AOL, in theory, has open-access to the instant messaging service today, but just under terms that they dictate. Perhaps the FCC will engender AOL to create terms that are more amenable to competitors, accessing the instant messaging system. |
I'm giving the [company the] benefit of the doubt, and it looks like the market is, too. |
It is a good development psychologically. We've seen the high water mark relative to losses. It means the model has shifted, that they are in fact working towards profitability. |
It's a psychological milestone for the Street if only because it was the one achievable thing that management set out to do earlier this year. |
Our rating on this share is a buy. And again that is really a function of the fact that I believe eBay is one of the few Internet and e-tailing sites out there that is really poised for dramatic growth for the long term. |
Suddenly, the ad sales guys have gone from the heady times of last year when they were order takers to today's reality of working the phones hard. |
The long-term growth rate of Yahoo is not as good as some people thought. |
The question is, what incentives and what discounts have they needed to provide to get to that number and indeed just what is their operational efficiency? |
The real vote if you're really concerned about fraud, the place to look to see that it is a small part is the fact that you have so many people who have converted their small businesses on line. They're not going to do that and they're not going to stay on eBay if it isn't the healthiest and safest environment to be trading in. |
They beat my revenue estimates by a wide margin. Twenty-one percent sequential growth in a seasonally slow quarter is pretty damn good. |
We see many of the same characteristics in this stock that we saw in America Online back in 1995. A great management team, a huge market opportunity, an obsessive focus on customers, an unusual and misunderstood business model, and dysfunctional competitors. |