Seidman's Online Insider - Vol. 5, Issue 9
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Seidman's Online Insider - Vol. 5, Issue 9
Visit the Online Insider on the Web for additional content and access
to the Insider Talk discussion forums. A new Seidman's 25 is now up!
< http://www.onlineinsider.com >
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Copyright (C) 1998 Robert Seidman. All rights reserved. May be
reproduced in any medium for noncommercial purposes as long as
attribution is given.
IN THIS ISSUE
- What's Happening in Insider Talk
- Correcting a Correction
- Life and the Internet
- More Fun With Numbers
- Quotes of the Week
- Stock Watch
- Subscription Info
If you've been dying to see my fish and my cat or even if you haven't,
here's your chance: < http://www.onlineinsider.com/html/about_me.html >.
The links to the pics are at the bottom of the page at the above URL.
What's Happening in Insider Talk
================================
Note: you can avoid the hassle of cutting and pasting all the links
below by viewing the current issue at www.onlineinsider.com and
using the links there.
"The notion that it is simply honorable junk mail if the person will
remove you, if you ask, does not hold water, knowing that asking to get
off the list is the trigger that many folks use to send you more stuff.
It is often better to just not reply. There is no way to know if the
person sending the stuff is honorable in advance, unless they have done
the truly honorable thing and asked you if you want to be on the list in
the first place." -- Cliff Kurtzman, president and CEO of Tenagra, in
the Policy conference:
< http://www.wellengaged.com/engaged/seidman.cgi?c=policy&t=9&q=49 >
--
"Yahoo! performs a useful service, but it's no more likely to inspire
brand loyalty than the catalog at the public library or the water &
sewer department." -- Durant Imboden, Boardwatch Magazine columnist, in
the Web conference:
< http://www.wellengaged.com/engaged/seidman.cgi?c=web&t=16&q=3 >
--
"The comments about leveraging AOL infrastructure are on target and will
be a key part of CompuServe 5.0. But the CompuServe brand will continue.
With its own identity, personality and character and with web forums.
Most of us recognize the forums as a key asset that are better than what
AOL or anyone else has. It'd be dumb to blow that up (and in saying that
I know there are people participating in this thread who'll conclude
that we'll do it anyway because it's dumb; but I can't help them)." --
Bob Kington, VP of programming, CompuServe, in the Online conference:
< http://www.wellengaged.com/engaged/seidman.cgi?c=online&f=0&t=16&q=131 >
Correcting a Correction
=======================
In last week's "off-week" update, I corrected a statement in the
February 22 issue where I'd said that AOL did not offer flat-fee
options outside of the US. I said that AOL did in fact offer
a flat-fee option in both the UK and Germany. AOL International
spokesperson Kirsten Powers contacted me to let me know that
there is no flat-fee option offered in Germany. According to
Powers, the reason I may have been told otherwise by some
readers is that AOL is testing different price plans. Such
tests are not available to the general public.
Life and the Internet
=====================
A couple of new services are attempting to use the Internet to
complement life events, major or minor. Getting married, having a baby
or selecting a college are major events that affect a great many
people. Planning and coordinating a family reunion or Little League
baseball practices or even a car-pool schedule -- well, these are not
major life events, but people live with this stuff, and the Internet
could be used as a tool to disseminate information.
An example of a company that's going after major life events is
LifeServ, a start-up based in Englewood, Colo. LifeServ's first
product, WedServ, offers a software tool called WedLink that lets
couples plan and organize that special day. Couples also get to set up
a "WedSite" that serves as a tool for the wedding guests by providing
them the most up-to-date information straight from the engaged couple.
Gift registries, pictures, directions to the church, hotel
accommodations and the like can all be made available online. Point
your guests to the Web site for the most up-to-date info. It's an
interesting model and one that, as more and more folks get online,
becomes very practical.
