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Technology Stocks : America On-Line: will it survive ...? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Parker who wrote (10256)	6/16/1998 11:26:00 AM
From: FuzzFace	Respond to of 13594

Andy Kessler: Don't Believe the Hype From: thestreet.com I don't know about you, but I'm believing less and less of what's on the Net. I'm talking not about content like TSC, but things like user surveys or page-impression statistics. ... There's a whole class of Internet stocks whose valuations are based on revenue generated from Internet advertising. That advertising is based on hits and page views and large volumes of traffic. My view is these statistics are potentially suspect and increasingly may not be meaningful. Now, I am certainly not accusing anyone of doctoring numbers, but it's so easy to do. Transactions like online sales or customers redirected to an advertiser's site are the only ones that count. The Web is not a billboard, although it certainly seems like one. The Web is a medium to conduct commerce, just as 800 numbers are a medium to conduct commerce. Be suspicious of companies that base their fortunes on a billboard business. Page impressions that generate transactions are what counts. The rest may just be angry, drunken programmers having fun.