As 1998 nears to an end, this nascent Internet industry has the dubious
distinction of
being both young and old at the same time. Young vs. the plethora of
industries out there
that count years in solar time but old in the rapid evolution within the
industry of the
companies and players at play where a year is a generation and fleas fear
to tread.
As we chronicle the Internet capitalism revolution happening before our
eyes we put
together a rather unique retrospective that encapsulates some of the
milestones that have
shook the Web and Wall Street. If this was Disneyland consider this an
e-ticket (in the
e-commerce sense of "e") and a snapshot of the ghosts of Christmas
past, all
leading to the specter of great things to come in the Internet space.
So if you’re all strapped in, let’s go:
The first Web-based report I did
was on Yahoo’s
IPO, April, 9,
1996, that said Yahoo was going to be huge.
Wired Venture’s IPO pipe dream, two flavors for the discriminating taste: flavor
"a"
and flavor
"b."
Since April 1996 when this began I had to invent new ways of looking at
Internet companies
and developed some key metrics that Wall Street has picked up on and uses
also. This is
the basket of
goodies
we use constantly to evaluate Internet companies.
On August 8, 1996 I put Internet stocks in context with other media,
while most people
though Internet meant "technology" here’s my thinking that many
are actually
"media" companies.
On August 15, 1996 I predicted Netscape’s
demise as
powerhouse, which wasn’t easy to do in the face of its 80% browser
share. But the
march of Microsoft came.
January 15, 1997, I predicted that Internet
advertising
will be bigger than anyone imagines and also bring out the idea that
the Internet will
mature faster than any other medium (something not widely believed at the
time).
March 18, 1997, predicted the
cable Internet explosion, before @Home even had the chance to prove its
model worked
on a widespread scale. Indeed, even today there’s fewer than 1 million
cable Internet
subscribers. For 1999 and 2000 that could change.
March 25, 1997: the little known bookseller that could began to emerge and
with it we
prognosticated that Amazon
could be big with its IPO.
This one broke new ground in metrics and analyzing Internet firms with a different
set of tools.
April 1, 1997: the debut of new analytic metrics and showed Yahoo as undervalued:
June 17 & 18, 1997, shortly after I find out that Bill Gates reads my
reports I
interview him, and he offered some real
nuggets of insights
into the Microsoft strategy and thought process, a very candid view that
discussed
sweeping issues paramount to the Internet, technology and where Gates &
Co. fits in.
In two
parts,
what’d you expect since we covered so much ground!
January 6, 1998, this
was a report which Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen told me he
passed around
Netscape and which influenced its decision (I believe) to give away its
browser. Or some
such crazy notion.
January 9, 1998: here I said online
shopping is about
to become mainstream, which 1998 has proven and then some. Wait for
1999!
April 14, 1998: I said CMG may be undervalued, a theme I originally started and discussed in
early 1997 when
Fortune magazine called me and asked about CMG, which has always been on my
radar for its
investment in Lycos (NASDAQ:LCOS) and GeoCities (NASDAQ:GCTY), among
others. CMGI stock
has been on a roar all year.
In the face of most of the market believing Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) to be
overvalued as a
stock, April 24, 1998, I find that more
value may be yet to
come in Amazon shares as the company moves into music and video.
Fish
oil tales
surface on July 31, 1998, as I correctly said that Zapata is a wannabe
Internet company
(that never was, it turns out).
October 29, 1998, I introduced
the concept of "zero gravity" to describe Internet commerce
and retail (this
term is getting picked up more and more by people to describe Internet
e-tail). The term
brings to focus the various notions about Internet selling, cost
efficiencies, economies
of scale.
November 10, 1998, this
report was picked up by CNBC, Wall Street Journal, Reuters and others
and preceded the
recent outburst in Internet e-tailing stocks. This report was a catalyst I
believe,
although an unexpected one. Subsequent surveys on e-tail and holiday shopping
from scores of
research firms show e-tail bigger than previously forecast or thought.
Top 10
stock picks
for 1998, chosen on December 31, 1997, up more than 250% this year (and
out 1999 picks
are coming soon!).
And for 1999 expect more pioneering thought here
in Internet Stock Report as we bring you the ever-changing analysis, the
numbers that matter, the metrics of the future, the movers before they move
and the shakers long before they shake–and a whole lot more.
Attention Internet Startups! LaunchPad West StartUp
Pavilion, part of Spring Internet World ’99, one of the world’s
largest Internet industry trade shows offers exhibit space for startups
ONLY at a reduced price in order to meet their often limited capital
available at the startup stage. Contact Sean Moriarty (hurry, space
limited): mailto:moriarty@mecklermedia.com