The business model is simple: Give the service away and charge the
merchants that definitely want to reach this target audience. As a
couple steps through the planning phase for the wedding, certain
merchants are recommended on the basis of a profile the couple has
filled out. LifeServ gets money on what's effectively very targeted
advertising, plus a cut of any resulting transaction.
WedServ is an interesting model, and LifeServ won't stop there.
LifeServ plans to launch services centered on having a baby and picking
a college. My biggest concern for LifeServ is distribution of its
software. But, given the nature of the life events it's going after, it
has interesting distribution opportunities in terms of handing out
software that go beyond simple banner ads, print and other marketing
media. It could partner with merchants. For example, it could cut deals
with jewelry stores in which they give the software to couples who buy
engagement rings. Or it could make arrangements with obstetricians to
distribute disks. To succeed, I think, LifeServ will have to be
effective at nailing down its non-Internet marketing strategy, but it's
a great concept. The company's current marketing efforts include
creating traditional Internet partnerships as well as, with WedServ,
making deals with wedding merchants and publications. For more
information, see < http://www.wedserv.com >.
Though it's not specifically targeting major or minor life events,
Seattle-based start-up Throw, Inc.might be better off it were targeting
such events from a marketing point of view. Instead it's going after
the much broader and currently more competitive space of online
communities. Throw's product, InstantOnline, will offer a compelling set
of features and tools that easily and quickly let you add and share
information and create "virtual communities." It's currently in private
beta.
"In addition to email, discussions and chat, InstantOnline offers an
address book, photo album, events calendar, bookmark file and much, much
more," according to text on its Web site. "With pre-set community
templates like 'Team Sports,' 'Book Club' and 'Virtual Office,' it's
even easier to build a specialized community. You know what your
community needs; InstantOnline gives you the tools to meet those needs."
InstantOnline can get you started quickly with templates such as its
starter pack, plus a family template, a book-club template, a
sports-team template and, yes, even a wedding-planner template (you give
access to your community to all your guests, then give them the URL).
One of the advantages of InstantOnline is that it lets you communicate
in real time with anyone else currently logged in to your community. It
also intends to be more object-oriented than other services. For
example, you can link almost anything to anywhere. You can have a photo
album for browsing photographs, but you also can embed a picture
directly into a message in a message thread.
The biggest concern I have for Throw's InstantOnline is that, like me,
it isn't exactly sure what it wants to be when it grows up. On the one
hand, it seems to be trying to position itself to take on
GeoCities-style build-your-own-home-page-in-our-neighborhood products.
On the other hand, it's going after a hybrid free/fee plan where many of
the applications available to you in a community (say, messaging) will
be free of charge, while others (such as a calendar function) may carry
a fee. Last, and worst, in my opinion, Throw appears to want to
sacrifice its message for a chance at more exposure.
InstantOnline's tag line is "Aren't there times when you don't want all
of America online with you?" It's a sly ploy that attempts to make the
subtle statement "when you only want to be with the people you want to
be with," while also making a backhanded reference to AOL. Such a tag
line obscures the real message of what Throw is attempting to do with
InstantOnline -- allow you to communicate easily with the people you
want or need to communicate with in a great forum for doing so. The tag
line seems to imply that when you're online you're always burdened with
EVERYONE else who's online too. That's clearly never the case. And the
backhanded AOL comment might be construed to imply: "Do you really need
all that stuff on AOL, or do you need this?"
That said, the tag line still may be a good approach. Why? AOL is the
giant, and everyone loves a David-and-Goliath story. It's the same
rationale CNET used when it launched Snap! Online. CNET suggested Snap!
was competing with AOL. "Hello Snap. Goodbye AOL!" the Snap! T-shirts
joked.
So when InstantOnline launches more formally, it may get a lot more
press exposure as a result of the AOL nature of its tag line. Let's
hope this won't obscure the underlying potential of InstantOnline: We
think we have great tools that will let you more easily share
information among your friends, people with like interests and/or your
co-workers.
You can find more information at: < http://www.throw.com >.
More Fun With Numbers
=====================
It's been a while ...
