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Dot Com Winners and Losers: MP3.com and Ask Jeeves
By Jenny Baker, December 11, 2000
Dot-Com Winners & Losers
by Jenny Baker
December 7,
2000
In the Winner Circle:
Viva.com
Those of you who live in
tight rental markets will be thoroughly
perplexed by the notion of rental
agencies paying a company to help them
find tenants. Those of you who've
kept an eye on recent dot-com
vicissitudes will be further surprised by the
news that just such a
company (B2C, no less) has scored $17.3 million in the
current market.
However, this is indeed the case with Santa Monica,
Calif.-based
Viva.com. The company offers a free service to potential
renters who
enter their profile on the Viva site and then receive rental
offers from
local real-estate companies. When Viva's matchmaker attempts are
successful, the company then collects between 20 and 32 percent of the
first month's rent from the property owner. Sounds like a crazy
proposition, but investors (including a host of realty companies and
some financial organizations) believed in it enough to pledge the
aforementioned $17.3 million to support Viva's existing operations in 13
markets and its plans for expansion into another 30 or so. A note to
denizens of New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles: Don't expect to
see a Viva.com web site opening soon in a location near you.
B2C
Viva.com receives $17.3 million in 3rd round funding
http://www.redherring.com/vc/2000/1207/vc-ltr-dealflow120700.html
In the Digital Doghouse:
Women.com
Back on Monday, we told you about
Oxygen Media scoring a staggering $100
million in funding. However, not all
is so swell in the world of women's
web sites this week, as evidenced by
Wednesday's announcement that one
of Oxygen's main competitors in the
women's niche, Women.com, is laying
off 25 percent of its staff, or 85
employees. Dubbed a cost-cutting
move, the company hopes its reduced costs
and streamlined operations
will allow it to see profitability at some point
in 2001. No plans to
curtail services have been announced, so Women.com's
200,000 pages of
community bulletins, health tips, relationship advice,
shopping sites,
and the like should be unaffected by the cuts. Still, tough
times are
ahead for the site, and its niche as well -- even Oxygen announced
layoffs of 65 staff members after its whopping investment haul. Kind of
lends a new meaning to the "women's lib" movement.
Women.com lays off
25 percent in cost-cutting move
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-4028462.html
--
Dot-Com Winners & Losers
by Jenny Baker
December 8,
2000
In the Winner Circle:
MP3.com
Now that its lawsuits
with major record labels are behind it, things are
looking up for MP3.com.
In fact, it didn't take long for digital-music
rebel to ink a new
partnership with the online arm of megaretailer Tower
Records. The deal with
TowerRecords.com will let consumers who buy a CD
from the online store use
MP3.com for web access to the music they've
just purchased, long before
their CD arrives in the mail. Customers can
instantly get a streamed version
of the CD they just bought, thereby
eliminating that whole delayed
gratification aspect of Net shopping. The
service should be implemented by
January, with plans to follow for
expanding it to Tower's brick-and-mortar
stores. Between this alliance
and those that Napster has pursued with major
labels, the virtual music
world is starting to sound more and more like the
real one.
MP3.com, TowerRecords.com Join Hands
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,20642,00.html
In the Digital Doghouse:
Ask Jeeves
In the P.G. Wodehouse novels where
the Jeeves character was created,
said butler is all-knowing and
unflappable. Far from emulating its
namesake, Ask Jeeves finds itself in a
state of extreme perturbation
today. Back in December of '99, the company's
stock was trading at a
healthy 52-week high of $144 per share. The
intervening year hasn't been
kind, with shares plummeting 91 percent to
close at $9.69 on Thursday
(this morning it had settled around $4), mostly
on fears of declining
online-ad revenues. As if on cue, the company also
revised revenue and
net-loss projections, while brokerages responded by
cutting the
company's investment rating from Recommended to Market Perform.
And as a
final slap in the face for good-news seekers, CEO Rob Wrubel said
today
he will step down from his post and resign his seat on the board of
directors. Wrubel will stay on as VP of market development. In light of
all this, the main question over at Ask Jeeves these days is probably
something along the lines of "Now what?"
Ask Jeeves Sinks on Earnings
Warning, CEO Reshuffle
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001208/wr/askjeeves_dc_1.html
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