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To: GVTucker who wrote (7480)	2/13/2006 1:03:17 PM
From: Dave	Respond to of 15857

GVTucker, Barriers to success With regards to this statement, one would have to look at all competitors that enter. The economics of "internet businesses" have low entry and exit barriers, but as I assert, high success barriers. Therefore, those companies that are successful enjoy high returns (adjusted for excess cash). I believe also that you are pointing out to the few that are showing success. The landscape is littered with internet based companies whose business models failed. AltaVista's success certainly didn't prevent Google from having success in the same market. I think this may be a typo, I never would describe AltaVista's efforts as successful or, if it is not, I assume that you and I have different definitions of "success". There are tons of realtor-driven sites, and yet that didn't prevent Zillow from becoming almost an overnight success I believe that Zillow is a private company. I define success as the sustainablity and growth of profits. Moreover, given Google Maps and the like, it isn't out of the question that they add user defined house prices/values or certainly add that feature to their site. I would also argue that Zillow is more of a function of the current Real Estate boom. Remember all those day trading sites during the dot com boom? As you correctly state, "those sites could arguably be considered competitors, slicing up different segments of the market" However, I would counter is that it is Google at this point which has a fairly large share of the internet advertising pool and some of the features that those sites offer could easily be added as features to Google's services. [EBAY] has gone nowhere for a year now. True, but price and value often diverge. Best regards, Dave