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

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (7717)	6/26/1998 9:11:00 AM
From: Imran	Respond to of 164684

"Pre market trading in the 96 range." Back up to 98 now. Any end of day predictions for today?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (7717)	6/26/1998 9:11:00 AM
From: H James Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Glen,thought this article would interest you, Its from Puget Sound Business journal (the home of your favorite stock) . <In music, Amazon is no pioneer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nancy J. Kim Staff Writer When Amazon.com Inc. opens its planned online music store, the Seattle-based Internet book merchant won't be able to advertise its music business on Yahoo! Inc.'s popular search engine. Nor will it be the only music merchant with an exclusive link from the search engine to its store, the type of deal Amazon forged for its book business. And it will face that same marketing and distribution impasse with most of the crucial high-traffic Internet sites that are the electronic equivalent to prime real estate. Amazon's problem: Other companies have already locked up the key deals in the fiercely competitive market for online music sales. Two Internet retailers that have moved quickly to establish lead market share positions in music are CDnow Inc., whose site has the same name, and N2K Inc., which operates a site called Music Boulevard. Both completed initial public offerings, CDnow in February, N2K last October. CDnow, based in the Philadelphia suburb of Jenkintown, has exclusive arrangements with Yahoo and Excite's Web Crawler. New York-based N2K is the exclusive music partner for America Online Inc. through AOL Networks in the U.S., Europe and Japan, and for Netscape's Netcenter. Ticketmaster Group, which has been selling concert seats through Ticketmaster Online, just named N2K as its exclusive partner, giving Music Boulevard the only music retail link from the Ticketmaster site. The agreement also includes certain advertising rights. David Risher, senior vice president for product development at Amazon.com, acknowledged that the company hasn't figured out an alternate plan for the music store, given that its book business partners have already inked deals with CDnow and N2K in the music category. Jupiter Communications, a New York firm that tracks Internet commerce, estimates the music market on the Net will grow exponentially to $1.6 billion by 2002. Jupiter tallied aggregate online music sales at $18 million in 1996, but Risher said that 1996 figure sounded high. Amazon.com remains guarded about its plans for music. Risher refused to specify a launch date, but said, "I would be extremely disappointed if it didn't launch this year." He detailed nothing beyond an intent to sell all genres of music including rock, jazz and classical. He said the bookseller has hired staff from music magazines and radio stations, among them Keith Moerer, a former music editor at Rolling Stone magazine. The category has invited Internet competition from music clubs like BMG Direct and Columbia House. Barnes & Noble Inc. currently sells only books online, but a spokesman for the company said it's open to the idea of extending into other businesses such as music. Given Jupiter's estimates for growth, "there's obviously room for others to come in," said Rod Parker, senior vice president of marketing for CDnow. There were more than a hundred music retailers on the Internet a year ago, noted Parker. But the top players quickly established themselves, and they were the ones that cut deals with search engines and other highly trafficked sites. Risher said Amazon will tap Valley Record Distributors Inc., the same middleman firm used by CDnow. But unlike CDnow, which uses Valley to ship the music, Amazon will use Valley as a wholesaler and use the Amazon warehouse for shipping. Thus, if a customer buys both books and music, the shipping costs would be lower. Like Amazon.com, sales for CDnow and N2K are growing, but their bottom lines continue to spill red ink. CDnow reported fourth quarter revenues of $7.9 million and a net loss of $10.7 million. N2K posted sales of $7 million and a net loss of $13.7 million for its most recent quarter ended March 31. Amazon, meanwhile, moved this week to expand on other fronts as well. It bought two European bookselling sites and Internet Movie Database, a site that provides movie and television information. c 1998, Puget Sound Business Journal