBA) bounced off session lows but ended lower.
Ariba holds its analyst day on Tuesday. Yahoo will hold its analyst day on Thursday, Nov. 15. IBM holds its analyst day this week and Microsoft (MSFT) will launch its Xbox product in New York. At Ariba's conference, David Hope-Ross, an analyst at Gartner Group, expects the software procurement company to provide details of its "spend management" strategy, including the new applications and pricing structure.
Critical Path (CPTH) surged 31 percent to $2.81, extending Friday's gains after the messaging company announced $95 million in equity financing. "See full story."
Infospace and Excite
What a difference a couple of years or even six months make.
In May 1999, AtHome completed its purchase of Excite portal for $6.5 billion. Earlier this year, ExciteAtHome put its portal assets up for sale as it struggled to run an ad-supported business in a declining advertising market. In the spring, venture capital firm Redpoint Ventures' $30 million offer for the Excite portal was rejected.
On Friday, ExciteAtHome agreed to sell its portal assets to InfoSpace (INSP) for $10 million in cash, pending bankruptcy court approval. The defunct-provider of broadband access filed for bankruptcy protection last month.
InfoSpace, with $227 million in cash and cash equivalents, would consider the purchase negligible, given that just last July it completed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Go2Net, an Internet firm that housed online game sites, services, news and information properties.
As part of the transaction, InfoSpace will receive domain names, including the Excite name, and the millions of Excite users that have a personalized Excite page. "The main reason to buy the assets is to increase traffic for our search, directory and wireless services," said Infospace CEO Naveen Jain, who said the marginal cost to operate the site is minimal. He would not disclose the revenue the Excite portal generates.
In a binding arrangement with Iwon, InfoSpace will sell off other non-search and directory assets to Iwon. Jain said Iwon would handle e-mail services and provide the content, such as news and weather.
Infospace does not have aninvestment in Iwon, but still maintains investments in many private and public Net companies, such as messaging company Commtouch Software (CTCH) .
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