Word: amazoned
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...York's big-money mandarins have been snubbing Silicon Valley of late, a chill exemplified by Wired Ventures' humiliating failure to float its own IPO last summer. "The new-issues market is not particularly strong right now, particularly for tech stocks," says Standard & Poor's analyst Robert Natale. "Amazon will be an indication of whether bellwether technology stocks can find an audience...
...whether bellwether technology stocks deserve one. Though Amazon isn't yet profitable (what self-respecting Internet IPO candidate is?), its revenues have soared from just half a million in '95 to $16 million in '96. But high-tech veterans laugh, often bitterly, at the idea that bringing a superior product to market early might guarantee success. A good Web concept draws sincere flatterers like flies. Already the Complete Guide to Online Bookstores Web page offers links to some 200 sites, from biggies like the British-based Internet Book Shop to fringe dwellers like Tales to Tell and Bloody Dagger Books...
...only company likely to hinder Amazon's attempt to become the Barnes & Noble of the Web, however, is Barnes & Noble itself. In January the industry goliath announced plans to begin selling its estimated 1 million titles via America Online and a Website. Amazon countered by more than doubling its stock, to 2.5 million (including, a bit disingenuously, a million out-of-print books it will try to locate for you, an offer B&N quickly matched), and slashing prices up to 40% to surpass the bookstore's 30% hardcover discount...
Bezos scoffs at the B&N challenge, assuring the world--before descending into his required pre-IPO cone of silence--that Amazon's paper-thin overhead and laser-like Web focus will make it difficult for anyone to match it on price. Amazon doesn't carry the hefty cost of those comfy B&N superstores; for the most part, it just orders titles from warehousers and publishers on your behalf...
Still, the Web's radical efficiencies present Amazon with a classic start-up's dilemma: if the service offered is so easy that a couple of hundred computer jocks can pull it off, it should be equally easy for a billion-dollar behemoth to shoulder you off the road--so better stay ahead every mile of the race...