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

To: Cymeed who wrote (40175)	2/15/1999 3:22:00 PM
From: IceShark	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

The latest news regarding the Amazon being critisized for taking $10,000 for a recommendation seems more like a positive to the company than a negative. It seems that somebody is trying to remind the shareholders that Amazon has such an influence that its mass reach to the book readers and a recommendation on their behalf can be converted into actual profits :o) I think the negative spin was because AMZN was caught being a common StreetWalker. Everyone knows grocery stores charge slotting fees for good shelf space but grocery stores don't hold themselves out to be The New York Times, reporting all the news that is fit to print. AMZN was doing that with their recommended lists. And think about how much you like AMZN gathering all that information on you and what they might end up doing with it in light of this event. Now, to be fair, the NYTimes is a StreetWalker also - they just charge a whole lot more to buy their favors, kinda like Mary Meeker. -g- Regards, Ice

To: Cymeed who wrote (40175)	2/16/1999 8:21:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

However, one thing which has puzzled me for a while is, if Amazon can truly build a huge mass of loyal book buyers through the Internet, would they be able to influence the herd toward the direction to whatever THEY want? Would this be equivalent to the ability of influencing the culture, the structure of our society, and politics as the least in that aspects? How much shareholder value should one put in the stock of a company if it has such an influence? Cymeed, You are deep here and the point is well taken. I still see Amazon's share of the total book market, both online and off, as being very small. Not true of just online, of course. The sales numbers are not that impressive to me. More importantly, I do not have a clue as to how many Amazon customers are current customers since they only give cumulative customer counts rather than current customer counts. I am also not sure if the repeat customer percentage is of the cumulative customer count or another number like a current customer count. Glenn