"Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting."
-- Christopher Morley, American writer
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Federal Trade Commission officials are closely examining America Online's (NYSE: AOL) leadership in the instant messaging business as part its antitrust review of the AOL/Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) merger, The Wall Street Journal reported. AOL, by some accounts, has 90% of the instant messaging market. More Foolishness
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What a day for private investors in Half.com, located in Half.com, Oregon -- the town that changed its name from Halfway to Half.com in January. Under terms of the deal, eBay will exchange between 4.6 million and 5.5 million shares in a stock-for-stock transaction, which values Half.com at up to $374 million. I'll say it again: $374 million for a company that launched its website in January. The deal is expected close in the third quarter and add slightly to earnings in 2001.
eBay sees the purchase as a way to jump into the fixed-price trading business without building from scratch. Half.com lets shoppers buy and sell books, movies, CDs, and other merchandise for a fixed price that's at least half off the list price. The company lists 4 million items and has 250,000 registered users.
The fixed-price model adds to eBay's well-known auction business, which is of course based on a bidding system. The Internet's network effect has given rise to a number of shopping models ranging from straightforward auctions to Dutch auctions (wherein the price of a product is lowered until it gets a bid). eBay and shopping competitors like Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN) and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) are busy trying them all on for size.
Internet incubation company CMGI (Nasdaq: CMGI) reported that fiscal third-quarter revenues jumped 417% year-over-year to $225.9 million. Sequentially, sales grew 47% from $153 million. The company reported a net loss of $428 million, or $1.53 per share, compared to a loss of $186 million, or $0.74 per share, for the quarter ended January 31. The results were $0.06 better than analysts expected. Excluding in-process research and development, amortization, and stock compensation, CMGI reported net income of $36.6 million, or $0.13 per share, compared to $1.3 million, or $0.01 per share, for the quarter ended January 31.
Luxury retailer Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) is replacing SGI (NYSE: SGI) on the S&P 500 as of June 20. SGI, formerly known as Silicon Graphics, is being removed from the index for lack of representation.
Windows software maker Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) got a bit of good news yesterday as the U.S. Appeals Court said it would hear its petition, The Wall Street Journal reported. Microsoft is appealing U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling that the company be broken up. The U.S. Justice Department and 19 state attorneys general asked Judge Jackson to send the appeal directly to the Supreme Court.
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