User visits, values and viscidity all cross and compete in a follow the money trail expedition that many firms hope ends on Wall Street. Only when it does Mecklermedia’s WEBDEX highlights just how valuable those users are on the ‘Street. This week’s tally shows about $57 per pair of eyeballs.
Come browse our stats:
WEBDEX, What’s An Eyeball Worth Anyway?
WEBDEX | February | March 18 | March 25 | March 18 | March 25 | ||
Value per site user | Unique | Market cap | Market cap | Percent | Value | Value | Percent |
© 1998 Mecklermedia | Users | or est. PMV * | or est. PMV * | change | Per | Per | change |
Web Property | (millions) | (millions) | (millions) | User | User | ||
Yahoo | 31.3 | $ 3,719 | $ 4,044 | 9% | $ 118.82 | $ 129.20 | 9% |
Netscape.com* | 23.1 | $ 675 | $ 675 | 0% | $ 29.22 | $ 29.22 | 0% |
Microsoft.com* | 17.9 | $ 1,100 | $ 1,150 | 5% | $ 61.45 | $ 64.25 | 5% |
Excite | 16.5 | $ 810 | $ 792 | -2% | $ 49.08 | $ 48.02 | -2% |
AOL.com* | 14.1 | $ 1,200 | $ 1,150 | -4% | $ 85.11 | $ 81.56 | -4% |
Infoseek | 13.7 | $ 575 | $ 562 | -2% | $ 41.99 | $ 41.01 | -2% |
GeoCities* | 12.5 | $ 275 | $ 225 | -18% | $ 22.00 | $ 18.00 | -18% |
Lycos | 10.2 | $ 639 | $ 665 | 4% | $ 62.61 | $ 65.21 | 4% |
MSN.com | 8.3 | $ 575 | $ 500 | -13% | $ 69.28 | $ 60.24 | -13% |
AltaVista* | 7.6 | $ 275 | $ 225 | -18% | $ 36.18 | $ 29.61 | -18% |
TOTAL | $ 155 | $ 9,843 | $ 9,988 | 1% | $ 576 | $ 566 | -2% |
AVERAGE | $ 16 | $ 984 | $ 999 | 1% | $ 58 | $ 57 | -2% |
Yahoo again tops the list of value, or lack of value opportunity if you wish you would have bought these shares when they were under $15 a pop just over a year ago. At $129 per user it smokes the rivals on the list. And we haven’t shown the fully-diluted market cap either, just in case the bearded ladies investment club is reading this.
Infoseek (NASDAQ:SEEK) softens in market cap and user value since last we wrote. Before this moves onward we think Infoseek may need some positive earnings or tectonic event, however. Takeover candidate? Who isn’t?
Surprisingly, Excite (NASDAQ:XCIT) dropped in value even while it’s wanna be mentor soared. We bump up AOL.com’s private market value (PMV since this is only one asset of the entire AOL machine), to $1.150 billion possible value if it was sold on its own to bidders or spun off as its own entity (which we doubt). For valuation purposes, however, we carry it at the shown value.
We’re lowering both privately-held companies GeoCities and Alta Vista (part of the Digital-Compaq bureaucracy) in value due to what we see as a closing window of opportunity for both to ramp up as portals/malls/hangout spots and genuine home ports for Web users.
Especially Alta Vista. Likewise, Netscape’s Netcenter seems about a year too late to be the win-all default portal, although it has come a long way in just one month and ranks second on the user list. Mozilla, where are you now when Netscape needs you most?
