Tom Taulli

As seen by the recent destruction of market cap, investors seem to think online advertising is a lost cause. Yet, the fact remains that the Web is an incredible medium for one-to-one marketing. And a company that has been at the forefront of cutting-edge technologies in this space is Mediaplex . The technology is called, […]

Writing about IPOs is like being the Maytag repairman. That is, there is not much to do. Yep, as expected, this week was particularly dismal for the IPO market. So far, there has been only one: Rigel Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company. The company had to reduce is price range from $8-$10 to $7-$8. Also, the […]

At the current rate, if the stock price falls any further, Be Free will really be free for investors. The 52-week range is $2 – $60 7/8; the current stock price is $2-5/8. Two brothers founded Be Free in the early days of the Web in 1996. Basically, they developed technologies to allow for merchant-branded […]

Several months ago, while at Internet World, I had a chance to meet up with Samir Arora. Of course, we talked about his company, NetObjects , as well as the plunge in valuations of the Net sector. Yes, NetObjects was on the Net roller coaster. In the past year, the stock hit a high of […]

ServiceWare had the misfortune of bad IPO timing. That is, the company went public at the end of August, when the market began to crumble. And, as has been the case with most IPOs since then, ServiceWare has seen an erosion of its stock price. Priced at $7, the stock now trades at $3-3/8. The […]

Called InSpec Validation Systems, the company was founded in 1996. But a year later, the company changed its name to Verisity and then by late 1999, bought SureFire Verification. Now, Verisity is a leading developer of verification technologies for electronic systems and integrated circuits (ICs). And yes, the company is preparing to go public in […]

Something is absolutely clear about MP3.com : The company has an incredible amount of confidence. Crippling lawsuits? No problem. A tough advertising market? No problem. In fact, during the past few weeks, the stock has been surging – as other dot-coms continue to plunge. Of course, a big plus was the settlement with Universal Music […]

What looks hot in the IPO market this week? Reply: Very little. This week, there are only two IPOs planned. First, there is Rigel Pharmaceuticals. The company develops sophisticated technology to help speed up the analysis of genetic information for new biotech drugs. But the company is very early stage and, as a result, investor […]

As expected, the IPO market was fairly dormant last week. In fact, much of the action was overseas. Telekom Austria went public. The offering price was $15.27. However, on its first day of trading, the stock closed at $13.44. What’s more, the number of shares was reduced from 140 million to 128.8 million. The company […]

CacheFlow had all the ingredients of a high-octane, late-1990s IPO. There were top VCs, such as Benchmark Capital. Even Marc Andreessen is a board member. And the technology is definitely whiz-bang. As the name implies, CacheFlow is a leader in caching technologies. That is, the most often requested Net content is stored and served locally […]

With the IPO market drying up, expect to see more self-underwritten IPOs. However, a word of warning: typically, these deals are bad investments. Why? There are many reasons. First of all, these companies usually have problems and have difficulty gaining the interest of a Wall Street firm. Second, the stock usually does not have much […]

Very soon, your cell phone will know where you are – anytime, anywhere. This does sound kind of scary, like a Big Brother nightmare. But, of course, there are benefits. First of all, in an emergency, an ambulance or police car will know where to find you. Or, suppose you need to get a cab […]