Auren Hoffman's Summation Push for the week of May 4, 1998

You can visit my thoughts and reflections at http://www.summation.net or you can be lazy and wait for these tidbits to be sent right to your in box (subscribe and unsubscribe information is at the end of this e-mail).

This issue:
* Industry Insights: Amazon.com
* Immigration Follow-up
* Hoffman Spam Index
* Summation Push Picks Links

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INDUSTRY INSIGHTS:

Everyone is hyping Amazon. Is it for good reason?

On the face of it, I can't see why their market cap is over $2 billion. But they do have a few things going for them like incredible branding, a good site, and strong marketing.

I bought a biography on the early years of Lyndon Johnson from Amazon a few months ago. Then, a month after purchasing the book, they sent me an e-mail suggesting three more books to read. I thought this was a great marketing idea and I looked over the books.

The first recommendation was for a biography on the later years of Lyndon Johnson. Easy enough. The second book was a biography on Harry Truman. That suggestion makes sense -- both were Democratic presidents in a similar era. But the third book was a biography on Lee Atwater (former campaign manager for George Bush in 1988) -- a book that I actually read a year prior (and liked). I'm not sure how they're computer suggested the Atwater book, but it was a great choice.

If that was the only Amazon anecdote I had, I'd suggest buying more stock in the book company. One Summation Push recipient tells about a friend who was walking through San Francisco last week and was handed a $5 off coupon from a guy on a street corner. The friend then ask for two more coupons and had amassed $15 off books. He quickly hopped on the web and used his coupons to purchase a book for a grand total of $13.27 and got the book and a check for $1.63 delivered to him within a few days.

What did he do next?

He shorted Amazon's stock.

(all rumors and insights sent to auren@summation.net will be kept confidential)

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IMMIGRATION FOLLOW-UP

A few months ago I sent a push about immigration. For those of you who regularly read the San Jose Business Journal, you might want to check out an editorial I wrote:

http://www.amcity.com/sanjose/stories/033098/editorial5.html

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HOFFMAN SPAM INDEX:

Check out what's happening with Spam at:
http://www.summation.net/spam.html

The Hoffman Spam Index is updated weekly.

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THIS WEEK'S LINKS:

* Virtual Vegas (http://www.virtualvegas.com) -- fun and betting games on the Internet
* Northern Light (http://www.nlsearch.com/) -- nicely categorized search engine
* Infospace Reverse Look-up (http://pic1.infospace.com/_1_174531361__info/reverse.htm?r=hp) -- find people's names and addresses from their phone numbers

SUMMATION