Of Killer Deals And Exclamation Points
(10/09/98; 1:30 p.m. ET)
OPINION
By Jeff Pundyk, CMPnet
When I was a callow youth, way back in the dark ages, I had a professor of journalism who granted us two exclamation points. These two points of punctuation were all we had to last the duration of our lives -- so use them wisely, he warned.
I still have both sitting unused in a specially designed glass case.
Well, Professor Morgan, I'm going to break the glass.
What a week!
It started with the sale of Wired Digital to Lycos. That was quickly topped with the tie-up of booksellers barnesandnoble.com and Bertelsmann, and the smaller but also interesting merger of N2K and CDnow in the music category -- both direct assaults at Amazon.com. If that wasn't enough, ZDNet looks like it will be spinning off from its print brothers and sisters at Ziff-Davis, and Penton Media bought the Internet World trade shows and a chunk of Internet.com from Mecklermedia.
All this, and more, against the backdrop of the stock market playing havoc with the hopes, dreams, and best-laid plans of deal makers, investors, and an industry that lives off the promise of options.
We're talking killer deals here, not killer apps.
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So the big news from Internet World, in New York, is not some new and startling piece of technology, nor is it some category-killing product. No, the talk of Internet World is purely virtual -- we're talking killer deals here, not killer apps.
Aah, the Net. People coming in, people getting out. People throwing new money at it, people tired of throwing money at it.
What's going on?
I look at these deals with a real sense of wonder. Each, of course, is different and has implications independent of the others. But the speed, the boldness, and the size and scope of the deals all speak to the same point: There's a feeling on the Net that now is a crucial time to act.
The biggest players are lining up to do battle, each looking for massive size and differentiation. The smaller guys are hoping they just might be that differentiation for some deep-pocketed partner. And new players -- many representing the most well-known consumer brands in the offline world -- are looking for ways to elbow their way into the mix.
It certainly feels like the end of one phase of the Internet industry's evolution and the beginning of another. For some, it's the beginning of consolidation. For others, it's a sense that if they don't catch up to bigger competitors now, the gap will be too big to close later. For the rest, it's the realization that the Net is really and truly different from the brick-and-mortar world and has to be treated that way.
All this, of course, is tinged with an air of desperation, perhaps, or at least fear there's not a moment to lose -- especially as the global economy begins to implode and the market becomes ever more erratic.
It makes me sorely tempted to reach out and grab that second exclamation point ... 
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Previous columns
Ignore The Armchair Quarterbacks
E-Business: Changing The Shape Of Business
Let's Have A Little Immaturity, Please
Editor's Note archive
Jeff Pundyk was an ink-stained wretch until 1994, when he helped launch TechWeb. He's proud to say he's no longer ink-stained. You can reach him at jpundyk@cmp.com.
This month's show continues the shift away from its Web-development roots and toward e-commerce. Follow our daily coverage.
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