Internet News/Analysis Quick Links (ALOY, AMZN, GOOG, MSFT, TWX, YHOO)

• ALOY: 'Generation Y' marketing and catalog/Internet retailer Alloy's results: Revenue up 18% year over year to $123MM; EPS $0.15; consensus (one analyst) was $0.01, but not clear whether reported EPS is on the same basis as the estimate.

• AMZN: Online Retail Sales Projected To Soar for Holidays, says the WSJ (paid sub req'd). Key point: According to the Commerce Department, online retail sales (excludes travel) rose 27% in Q3, up from 26% in Q2, and now accounts for 2.3% of total retail sales. But current estimates for Q4 online sales growth only range from 20-25%, so there's upside to current expectations. Question: Is Amazon still the best pure-play on e-commerce?

• GOOG, YHOO: The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that U.S. Internet advertising revenue rose 33.9% in Q3, the strongest growth since 2004 Q2.

• MSFT: Coverage of the Xbox launch here. Discussion of investment impact here, and a bullish, Xbox-driven view of Microsoft's stock here.

• TWX: The WSJ covers (paid sub req'd) the launch of the latest version of AOL instant messenger, called AIM Triton. The key change: better integration with AOL web pages. AIM allows you, for example, to check movie times by instant message and to request links to shopping items. The movie showtimes feature allows users to purchase tickets via MovieFone, which in turn uses MovieTickets.com for processing.

Comments

[cjellan:]

AMZN: There is no doubt that AMZN still has a stronghold on the internet shopping industry. There tactics are highly innovative and they are well ahead of the game. It will be a while until a company surpasses them in the industry. Honestly, don’t look for any novice corporation to out pace AMZN. Look for Google (froogle) to start pushing their way towards the top.
chrisellan.com

2005 Nov 24 02:01 AM