First off, we have a survey from Business Week and Louis Harris that
concludes concerns over privacy block the way to increased Internet
commerce.
According to the survey results, 78 percent of people who go online say
they'd use the Internet more if they believed the privacy of their
personal information and communications was protected.
Privacy is a big deal. No question about it. But I often find myself
pondering editorial products and pollsters' fixation on the issue of
privacy and the Internet. The focus, if anything, only increases
people's fears. And maybe that's not bad -- I'd probably argue it
isn't. But what irritates me is that these pollsters and editorial
products don't raise privacy issues that concern other forms of media.
Not so with the Business Week-Harris survey.
When I read the news release for the survey and saw that it concluded
people trust the Internet less than other forms of communication, I
wondered how the study approached that. I've concluded from the results
that a lot of people are worried about almost all forms of privacy
invasion. Of course, the release didn't emphasize that 80 percent of
the respondents are at least somewhat concerned about giving credit card
information to catalog phone service representatives. Likewise, 80
percent are at least somewhat concerned about providing their credit
card information on the Internet. The difference is that only 56
percent of the respondents were VERY concerned in the telephone-catalog
instance, while 65 percent were VERY concerned about giving their credit
card data on the Internet.
Seventy-eight percent of the respondents who actually go online report
they have never bought anything via the Internet (22 percent report they
have).
Most telling and problematic for Internet advertising in general may be
the finding that 62 percent of respondents are not at all willing to
give personal and financial information about themselves so they can
receive targeted ads. Add the 22 percent who are not very willing and
you have 84 percent who are at least not very willing to provide this
information.
David Simons, managing director of Digital Video Investments, looked at
the above results and wondered what impact the privacy issues would have
on online marketing. He contrasts the 84 percent above with the fact
that "targeting not obtainable via other media has forever been the
major promise of online advertising."
Other interesting tidbits from the Business Week-Harris study:
- 59 percent of respondents say they never register when a site requires
registration that asks for personal information.
- 77 percent are at least somewhat concerned about the security of
conducting personal-banking transactions online.
- 51 percent of those not online say they'd be more likely to start
using the Internet if the cost was lower.
- 67 percent of those online say they'd be likely to use the Internet
more if the cost was lower. (Given the proliferation of flat-fee
service, I don't understand this response: It seems like saying,
"Because I *am* paying $19.95 now, I use the Internet less than I would
if it was $9.95." And yet they are paying.)
- 53 percent of those not online say they'd be more likely to start
using the Internet if it was less complicated.
- 64 percent of those online say they'd use the Internet more if it was
less complicated.
And the study even covered spam!
- 39 percent of those not online say they'd be more likely to go online
if they could control businesses' sending them marketing messages they
didn't want.
- 58 percent of those who are online say they'd be more likely to use
the Internet more if they could control businesses' sending them
marketing messages they didn't want.
Full details at: < http://www.businessweek.com/premium/11/b3569107.htm >.
*Online Shopping Increases*
According to research by Stamford, Conn.-based @Plan, 24 percent of Web
users are actively shopping online. Sounds high to me, and I went to
@Plan's Web site < http://www.webplan.net > to see whether I could find
out more, but at the time I visited, the only information available
without a subscription was the company name, address and phone number,
and an e-mail address for getting info on subscribing. I would say
@Plan isn't using its own Web site to sell its own goods very well, but,
hey, that's just one guy's opinion. According to the news release
issued on March 2, the five "Web Purchase Retail Categories" showing the
greatest percentage growth in the past nine months are:
1. Airline ticket reservations (up 301 percent)
2. Stocks and mutual funds (up 291 percent)
3. Computer hardware (up 111 percent)
4. Car rental (up 105 percent)
5. Books (up 94 percent)
None of this strikes me as outrageous. While the percentages are high,
you're starting from very low usage, so these kinds of increases aren't
shocking. That books are low relative to airline tickets only indicates
(to me) that books were already selling better nine months ago and
earlier.
