I know what you're thinking. Did she fire six blanks or only five? Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself.
But I'll tell you one thing, GO ain't no "punk." Its digital library of valuable online content and the tens of millions of eyeballs it attracts is worth far more than what the market dictates today. And I'm not suggesting that GO will be bought out a la Lycos -- the content is so ingrained into Disney's entertainment properties that only the Big Cheese himself would have a reason to swallow GO whole.
My Content is Not King piece certainly did address how the market values sound operations and fiscal prudence over raw content -- but that was not my ultimate point. Savvy execution is much easier to acquire than organic brand and content development. Yes, GO is losing money right now. But those losses are expected to narrow next year and should continue to improve.
Think of the content. And as a failed vanilla portal, accept that Infoseek learned to carve its own niche and become the first multimedia-rich ex-portal as GO. A first mover -- on a new path. It's okay to cheer on both Yahoo! and GO, Fools. It's not an either/or thing as Lou seems to indicate.
If she's got the $70 billion to buy Yahoo! why not kick in that extra $2 billion to pick up GO, too. Or, better still, why not take that money and buy up all of Starbucks <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(Nasdaq: SBUX)") else Response.Write("(Nasdaq: SBUX)") end if %>, all of Gap <% if gsSubBrand = "aolsnapshot" then Response.Write("(NYSE: GPS)") else Response.Write("(NYSE: GPS)") end if %>, all of GO -- and still have enough market cap money left over to buy up half of Yahoo!?
With Disney's huge stake, it's easy to see why just a little negativity has moved the stock down in a major way. So, imagine what kind of a dramatic move the shares will make once a little optimism begins creeping in? Just GO with the flow Lou. Just GO with the flow.
This Week's Duel
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