What a difference a month makes. In the throes of June the average value per unique user to one of the top 10 Web sites was held at my estimated $430 each. As of July 12 that figure popped to $487. The median value jumped even further, from $213 to $250.
June 10’s numbers reflect an overall weakness that limped through the Internet stock sector on interest rate fears and investor jitters like a group of guests in the green room on Jerry Springer.
| WEBDEX | Unique | 6-10-99 | 7-12-99 | 6-10-99 | 7-12-99 | Percent |
| website user valuation | Users | Market cap or PMV* | Market cap or PMV* | User | User | change |
| (millions) | (millions) | (millions) | Value | Value | ||
| AOL.com* | 46.2 | $15,000 | $17,500 | $324 | $378 | 16.7% |
| Microsoft.com* | 32.4 | $8,500 | $10,000 | $262 | $309 | 17.6% |
| Lycos | 30.0 | $3,890 | $4,494 | $130 | $150 | 15.5% |
| Yahoo | 31.3 | $29,583 | $30,707 | $945 | $981 | 3.8% |
| GO Network (SEEK) | 20.9 | $2,904 | $2,838 | $139 | $136 | -2.3% |
| GeoCities * | 20.0 | $3,250 | $3,000 | $163 | $150 | -7.7% |
| Excite@Home | 17.2 | $7,000 | $12,944 | $407 | $753 | 84.9% |
| Time Warner web sites | 13.1 | $1,825 | $2,500 | $139 | $191 | 37.0% |
| Blue Mtn Arts | 10.1 | $650 | $700 | $64 | $69 | 7.7% |
| Amazon.com | 10.8 | $18,731 | $18,963 | $1,729 | $1,751 | 1.2% |
| TOTAL | 231.9 | 91,333 | 103,646 | 4,304 | 4,868 | 13.1% |
| AVERAGE | 23.2 | 9,133 | 10,365 | 430 | 487 | 13.1% |
| MEDIAN | 20.4 | 5,445 | 7,247 | 213 | 250 | 17.5% |
AOL.com and Microsoft.com as well as private companies are valued based on comparables, estimates, growth, peer group. Valuation by Steve Harmon
In the interim a few successful IPOs and better-than-expected earnings propped the group up. Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), in particular, beat expectations and found renewed legs on it nascent. At 3.8% the tally is’nt significant as much as I think the trend and what GeoCities and Broadcast.com mean to Yahoo going forward.
Go.com (NASDAQ:SEEK), with Disney finally taking control of majority, looks to me like a long-term value play. Disney has ABC TV, shows, TV, films, stores, plays, several characters and more–all leveragable in my view into Web assets.
I think there’s still some work to be done at Go.com, mainly which I see its reach on the Web is not on par with the top 4. A large gap exists between Lycos (NASDAQ:LCOS) at 30 million unique users vs. Go.com with 21 million.
On a larger trend that I think may be developing consider that Yahoo, Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) may find it more difficult to grow market value from their already-large base.
In that arena I see AOL.com and Microsoft.com getting more valuable. Certainly AOL (NYSE:AOL) with 46 million monthly users dwarfs the #2 and so on.
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