In the nostalgia department, the following content sites have the
highest percentage of viewers who have been on the Web for more than two
years:
1. CMP TechWeb
2. Jumbo
3. PC Week Online
4. ActiveX.com
5. HotWired
I'm sure they danced a jig in Manhasset over that one! That
technology-related sites occupy all five places sounds right to me.
The following content sites have the highest percentage of viewers who
have been on the Web for less than six months:
1. ABC.com
2. Autoweb.com
3. RollingStone.com
4. Penthouse
5. MTV Online
This I found interesting. ABC.com is still relatively new itself, so no
big surprises there, especially with the promotion on AOL. That music
sites occupy two of the five slots is also not shocking. I'm surprised
that Penthouse is on the list! Not a slam on Penthouse, I'm just
surprised people admitted visiting the site.
>From our friends at Find/SVP Emerging Technologies Research Group (which
is now Cyber Dialogue) ... According to the fourth-quarter 1997 results
for the American Internet Usage survey update:
- 41.5 million adult Internet/online users in the United States
- 24.2 million men
- 17.3 million women
You've seen bigger numbers than the ones above. You've seen WAY bigger
numbers. I trust these numbers the most (though I do have one concern,
which is noted at the end).
- 21 percent of all U.S. adults are online
- 27 percent of all U.S. adult males are online
- 17 percent of all U.S. adult females are online
The younger an adult you are, the more likely you are to be online:
- 33 percent of all U.S. adults 18 to 29 years old are online
- 38 percent of all U.S. adult males 18 to 29 are online
- 27 percent of all U.S. adult females 18 to 29 are online
- 27 percent of all U.S. adults 30 to 49 are online
- 31 percent of all U.S. adult males 30 to 49 are online
- 22 percent of all U.S. adult females 30 to 49 are online
- 12 percent of all U.S. adults 50-plus are online
- 16 percent of all U.S. adult males 50-plus are online
- 9 percent of all U.S. adult females 50-plus are online
More people use the Net from home than from work:
- 70 percent of all online U.S. adults use Internet at home*
- 46 percent of all online U.S. adults use Internet at work*
- 27 percent of all online U.S. adults use the Internet at both home and
work*
AOL -- not quite as big as the rest of the online world combined, on a
user basis:
- 17.5 million U.S. adults use AOL (remember, we're talking users, not
accounts)* or
- 42 percent of all U.S. online adults use AOL* while ...
- 24 million U.S. online adults don't use AOL* or
- 58 percent of all U.S. online adults don't use AOL*
On a subscriber basis, it looks a little different (but remember, not
all users subscribe to anything):
- 10.1 million U.S. adults subscribe to AOL* (note, this tracks right
on with AOL's own reported subscriber statistics for domestic usage in
the fourth quarter of 1997).
The Microsoft Network: The survey doesn't track well with data reported
by MSN, or else MSN is holding back on us!
- 9.2 million U.S. adults use MSN*
- 3.7 million U.S. adults subscribe to MSN*
This is extremely surprising on a couple of levels. For one thing, the
users-per-account ratio is much higher than it is for AOL; this is
especially surprising since MSN stopped giving out numbers at 2.5
million. While there's an argument that says Microsoft might want to
mask growth amid all the antitrust considerations, I have trouble buying
that Microsoft would lowball its U.S. numbers by such a huge amount
(consider that a portion of MSN's 2.5 million reported included
international subscribers and the above is only for U.S. subscribers).
According to Cyber Dialogue VP, Tom Miller, "Possible explanations
include: some survey respondents confusing using MS online support with
using MSN, thus overstating the data; or MSN has more subs than they
admit to."
*Extrapolated from Find/SVP data
Quotes of the Week
==================
"Push isn't dead, it's hard." -- PointCast chairman, president and CEO
David Dorman
"You've been somewhat hard to nail down."--Sen. Orrin Hatch to
Bill Gates during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.
Stock Watch for the Week Ended March 6, 1998
============================================
Courtesy of InfoBeat's CLOSING BELL < http://www.infobeat.com >.
