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Technology Stocks : Altaba Inc. (formerly Yahoo) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: acidman who wrote (12895)	7/18/1998 3:14:00 AM
From: L. M. Zeidler	Respond to of 27307

When we are talking about the value of Yahoo, what are we talking about in the way of physical assets? An analyst will tell you that Yahoo is an internet portal, but does this phrase denote something on a physical level? In order to be an internet portal, does the company need some specific hardware? It seems that Yahoo's assets are its source code, which theoretically can be downloaded onto a 120 gigabyte optical disc, placed in a briefcase, flown to Colorado or Florida, and be copied onto another server. I've read that Yahoo has assets of $160 million, and that it has $150 million in cash, so the remaining ten million must more accurately be defined as the value of the 95 million web pages of which it is comprised. Being labelled an internet portal could just as easily be the concrete manifestation of a complex metaphysical abstraction which is achieved when a web site has generated a sufficient amount of traffic to warrant occupying its own server, perhaps necessitating additional ISDN connections. When I first log on to the Internet, the first thing I see is ETrade's homepage. You can customize ETrade's homepage to include your favorite links, and one of these links can be www.yahoo.com. So ETrade's homepage is functioning as my portal to Yahoo, as configured on my personal computer, rather than Yahoo being the portal. So, in order to reach me as often as possible, an advertiser would want to advertise on ETrade's homepage. But this condition would only apply to me and to as many other people who have configured their browser to default to E*Trade. Technically, Yahoo is a web site, which has achieved a level of popularity which would entice advertisers to want to pay to have their product or service advertised there. The phrase "internet portal" does not actually refer to any specific hardware, but is rather a buzz phrase invented by marketing gurus to tantalize potential advertisers into believing that they are advertising on something separate and distinct from a web site. This is taking the notion of a "concept company" to new levels. Basically a form of differentiation with an absence of physical differences. MSN is technically my "internet portal," and Yahoo is a web site which I access through MSN, by virtue of me dialing an MSN number to log on. Even though it may be said that MSN is an "on-line service." The distinction, if there ever was one, has become blurred. Perhaps the bulk of Yahoo's registered users have logged on through any one of a number of discount internet providers, and Yahoo is functioning as their "on-line service," in cases where the discount provider lacks the equivalent non-physical content.