NEXT ON THE HOME SHOPPING NETWORK: VAPORWARE STOCKS

“[Lycos CEO Bob Davis] is a smart guy who recognized his stock was sitting on vapor and he couldn’t sustain that multiple — and that he needed a real business.”

Seagram CEO Edgar Bronfman, who’s set to be a major shareholder in Lycos if the company ever figures how it will merge with USA Networks, doing his best to suppot Lycos’s share price, News.com, 12 February 1999

PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE SOFTBANK BEHIND THE CURTAIN

“Yahoo is and will remain independent.”

Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle, dancing around the fact of Yahoo’s large overseas shareholder in an interview with French newspaper La Tribune, News.com, 11 February 1999

OUR VALUE’S SO CLEAR, IT’S PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE

“Anyone who thinks that Merrill Lynch won’t be using the Internet to magnify the value we deliver to clients is making a major miscalculation.”

Merrill Lynch spokesperson Jim Wiggins, on the full-service broker’s plan to make its value proposition more transparent in the Internet era, The New York Times, 10 February 1999

LIKE WE’VE ALWAYS SAID, NEW MEDIA’S NUTS

“This places all the necessary ingredients for electronic information and commerce, from ‘old’ soup to ‘new’ nuts, into one centrally and aggressively managed enterprise.”

USA Networks chairman Barry Diller, on the strange recipe of Net and cable properties he created by buying Lycos, MSNBC, 9 February 1999

EVEN IN CYBERSPACE, THEY LOWER PROPERTY VALUES

“We’re not saying the Grateful Dead is the end of intellectual property.”

Grateful Dead spokesperson Dennis McNally, on the band’s MP3-formatted giveaway of new music, Wired News, 8 February 1999