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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Irish99 who wrote (3449)	12/18/1998 3:06:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

Your challenge is to present a case why it's worth $89M and how it can be employed to utilize and leverage the @Home service. When you encounter something that doesn't make sense, after you've made the criticism, try to make the other argument. It will be difficult because the added value is non-linear, so can't be easily extrapolated. You have to have vision, invention, and faith to make the harder case, but if you can't make it, then be advised that that is where it is likely to happen. Success in investment often comes from where it is hardest to see.

To: Irish99 who wrote (3449)	12/18/1998 8:48:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Respond to of 29970

From the Reuters news story today: Through Massachusetts-based Narrative's software and technology, @Home will offer advertisers the option of conducting large scale, rich media ad campaigns across a wide range of Internet distribution channels, from standard dial-up to high speed T1 lines to TV set-top connections, it said. Charles Moldow, vice president for media sales and marketing said @Home made the acquisition in order to help evangelize rich media advertising in an industry where static banner ads are still the norm. According to Forrester Research, rich media ads are expected to comprise 20 percent of all Internet advertising in 1999, a big jump from the current one percent. ''In looking at the rich media space, we saw Narrative as the absolute leader, but we were concerned that as a private company, they wouldn't have all the resources they needed to be the catalyst for driving rich media,'' Moldow said. ''They needed a big partner to do it with, and we were the most logical partner.'' Enliven is currently used by ad agencies and companies such as General Motors Corp. (NYSE:GM - news), Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HWP - news) and Procter & Gamble Co. (NYSE:PG - news) to create ads for the World Wide Web. Are you suggesting that the Forrester expectation that rich media penetration from 1% to 20% won't substantially raise advertising revenues for ATHM? I would guess that in one year the ads will pull in $100M beyond what they would have gotten anyway. If that is true, the deal is terrific. Two of analyst's rubs against ATHM is that they lack advertising scale and don't trumpet the @Home name on a mass basis. A little move from static to dynamic banners addresses the former. What Moldow hasn't mentioned is that the banner has the potential to be sizable or fully linked. So if you are interested in what is being advertised, you can dig into the banner to whatever extent you want or is available. You could go on quite an excursion if the ad or cascade of ads kept your attention. This is interactive advertising. A facility like this needs cable modem speeds to be practical. Do you see the potential? Maybe you dispute that Enliven is the absolute leader. They do have some large companies as clients. Doesn't prove a lot, but suggests Narrative has a good basic model. With @Home's resources the model can be improved. The fact that ad campaigns will be offered implies a much bigger revenue stream, since advertisers need repetition to be effective. Thus, advertisers would have confidence in higher returns available from exposure provided through the campaign approach, and would tend to make bigger expenditures per ad.