Your Survey Picks: Readers Pick Mindshare Internet Firms

One of the least understood or explored metrics in valuation of stocks is
perception. So in ISR March
20
we asked our 25,000-plus global Internet-based readers to e-mail us
with their first thought when asked about a general Internet topic. In
short, a “Rorschach test” (the inkblot one) for Internet users to see if
there’s any bearing on stock values and general perceptions.


We got about 100 readers who took the time to answer the long list of
questions, so this isn’t a pure or clinical survey by any means, it’s
informal.


But guess who was mentioned the most? Yahoo!, in content, news, search, and
navigation. So YHOO shares bursting by the $100 share mark doesn’t surprise
us in that context. Individual investors are buying what they use most.


Never mind the fact that Yahoo! trades more than 40x revenue or that fully
diluted shares aren’t showing up on its $4.7 billion market capitalization.
Fully diluted YHOO is more than $5.5 billion market cap. Stop the helium
intake.


Amazon wins in books, CDnow in music. Amazon also wins in the more general
category of “commerce.” Perhaps rightly so since the firm pioneered much of
what Internet commerce for consumers is, or is perceived to have pioneered
it, which may be the same thing.


That could bode well for other product sales, but we think Amazon and books
are so closely related that somehow “Amazon Music” doesn’t ring up the
right melody.


Trade shows and magazines sees Mecklermedia’s (producer of this report)
Internet World the one mentioned. Again, the sector leader. So pioneer in
one area = recognition in that area. Common sense wins sometimes.


Check out the list:



And The Survey Says:




















































































































ISDEX Survey

Your Picks:

we asked–

you said–

Content =

Yahoo

Software

Microsoft

Books

Amazon.com

Music

CDnow

Banking

no clear winner

Cars

AutoByTel, CarPoint

Access

no clear winner

Developer

Microsoft

Email

HotMail, Eudora

Trade show

Internet World

High-speed

no clear winner

Conference

no clear winner

Auctions

ONSALE

News

Yahoo

Hardware

no clear winner

Communities

GeoCities

Commerce

Amazon.com

Modems

3Com

Search

Yahoo, Infoseek, Alta Vista

Stocks

no clear winner

Magazines

Internet World, PC Week

Telephony

VocalTec, NetSpeak

Cable

@Home

Chat

no clear winner

Navigation

Netscape, Yahoo

Business

no clear winner



Notably, and this is something we think provides insights into where
possible opportunities are for the budding entrepreneurs, some of these
categories remain unclear in the mindshare space.


Access, high speed, banking, hardware, stocks, and chat all had various
responses but it was one off. No one company led the pack or had enough
responses to warrant being mentioned.


We also think that even in the categories mentioned that none of this is
etched in stone, slow-drying clay maybe, but not stone.


For example, in 1990 if we had asked this same set of questions, odds are
that CompuServe, Prodigy and AOL–all of which provided most of the above
services or features inside their services–may have been the only three
mentioned.


There are other factors at play here but perception seems to be important
and the one most difficult to quantify.


So in another six months let’s do it again and see who’s where and what’s
who. Maybe it’s not even slow-drying clay for some of these, but shifting
sands.

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