52 Wk 52 Wk P/E Week
SECURITY CLOSE HIGH LOW Ratio CHNG
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AT&T Corp................ 61 66 1/2 30 3/4 21 0.0%
Amazon Com Inc........... 76 3/4 79 5/8 15 3/4 -0.3%
America Online Inc....... 121 1/2 125 38 5/8 467 +0.1%
Apple Computer Inc....... 24 7/16 29 3/4 12 3/4 +3.4%
At Home Corporation Ser A 36 37 1/2 16 5/8 +5.4%
C/Net.................... 37 3/16 46 1/2 15 3/4 +2.5%
CMG Info Svcs. Inc....... 58 1/4 57 10 7/16 +21.6%
Cendant Corporation...... 39 38 11/16 19 1/4 650 +4.0%
Cmp Media Inc Cl A....... 24 3/4 29 3/8 13 3/4 33 +4.7%
Concentric Network Corp.. 13 7/8 16 7 7/8 -4.3%
Cybercash Inc............ 12 15/16 24 1/4 10 1/8 -5.0%
Earthlink Network Inc.... 50 54 1/2 8 5/8 +2.0%
Excite Inc............... 48 7/16 50 1/2 7 1/2 +2.5%
FTP Software Inc......... 2 3/16 7 1/4 1 1/2 +9.4%
GTE Corporation.......... 55 1/2 55 3/4 40 1/2 19 +2.5%
Hewlett Packard Company.. 61 9/16 72 15/16 48 1/8 21 -8.1%
IBM...................... 98 1/8 113 1/2 63 9/16 16 -6.0%
ICG Communications Inc... 36 1/2 34 3/4 8 5/8 +8.5%
Infoseek Corporation..... 18 3/8 17 15/16 4 3/8 +11.7%
Lycos Inc................ 43 3/8 43 3/4 11 3/16 +5.1%
MCI Communications Corpor 47 1/2 48 15/32 27 5/16 48 -0.6%
Mecklermedia Corp........ 25 29 3/4 16 1/2 46 -8.2%
Microsoft Corporation.... 82 3/4 86 43 3/4 57 -2.3%
Mindspring Enterprises In 57 3/8 55 1/2 6 5/8 +18.6%
Netmanage Inc............ 2 11/16 5 1/4 2 3/32 +1.1%
Netscape Communications C 19 3/16 49 1/2 14 7/8 -0.9%
Network Solutions Inc. Cl 23 1/8 26 3/4 11 3/4 75 +14.1%
Newsedge Corporation..... 10 1/16 16 5 -9.5%
Onsale Inc............... 28 11/16 35 1/4 4 5/8 0.0%
Open Market Inc.......... 18 15/32 19 3/4 6 1/2 +11.9%
Oracle Corporation....... 26 7/8 42 1/8 17 5/8 38 +9.1%
Psinet Inc............... 8 11/16 9 3/4 4 1/4 +12.5%
Quarterdeck Corp......... 2 1/64 4 1 3/16 -5.7%
Realnetworks Inc......... 16 3/16 19 3/8 13 1/2 +7.9%
Security First Network Ba 13 5/8 14 5 1/4 +25.2%
Silicon Graphics Inc..... 14 3/4 30 5/16 10 15/16 92 -2.0%
Sportsline Usa Inc....... 30 11/16 27 3/4 7 +30.5%
Sprint Corporation....... 68 1/8 67 7/8 41 7/8 31 +3.2%
Spyglass Inc............. 8 1/2 12 4 1/16 +1.4%
Sun Microsystems Inc..... 42 3/4 53 5/16 25 7/8 23 -10.2%
Vocaltec Communications L 21 9/16 33 1/4 6 -6.7%
Worldcom Inc............. 38 1/4 39 7/8 21 1/4 96 +0.1%
Yahoo Corporation........ 80 9/16 75 3/4 14 41/64 +10.0%
Dow Jones 30 Industrials. 8,569.38 +0.2%
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