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There's rich. And there's virtual rich. |
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That's what I am. Virtual rich. |
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According to an in-depth analysis, my virtual fortune could be as large
as $30 million. It also could be a lot smaller, but let's not talk
about that. |
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The story beings in 1995 when I tried to subscribe to the Internet
edition of The New York Times and discovered that someone else named Scott
Burns had already subscribed. It I wanted to subscribe, an automated
message informed me, I would have to use another name. |
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It didn't seem right. |
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Worse, this could be happening all over. Piecemeal, I could be losing
my name. |
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So I checked with Network Solutions, the company that, until recently,
was the sole manager of all Internet registrations and names. I could
have my own name, all over the Web, by registering myself as a domain,
www.scottburns.com. |
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Starting from less than 100 visitors a day, visitor traffic exceeded 30,000
for July, with more that 180,000 page views. |
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This is the source of my virtual fortune. |
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Of course, my Web site doesn't make money. Indeed, it is unsullied
by revenue of any kind. |
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Fortunately, Mr. Market has a broader perspective. The vast majority
of Web ventures are losing money, but that doesn't matter. The Web
is the future. |
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Indeed, there are quite a few Web ventures with market capitalizations
measured in billions that lose fashionable millions with impunity. Lycos,
a media portal site, showed a loss of $13.3 million for the most recent
quarter but has a market value of $4.6 billion. |
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My expenses (read: losses) are running about $60 a month – $180 a quarter
in IPO terms. |
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Which brings us to the serious exercise of estimating the true value of
my virtual fortune. |
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Using figures from Business 2.0, a magazine on e-business, and Media Metrix,
a company that tracks Web site operating figures, I found that the two
most commonly used measures of size were the number of page views per month
and the number of users per month. Yahoo! for instance, recently
had 7 billion page views in a month and more than 31 million visitors.
If you divide either of those figures into the total market value of the
stock, you find that the market values Yahoo! at $1,000,105 for each 1,000
visitors and $4,476 for each 1,000 page views. |
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Yahoo! is the most valued company when measured by visitors and the second
most valued company when measured by page views. CNET is the most
valued when measured by page views. |
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To estimate the value of my virtual fortune, I multiplied the values per
1,000 views and per 1,000 visitors for each company times the number of
visitors and page views on www.scottburns.com, producing figures that ranged
from a low of $334,623 (chump change these days) to a high of $30,243,163,
a figure worth thinking about. As I said, let's talk in round numbers
here – give or take a few million – if you happen to have your checkbook
out, searching for ground-floor investment opportunities. |
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I am, however, keeping my day job.
–Scott Burns
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