Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: H James Morris who wrote (35008)	1/14/1999 9:47:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Glenn, it's interesting how the old bulls are so quite. If your short or hedged that's a good sign. Don't you think? James, I have always thought that although I am long for now. The sentiment has sure changed. Glenn

To: H James Morris who wrote (35008)	1/15/1999 7:21:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

The superhypeway, revisited By Zapman, CBS MarketWatch Last Update: 9:34 PM ET Jan 14, 1999 NouveauGeek on Net values Letters to the editor (a.k.a. the whine rack) SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Zapman loved the early '90s, when visionaries like Trip Hawkins and Sam Ginn spun fantastic visions of how the "information superhighway" would change our lives. Hawkins was the guy behind 3DO, the IPO celebre of 1993. The company designed a box that connected to your TV. Some people called it a game machine, but it seemed to be capable of much more. Hawkins would get up in front of investors and talk about the interactive future. It went something like this: You'd be watching your favorite show and think, "Hey, I wonder if that sweater comes in my size." And so you'd click on a button and find out it does, and pick a color. And then you could walk down a fashion-show runway in Paris, wearing the sweater, in your color. And if you liked it, you could have it delivered the next day. Well, the patter went something like that. And it sounded so right. Ginn was the chief honcho at Pacific Telesis Group in December 1993 when it was pledging to spend $16 billion by the end of 1999 to connect 5 million California households over a broadband network by the end of the decade. "The telephone and television are converging into a flexible new communications tool that will have a profound impact on society," he said. "The communications companies that create the architecture for information superhighways will be the leaders as this new age unfolds." Alas, it didn't exactly play out that way. 3DO (THDO), once valued at $1.2 billion, now has a market value of about a tenth of that. Hawkins is still chairman. But instead of licensing out software standards, it now makes video game software.You might have seen the recent commercials for BattleTanx, one of its newest games. 3DO players are collectors items. The game are made for the Sony (SNE) PlayStation, the Nintendo 64 and ... the Internet. Pacific Telesis kept scaling back its broadband communications project until the company was finally sold to Southwestern Bell (SBC). Ginn was spun off before that with AirTouch Communications (ATI), where he's chairman and chief executive. No more than a few hundred test homes ever got the broadband TV service. The Pac Bell network is now ... on the Internet. Then ... and now Zapman's flashbacks of those heady days came rushing back over the past few weeks as investors drove Internet stocks to record highs, over and over and over. Now, investors seem to have it all sorted out. It's the Internet, dummy, isn't it? It's almost as if there are millions of cheerleaders like Trip and Sam, all with a crystal vision of how things will be. Only now, instead of driving shares of 3DO up to a spectacular high of 48 (yep, that's as high as it ever got), they're driving shares of Yahoo! (YHOO), Amazon (AMZN) and Broadcast.com (BCST) into the hundreds of dollars per share. They have lots of reasons to be confident. E-tailing is now measured in the billions of dollars, and it's growing faster than expected. The price of computers has fallen well under $1,000, making it affordable for almost anyone to surf the Web. And, gee, it really seems like every company has a Web site, now. Surely, this is where we're heading. Why not get there first? And maybe they're right. Maybe the Internet is the thing. Maybe we'll overcome all the technical obstacles that remain in streaming larger volumes of data over the Internet. And maybe cable companies will figure out how to combine TV and telephone services over the cable you already have. Maybe a vast chunk of the public will soon forsake the mall in favor of cyberspace. And maybe Amazon will turn a profit some day. And maybe. And maybe. And maybe ... I've got one question for Net investors who think they have this puzzle solved: If brilliant guys like Trip Hawkins and Sam Ginn were that wrong in trying to predict the future, what makes you so right? Zapman! is safely anonymous and ignores most e-mail. Nothing in Zapman! is intended to be investment advice, nor does it represent the opinion of, counsel from, or recommendations by CBS MarketWatch.