Steve Harmon

First reader up writes: “Your comments on Alan Greenspan discovering the “I” were right on target (see ISR January 29 in Archives). Hey, maybe he should be delivered his own personal copy of your report everyday. Sincerely, High School Computer Teacher p.s. Bought YHOO on IPO, thanks to you.” Reply: It’s no small thing that […]

Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan may have read his first issue of Internet Stock Report or Internet World magazine. Maybe he saw You’ve Got Mail and signed up for AOL. Or built a Web site at GeoCities, started a free email account at HotMail, dialed into Earthlink. How about bought a book at Amazon, traded […]

Early Thursday morning, news emerged that Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) had agreed to acquireGeoCities (NASDAQ:GCTY) in a stock deal valued at $3.6 billion. The Yahooligans’ right to acquire GCTY comes via its agreement with the Websteader that gives Yahoo first look to buy. At least that was what the documents said when Yahoo and GeoCities inked a […]

Earnings season being better than expected and losses narrowing should have sent ISDEX higher the past week but it didn’t — that’s because huge expectations had been built into the Internet stock sector the first week of January. Said another way, great expectations realized are good but Wall Street wants fantasmal expectations. And that means […]

Tick tock, what’s AltaVista worth? Nearly two-and-a-half years after originally filing for an IPO (and later canceling) AltaVista is once again back in the limelight, only this time as Compaq’s offspring seeking another way to bring its value to the surface. But in a world of at least five search services and more vertical portals, […]

First reader up writes:“Steve, what’s going on with IDT Corp.? Is it spinning off its Net2Phonedivision?” Reply: We think there’s two ways of viewing IDTC, one as an integrated communications company and the other as an integrated communications company that de-emphasizes an important part of being integrated: ISP access. First the good news: Net2Phone revenue […]

When CitySearch canceled its own IPO plans in favor of merging with Ticketmaster Online last August, we wondered where the fit was between city guides and event ticketing. Our thinking was the combined entity probably had to fill in some gaps between the two services to round out its offering. And so it is. Somewhere […]

About the only one of the top 10 Web sites that popped on @Home’s $6.7 billion (fully-diluted) offer for Excite was Lycos, leading to speculation that the spider turned commune leader may be looking to sell a chunk of itself to a large media partner. Rumors to that effect got dusted off the shelf with […]

@Home’s (NASDAQ:ATHM) $6.7 billion offer for Excite (NASDAQ:XCIT) sent XCIT shares soaring 63 percent to $110 and highlights the hidden value of sheer users, page views and traffic. Our analysis shows @Home paying about $400 per unique monthly user, or about a 63 percent premium to what the average value per unique user is for […]

@Home’s (NASDAQ:ATHM) $6.7 billion bid for Excite (NASDAQ:XCIT) ignites the Internet stock market with ISDEX up 9% today. It proves part of our investment thesis that consolidation would be rapid after the AOL-Netscape deal was announced. The ante has been upped, size does matter. ATHM shares end the day up 13% at $115.375 while XCIT […]

Cable Internet provider @Home(NASDAQ:ATHM) kicked off the four-day trading week Tuesday by announcing it is buying search engine Excite in a stock swap valued at $6.7 billion. Our early analysis shows the fit may be a good one: combining next-generation speed with first-generation audience, giving the two a bridge to the future. Why does Excite […]

So what’s a dial-up Internet subscriber worth? To Mindspring (NASDAQ:MSPG) about $612 a piece. To Wall Street about $2,000 to $4,500 depending on how you look at it. For the same subscriber. Here’s how: The national ISP has agreed to acquire ICG’s 400,000 NETCOM subscribers for $245 million ($215M cash, $30M stock). Yet investors value […]