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Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (163)	2/19/1999 11:45:00 PM
From: Mike Buckley	Respond to of 54805

Uncle Frank, But if [ATHM's} game plan is based primarily on displacing AOL... I think that idea comes from some investors who misguidedly think it's a zero-sum game. I don't think that's management's strategy at all. ATHM's strategy is to simply take advantage of their broadband capability by providing content that will be possible only using broadband capabilities. AOL already has narrow-band content and hopes to have access to broadband so it can upgrade its content. My thinking is that both companies will likely do exceptionally well. --Mike Buckley

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (163)	2/20/1999 2:49:00 AM
From: Stuart C Hall	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 54805

Slightly OT - focused on ATHM In my ideal world ATHM would replace AOL. Of course that will never happen. As you know Frank, Gorillas don't just go away. I think Mike hit it on the head that it's not a zero sum game. They both benefit from each other's success. AOL and ATHM will both continue to grow and the Internet will provide enough forest for both of these gorillas. AOL is not shut out from Broadband. However, I think the routes they have initially pursued with xDSL are not the routes that will pay off in the long run. Eventually AOL will have to go with cable and more than likely they will end up using ATHM's pipe to carry AOL content. AOL has already lost one battle with the FCC. I think eventually ATHM and AOL will decide to play nice. AOL because it needs the pipe and ATHM because of the 16M subscribers who they can charge $10/month. When this announcement is made, I agree, AOL stock will spike. Of all the Internet plays and all of the ISP's I see Broadband and AOL standing the test of time. ATHM is your best Broadband play with T as an Ace in hole. Regards, Stuart

To: Uncle Frank who wrote (163)	2/21/1999 8:59:00 PM
From: Mark[ox5]	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

Agree with those comments.. As much as I believe in Cable modems as the future, everyone who touts ATHM, seems to think AOL is going to sit by idly letting ATHM eat their lunch. At this point AOL has 16M subsrcibers (1M added in last month ALONE) ATHM has 300,000+ subscribers yet ATHM market cap is somehow 1/7th of AOL. AOL has deep pockets (yes so does AT&T), but AOL has #1 (monopoly money-- their own stock), and #2 controlling interest of probably 30M eyeballs at least (just think for each of the 16M households they own, maybe 1 in 3 is a family of 4 so their 16M "subscribers" actually controls a lot more eyeballs...) They name their price to advertisers... and they can buy out any new or compatible technology (just like CSCO or MSFT does) AOL will be playing both 1) xDSL and 2) will have some sort of strategt to work into cable... Steve Case is not dumb... just remember about 4 years ago Prodigy and Compuserve and AOL were all at the same stage... where are the other 2 nowadays ... Compuserve is part of AOL, and Prodigy is a struggling ISP with a hype induced IPO... I am on AOL myself, and as much as it "sucks" or "is slow" (all improved in the past year) an ISP is a "sticky" service.. much more sticky than a portal. And sticky is good... as much as someone may "complain" about AOL, once you are a subscriber for more than 3 months, you would be hard pressed to change to a "better service" because your email is established there, you get used to certain services only AOL provides, etc. The arguement against this is "so what? I will change my email and find similar services elsewhere" Well I argue, look at human nature.. its static... change is bad ;) I am not saying ATHM can't prosper.. I think it will. I just think it's silly to discount AOL... also no one KNOWS cable will win...over xDSL.. right NOW cable seems to be the best choice (to me) right NOW cable is cheaper than xDSL but do we know which will format will win (or if both will win?) Everyone says Betamax was better than VHS (I was too young so I dont know) ... but which one won? Not the "better" one.... Mark