SI
SI
discoversearch

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: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (46900)3/23/1999 12:29:00 PM
From: Bill Harmond  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 164684
 
Are you watching eFax?



To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (46900)3/23/1999 2:39:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph  Respond to of 164684
 
7
most profitable revenue stream they have when it
matures. Today, DoubleClick has over 15
DART for Advertiser clients (on both the agency
side, like SIG, MediaSmith, and US Web/CKS,
as well as individual advertisers like Dell and
Travelocity), and we have every reason to
suspect that the list will grow nicely throughout
the rest of 1999.
Boomerang Should Be A Real Hit With E-Commerce
Sites
Though Boomerang isn't yet out of Beta testing,
we think the potential market could be sizable,
considering its functionality and applicability.
Boomerang offers the ability to reach and re-target
customers that have already visited a Web
site. Once a visitor leaves, say, the Dell.com
site, with the use of Boomerang, that user can be
marketed to again by Dell if they are visiting any
of the 6,400+ unique sites within the
DoubleClick Network. This is an enormous
benefit to e-commerce sites in particular, since it
allows Dell.com to segment their audience based
on behavior (users who haven't been to
Dell.com; frequent Dell.com users; users who
have visited Dell.com's home page only but
haven't drilled down for more information; etc.)
and then market to them individually depending
on, in this example, how much they used the
Dell.com site and what they used it for (e.g.
purchase or information retrieval). This is an
incredibly powerful customer acquisition and
retention tool for e-commerce sites, since they
depend on their ability to target their customers
and establish a ongoing relationship with them.
We expect both e-commerce sites as well as
brand advertisers will find this product
extremely compelling.
There Are Other Important New Products And
Services Coming
Other products should also provide some nice
catalysts in the next few quarters. We expect
DART for E-commerce will launch in Q2 (this is
essentially DART combined with Boomerang);
we know that Double Click is already working
with three E-commerce players (one of which is
Dell.com). By Q4, DoubleClick expects that
DART for E-commerce will incorporate back-end
capabilities (like integration with an e-commerce
site's inventory and logistics
systems), so that E-commerce sites can instantly
determine the economics of offering coupons,
promotions, and other incentives to customers
that have, say, purchased a Dell laptop. Since
only 2% of visitors to an E-commerce site
actually make purchases, this back-end
integration makes enormous sense, since it
allows e-commerce sites to manage the
conversion of browsers into buyers (hopefully
driving conversion rates up).
International Is A Market Opportunity That
Should Really Hit Its Stride In 1999…
DoubleClick has made aggressive investments in
building out a direct sales force internationally,
since it believes that (1) on a growth rate basis,
Internet users worldwide are growing even faster
than in the US, (2) as much as 30% of domestic
sites' traffic is coming from overseas and is
wasted since it can't be monetized by US
marketers and, (3) amassing this international
inventory into one media buy could result in
significant revenue opportunities from
international marketers wanting to advertise to
International Web surfers (or conversely from
US marketers who want to target international
Web surfers).
…Because Most International Inventory Isn't
Being Monetized
Most US-based Web sites cannot effectively
monitor international traffic beyond simple
domain recognition (e.g. .uk, .fr, .de, etc.). But
DoubleClick has amassed an enormous IP
database that allows them to match IP addresses
to their origination. For example, one of the
largest ISPs in England is freeserve.com, which,
if you simply parsed your users by suffix you



To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (46900)3/23/1999 2:50:00 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph  Respond to of 164684
 
16
NBC has had great success selling in
conjunction with its mini-series (Merlin, Alice
In Wonderland, The ‘60s, etc.) For The ‘60s,
NBC teamed up with HSN - representing the
first time HSN teamed up with a major
network to sell products related to a specific
programming. Well, clearly NBC was pleased
with the results. In fact, so pleased that earlier
this month, NBC and GE Equity agreed to buy
a 20% stake in ValueVision - one of television's
three home shopping networks (the two others
are HSN and QVC).
For anyone who misunderstood this deal and
thought it was merely the linking up of two
television networks, the press release tries to
make it very clear what they'd like investors to
believe it really at stake here. NBC's plans for
ValueVision include “rebranding the
ValueVision television home-shopping
network in conjunction with an Internet
portal”; “NBC will take a leadership role in
assisting ValueVision with a redesign of its
current Internet shopping site (vvtv.com) and
will explore opportunities to link their [NBC
and ValueVision] various Internet properties
as part of the new alliance.”
Before any one comes away thinking NBC
bought into the lucrative e-commerce
marketplace “cheap” at $56 million, let's
examine what they really got with
ValueVision. ValueVision reaches 21M homes
via either full-time or part-time cable television
distribution, yet its web site does not rank
among the top 500 sites in terms of reach.
After a brief visit to vvtv.com, we saw an awful
lot of banner ads encouraging us to use the
800 number rather than order off the web.
While this deal certainly positions NBC to
exploit a new revenue stream - home shopping
through cable, we're not convinced it further
leverages NBC in terms of Internet e-commerce
opportunities
The Internet Delivers For The Shipping
Industry
Last week, FDX (parent corp. of FedEx)
reported better than expected earnings ($0.52
vs. $0.41) . Much of the upside came from a
tax-rate change and lower fuel prices, but
management continues to bang the Internet
drum claiming the company is benefiting from
the growth in e-commerce and shifting supply-chain
model.
While direct sales channels and shifts in
inventory management and logistics have
driven the growth of the express package
delivery business for some years, we are
surprised that even today analysts and others
continue to discount the impact of the Internet
on the industry. Many feel that the growth of
e-commerce has already been factored into the
business. Given the difficulty we have properly
factoring in the growth of e-commerce on
behalf of Internet companies, we are a bit
baffled that the same does not hold true for
shipping analysts. We'll continue to keep our
eyes on the effects of e-commerce on the
shipping industry over time.
Internet Enterprise Applications: The
Pipeline Grows
Over the last year a number of Internet
applications start-ups like Ariba and
Commerce-One have emerged that are focused
on delivering software that connects large
corporations to their partners, suppliers, and
distributors using the Internet as the
application platform and architecture. Regular
readers of The Internet Capitalist know that
we believe that the business-to-business e-commerce
and security software market will
mature nicely as 1999 unfolds, principally
because Y2K concerns (and budgets) will have
diminished.
Because these new players are starting to have
some investment impact on the traditional
ERP applications players (SAP, BAAN, etc.)