To: esecurities(tm) who wrote (1532 ) 11/26/1998 12:49:00 PM From: esecurities(tm) Read Replies (3) | Respond to
"The end of the Web as we know it" or Can CBS.MW become the WalMart of Internet Investing?"...The merger of Netscape Communications Corp. and America Online Inc. calls into question the bedrock notion that the Internet will be an inherently democratic medium, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by any central authority...But what the absorption of Netscape by AOL tells us is this: The Web is not immune to the normal forces of consolidation that almost inevitably bring "efficiency" and uniformity to new media and new industries. Indeed, the only thing different about the Web is that the opportunity -- a new trillion-dollar-plus worldwide economy in four or five more years -- is of such a large scale that the consolidation is occurring at warp speed, the Web's typical pace...Broadcast television has bid farewell to the days of three dominant networks. Cable television still is gravitating toward scores of channels. And the Web always will have thousands, and even millions, of media outlets. But the high-traffic, commercially viable sites increasingly will come into the hands of a few. Why can AOL pay $4.2 billion for Netscape and not even feel the sting? Because it is playing with unreal money. Its stock has picked up more than $20 billion of value in the past few months. To spend $4 billion of newfound value to leapfrog past Yahoo! Inc., now worth $21 billion itself, to become the biggest portal site on the planet is a no-brainer -- especially when the future of electronic commerce is at stake and the chance to wrap up pole position on the consumer side comes into the bargain. dailynews.yahoo.com
