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

To: FIRENZA who wrote (3905)	1/6/1999 6:56:00 PM
From: RocketMan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

Thanks for the response, Firenza, and I agree with what you say except for the comment about the next chapter being written here. This may be the case, but with due respect to McLuhan I think it is important to separate the medium from the message. It is not bandwidth per se, but rather what can be done with bandwidth that will make the difference. Not having ATHM access, I don't know what ATHM has, but if they are only offering a fast portal, that will not be enough. There are several techniques (remote and local caching, Java applets, etc), that can give narrowband users the feel of broadband, at least for the type of content that is provided by the typical web site. And AOL will continue making incremental improvements in throughput and accelerated multimedia presentations, keeping up with the increasing sophistication of the average user. Where ATHM can leap ahead is if they can combine bandwidth with content that can not be duplicated in other ways. Thinks like interactive video, seamless TV/data tranmission, real-time audio-visual presentations. A broadband ISP will have arrived when it passes a form of a Turing test, when a user can not tell if they are interacting through the internet or through a high-speed CD Rom device with full-screen interactive real-time audio-visual presentations. Until that happens, I think ATHM will remain a speculative play, but one worth the speculation. Especially if we have many more days like today.