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Technology Stocks : GeoCities -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Urlman who wrote (108)	8/7/1998 1:53:00 AM
From: Gerald Walls	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 316

P.P.S. I hate the FLASHING BANNERS that are required by the other sites and are not by Geo... Geo uses the "Geobrander" which is like a station identification... and uses ad "pop ups" which are IMHO much more friendly. I hate the pop up banners that show up on my page. They are, however, better than a FLASHING anything.

To: Urlman who wrote (108)	8/7/1998 8:55:00 AM
From: Sam	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 316

I'll jump in and play devils advocate... GeoCities does not possess strong barriers to entry in their marketplace, if any. They spell that out very clearly in their prospectus. Something like "we don't not beleive there are any barriers to entry." As I mentioned earlier, more and more dominant internet players are jumping on the community site idea. AOL announced Hometown, Excite will be launching a community site soon as well. Does anyone actually think that Yahoo!, SEEK, LCOS, etc. etc. don't see the possibilities? Hardly. Like Microsoft has done for years, they are probably waiting on the sideline, taking notes on how to improve a community site...and then take the underlying technology and molding it into something better - with marketing power to back up the offering. GeoCities also contracts their service through Exodus Communications - so if Exodus should go down, bellyup, etc. it directly affects GeoCities ability to service members. I'm guessing some of the IPO money could be used to build up their own infastructure, so they can control traffic. As for flashing banners...I find the GeoCities pop-up even more annoying. On top of that, the jumpy watermark has to be the worst piece of "brand building" I have ever laid my eyes on. There was a reason for the Orange Ribbon campaign...GeoCities management doesn't get it. Of course, they will upsell you for premium services :) Other points such as advertising contracts and revenues also have to be looked at. Most are very short term, which could be seen as trepidation on the part of advertisers. Also, from what I can remember - one or two key advertisers comprise over half of GeoCities revenue. Red Flag. The strongest point I see in GeoCities favor is that they are a pioneer. Many of the digerati "know" what GeoCites is/does - in that sense they do posses a brand. The question is, is the brand strong enough to withhold the other players entering the marketplace? S.