Our own back-of-the-napkin deal scribbles goes like this:

AT&T + Yahoo; Sprint + Earthlink + Excite; MCI + Mindspring + Lycos; NBC + CNET 100%; Time Warner + AOL; IBM or Sun + Netscape.

Mix and match any of them but we think within 18 months the Webscape could look more like a mix of old and new world, those that thought the world was flat (the pre-Internet telcos and media companies) and now see it's getting rounder (more Internet users everyday in every way).

The giddiness that a geekfest may happen sends ISDEX, The Internet Stock Index, up nearly 2% to 145.32. See the ISDEX link for a look at the individual stocks in this 50-strong group.

  22-Jun-98 point change % change
ISDEX 145.32 2.67 1.87%
ISDEX Price Wtd. 1,607.81 68.59 4.46%
NASDAQ 1,805.82 24.53 1.38%
DJIA 8,711.13 -1.74 -0.02%

Internet stocks, venture capital, the money trail --

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