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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John May who wrote (1218)	1/17/1998 11:08:00 AM
From: Oeconomicus	Respond to of 164684

John, since AMZN's assets at 9/30 were made up mostly of what's left of IPO proceeds, measuring inventory relative to total assets is misleading. In fact, inventory at 9/30 was 29% of assets if you take out cash and short-term investments. I don't think anyone doubts the efficiencies of not having to stock a thousand stores with a half dozen copies each of a book that sells only occasionaly, but 4.8% of assets is a meaningless number. BTW, why does it take Amazon several weeks to fill many special orders when even a mom & pop book store (if any are left after BKS and BGP come to town) can get nearly any book from their distributor in about a week at most? And at Amazon, for any special order book, you pay full list plus shipping. Why pay more to get it slower when you drive by three or four brick and mortar stores every day to and from work? Finally, someone over on the E*Trade thread jumped on me for saying that AMZN is not a technology company. He argued that they have developed some kind of special search technology that is vastly superior to anything available at your local BKS. Well, I see nothing special about an author/title/subject database delivered over the Web. Is it fast and easy to use? I suppose. Special? No. Technology company? Definitely not. I was looking the other day for a good reference book on securities laws and decided to give Amazon a chance to sell me a book. With superior search technology, I should be able to find something, right? Well, most of the titles it spat out had no description of the content of the book at all and those that did, gave a couple sentences that were little more help than the title. And the only titles they had in stock were cheap "how to" books on general business law or "how to go public without a broker". The ones that looked like they might be what I wanted had no description and were 4-6 week delivery special orders. Amazon's "technology" is a dressed-up version of the same database that any bookstore or library has (and the library might even have a copy you can look at to see if it's really what you need). For most of their "millions" of titles, they show nothing more than author, title, subject, date, publisher and ISBN number. The more I learn about this company, the more convinced I become that this is one of the all-time great shorts. Bob PS: Feb 5, 9PM, RJ/ESPN2. Wouldn't want you to miss it. BTW, that Cole Fieldhouse is a tough place, huh?

To: John May who wrote (1218)	1/17/1998 1:46:00 PM
From: Don Westermeyer	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 164684

John, A bull/bear ratio of only 1 to 4 is actually quite bullish for the stock price!

To: John May who wrote (1218)	1/17/1998 11:50:00 PM
From: Walter High	Respond to of 164684

John: I'm betting on Carolina on Feb. 5th, and eat your heart out because I have a pair of ticket to it right in front of me! While you guys debate how much money Amazon can afford to lose, did any of you see how I was making money selling books? NBC news did a spot feature on my bookstore this evening at the end of the national broadcast because we operate a self-service honor system when the store is closed. I got my 15 seconds of fame as they reduced my 15 minute interview to about two sentences. Anyway, I am making a heck of a lot more money than Amazon right now. Who wants to buy shares in my IPO? Walter High