Amazon to Investors: Look! It's Elvis!
Jul 24 2001
What does Amazon have to do get everyone's mind off its earnings results? Hire a brass band? Set off fireworks? Bust Dmitry Sklyarov out of jail?
If Amazon timed its latest good news to distract from its bad news , it didn't work. "It should have been a good day for Amazon.com," said the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. But the earnings report "overshadowed" the AOL news, said the San Jose Mercury News. "Neither of the AOL announcements impressed traders," said the Los Angeles Times.
They didn't seem to impress the media, either. A few outlets produced stand-alone articles on the AOL deals, but most bundled that news with Amazon's earnings call. Some journalists, apparently more interested in Amazon's latest round of financial excuses, glommed the two AOL announcements into one. The New York Times described "a sea of conflicts." For instance, Amazon can't sell books on AOL because that's Barnesandnoble.com's turf.
Analysts seemed unimpressed, too. "Since financial terms were not disclosed, some analysts were unable to determine AOL's motivation for taking such a hefty stake in the struggling e-tailer," said News.com. TheStreet.com interviewed an analyst who guessed that AOL getting cozy with Amazon means Amazon can't get too friendly with Yahoo or MSN.
Anyway, "the full benefits of the deal will not be realized until the 2002 holiday shopping season," said News.com. "That is when the companies intend to combine Amazon's shopping tools with the ShopAtAOL category." And how will Amazon take our minds off its earnings calls until then? Hey, isn't that the Loch Ness monster?
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