Google Changes Estimated Share Price To Below $100

[Nacho]

I just got an email alert from ipo.google.com:

Please be advised that the prospectus for the offering of Google's Class A common stock will be amended to change the estimated offering price range and the number of shares to be sold in the offering. The offering price is now expected to be between $85 and $95 per share. Google expects to sell 14,142,135 shares of Class A common stock in the offering as originally filed. The selling shareholders are reducing the shares they expect to sell to approximately 5.5 million shares in view of this new price range. This is a reduction of approximately 6.1 million shares. In addition, the selling shareholders have granted the underwriters the right to purchase approximately 2.9 million additional shares of Class A common stock at the initial public offering price to cover over-allotments.

Google and the underwriters requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission declare the registration statement effective on Wednesday, August 18, 2004 at 4:00 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time). We will send you a notice of effectiveness once the registration statement has been declared effective. Google and the underwriters expect to close the auction when the registration statement is declared effective.

Google plans to file an amendment to the registration statement Wednesday morning. We will notify you when the amendment to the registration statement is filed, at which time you will be able to obtain a copy of the updated prospectus from

https://www.ipo.google.com/data/prospectus.html

If you have submitted a bid, you should access that prospectus and carefully reconsider your bid(s).

We are sending this notice to everyone who obtained a bidder ID, regardless of whether you have submitted a bid to purchase shares of Google's Class A common stock in the offering. You may also get a similar notice from your brokerage firm. Please note that placing a bid does not guarantee that you will be allocated shares in the offering, if it is completed.

[garyp]

Reuters has a good story about the price cut.

http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-5314221.html

[Chris Boggs]

very good news...this makes me a little more confident, but I still don't know if I'll buy until it drops to 60ish.

one thing from the AP article that interested me:
" http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/040818/google_ipo_15.html

The Mountain View-based company, which makes money by selling unintrusive text advertising, managed to prosper as a private company even while other dot-coms were collapsing. Now, as the technology industry is just recovering, Google stands to prosper even more."

Points: is this text advertising really "unintrusive?" to me the Google homepage is "unintrusive." text ads are most often in my "blind spot."

also, can Google really be lumped into the technology industry (which is only recovering if you discount HP and a few others)? I would classify Google as being in the marketing industry myself.

[garyp]

Chris:

How is the Google homepage any different than Yahoo's search starting point at:
http://search.yahoo.com ?

All the databases are available, no ads, uncluttered, and you can even customize which tabs are visible.

or Teoma's
http://www.teoma.com

[hiero]

Another good article: http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5313952.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

[Nacho]

Here is another email update from ipo.google.com

Please be advised that the prospectus for the offering of Google's Class A common stock has been amended to change the estimated offering price range and the number of shares to be sold in the offering. The offering price is now expected to be between $85 and $95 per share. As originally planned, Google expects to sell 14,142,135 shares of Class A common stock in the offering. However, in view of this new price range, the selling shareholders are reducing the shares they expect to sell to 5,462,917 shares, yielding a total offering of 19,605,052 shares. In addition, the selling shareholders have granted the underwriters the right to purchase up to an additional 2,940,757 shares of Class A common stock at the initial public offering price to cover over-allotments. YOU MAY ACCESS THE CURRENT PROSPECTUS BY CLICKING

https://www.ipo.google.com/data/prospectus.html

The reduced price range and offering size are reflected in updated disclosures in the current prospectus regarding, among other things:

the total number of shares of Class A common stock being offered into the market (not including any shares that may be issued upon exercise of the over-allotment option) has been reduced from 25,697,529 shares to 19,605,052 shares, as described in "Prospectus Summary" on page 2;

a reduction in the net proceeds to the Company from $1,666.6 to $1,227.2 million, as described in "Use of Proceeds" and "Cash and Capitalization" on page 44; and

an increase in the number of shares eligible for future sale beginning 180 days after the date of the final prospectus from 170,784,389 shares to 176,876,866 shares, as described in "Risk Factors - Future Sales by our Stockholders Could Cause our Stock Price to Decline" and "Shares Eligible for Future Sale," on pages 23 and 113, respectively.

[Chris Boggs]

I agree Gary, but who types-in search.yahoo instead of yahoo?

Google has in my opinion created a less-cluttered home page on purpose so that it loads faster, however the links to groups and news are readily available. I would use the search.yahoo page as a home page though...

[Chris Boggs]

from zdnet article that Hiero posted

<Using a mathematical formula called PageRank, Google analyzes hyperlinks of Web pages to measure popularity relative to similar pages. That would eventually thrust Google ahead of the pack in delivering relevant search results in Web pages.>

is this true? can't Yahoo and others use their ranking systems to keep up and provide relevant results? besides, isn't PageRank supposedly only a third of the Google equation?

[garyp]

I agree, the masses will likely not do it but Yahoo could make search.Yahoo.com page the primary page with the push of a button. I also like how you can customize what tabs are visible. Of course, Yahoo also has the my yahoo option.

Also, the Jeeves homepage is uncluttered as is Teoma's as is Vivisimo's. I really like (I've written about it) what AJ is doing with there Smart Search program. They can really save the searcher time, effort, and aggravation. It will be interesting to see how they present CitySearch info in this format.

That's it. Don't want to go to far off topic.

Re: The ZDNet article.
Yes, all of the major search players use link analysis as a component (right again) of their algo. Google calls it PageRank and it is one of many factors. The idea of looking at links to help determine relevancy was not a Google idea. Many credit Jon Kleinberg and his team at IBM as the first ones to try it with web content. IBM never made Clever, their search tool, (http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/k53/clever.html) publicly available. Google gets the credit for the first major player to make link analysis available to the public.

Btw, much of Kleinberg's HITS algorithm is now part of what Teoma uses.
Here's a great article (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/sciam99.html) that Kleinberg wrote in 1999 that explains the differences between PageRank and HITS.

Link analysis is based on something called citation analysis which is an idea that's been around since the 1950's. Librarians and other info scientists use it regularly. In fact, it's often a factor that goes into determining tenure in the world of higher ed. Eugene Garfield gets the credit. Here's Garfield's classic paper:
http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/science_v122(3159)p108y1955.html

[Nacho]

It's official (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=1185) by the SEC.

[Nacho]

latest release from ipo.google.com

We are pleased to notify you that the initial public offering price for shares of Google's Class A common stock is $85.00 per share and your bid(s) to acquire shares at a price equal to or above the initial public offering price was successful and is hereby accepted, effective upon the sending of this notice. Google and the underwriters have relied upon your bid in setting the initial public offering price, in determining which bids are successful and in allocating you shares.

[Chris Boggs]

Hi Gary thanks for the detailed response...the kleinberg link does seem to be working? (http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/sciam99.html)