First reader up this week:
“Bought Mindspring (NASDAQ:MSPG) at approximately $10.50 fifteen months ago
and am still with it today at around $58.00. Would be interested to hear
your opinion on this stock.”
Reply: Customer service seems to have some value after all. That’s a
theme we keep reiterating with Mindspring. Some think Mindspring and rival
Earthlink (NASDAQ:ELNK) may be the heirs to the second and third place in
the online war, behind AOL (NYSE:AOL).
Others see Yahoo!-MCI making inroads, although that is a new venture so the
results aren’t in yet. Either way, our view is that the telcos are looking
for friendly Internet faces. Sprint fueled a run in Earthlink, MCI in
Yahoo! First dates?
WEBDEX
“Could you clarify for me how exactly the Value Per User is calculated for
WEBDEX.”
Reply: ISR March
19 shows WEBDEX. We compute it as the market
capitalization of public firms or the estimated private market value for
certain assets or private firms, divided by the reported unique users that
research outfit Relevant Knowledge culls every month.
Hear This
“I just wanted to get your opinion on AudioNet. Is it a viable site? What are
the chances for public offering? Assuming the most reputable underwriters
take it out, how well will the stock do?”
Reply: We think Audionet has some interesting potential. We suspect,
however, that many PC users don’t listen as much as they read
or view. So audio may not be as large an audience on a PC as a visual,
especially in the work place where audio distracts. Our longer term
“vision,” however, sees audio as being more important as the PC becomes
more of a multimedia experience. It’s more a question of marketplace than
underwriter.
Speed & Need
“How do you justify including the telecommunication stocks PairGain and
Broadband Technologies in ISDEX?”
Reply: We think high-speed telecommunications is exactly where the
Web is headed and that stocks such as these–and more in the future–will
be in this space more and more. Much of the concern over the WorldCom-MCI
merger relates to the Internet component of the deal.
