For the past six months we've been estimating GeoCities valuation and are happy to report that our estimates were right on target. The websteader announced its initial public offering at $557 million or $13 per share (fully diluted). That's right in the $500 million to $550 million range GeoCities has held in WEBDEX.

Mecklermedia's June July 15 July 22 July 15 July 22 Percent
WEBDEX Users Market cap or PMV* Market cap or PMV* User User change
website value index (millions) (millions) (millions) Value Value  
Yahoo 30.4 $8,413 $8,968 $276 $295 6.6%
AOL.com* 23.2 $3,000 $3,100 $129 $134 3.3%
Excite 18.9 $2,182 $2,416 $115 $128 10.7%
Netscape.com* 18.5 $1,800 $1,800 $97 $97 0.0%
Microsoft.com* 18.0 $2,300 $2,400 $128 $133 4.3%
MSN.com/Hotmail 15.2 $1,350 $1,400 $89 $92 3.7%
GeoCities (IPO cap) 14.8 $500 $557 $34 $38 11.4%
Lycos 15.0 $1,282 $1,404 $85 $93 9.5%
Infoseek 12.0 $985 $992 $82 $82 0.8%
Disney.com* 10.0 $1,150 $1,200 $115 $120 4.3%
TOTAL 176.1 $22,962 $24,237 $1,151 $1,212 5.3%
AVERAGE 17.6 $2,296 $2,424 $115 $121 5.3%

Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO) user value is now close to $300 each or double what it was a few months ago. The biggest gainer of the group in percentage terms was Excite (NASDAQ:XCIT), which successfully fended off a fax-in offer from Zapata, built out part of its deal with Netscape for guides, and inked marketing deals with Auto-By-Tel on July 22.

On July 21 Lycos (NASDAQ:LCOS) offered a $12.95 per month online access deal for users of the service it markets with AT&T WorldNet, prompting us to believe that an access price war may erupt soon. Now that Disney's deal with Infoseek (NASDAQ:SEEK) has settled in the media, it's notable that Infoseek is back to plain vanilla news announcements. On July 22 the search engine and HomeShark got together for a "strategic alliance." No mention of cash for reach, which has become the chief revenue driver for top guide sites.

Speaking of Mickey Mouse, on July 22 Disney (NYSE:DIS) reported weaker than expected June quarter net income of $0.20 per share vs. $0.23 for the same quarter last year. Its movie and video businesses were to blame. The company probably needs the Web more than ever now--a global and cost effective way to sell its videos direct.

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