There are dips and there are dipheads who scramble when the price temporarily tanks. MPLX announced an SPO (secondary offering) earlier this week, which depressed the stock price. This is perfectly normal. HyperPumper remembers exactly the same thing in the wee days of DoubleClick. DCLK has since split TWICE. After MPLX's SPO is over, look for a runup and split soon thereafter. Stay long, be strong.

On another front, MPLX just announced a new baby-gorilla style deal. Expansion into the China market.

March 10, 2000: 5pm EDT after the bell.

HyperPumper elaborates on Must Buy MPLX rating. See March 10 diary entry.

March 9, 2000: 6pm EDT after the bell

Just the facts, ma'am.

HyperPumper picked up another little gem at the dip today. This little gem provides the hard infrastructure that DCLK and its competitors rely on. This little gem is like the CISCO of the Net ad game.

This little gem is the International backbone of net advertising.

And get this: HyperPumper has never heard CNBC hype it yet.

So here's your chance to thank HyperPumper for giving it to you on the ground floor.

Please remember you heard it here first when this is the next INSP, INKT, or CSCO.

MediaPlex. MPLX.

Look at the revenue growth in sequential quarters and year-to-year--looks like Doubleclick in the early days. Look at the deals with Y&R and Interpublic. Look at the price targets and strong buy ratings by all 3 firms covering the stock. Look at the strategic alliances (see mediaplex website). Look at the increasing interest in their technology--adding 27 new clients last quarter, with an average deal of $600,000 per client, up frm $300,000 in the previous quarter!

If it's so good, why is MPLX still undiscovered?

HyperPumper held ISSX staring form '98. It was going to be an obvious winner. MPLX will be the same way.

Do your own D&D. HyperPumper expects a runup to 120 and a split at the next earnings.

( Update March 7, 2000)

New Industry Standards in the Works in months!

DoubleClick expects industry and government privacy standards to be formed by June -- at which time the Internet advertising firm will reexamine its plans that created a recent uproar, executive Veep Jeffrey Epstein said Tuesday.

After dousing the fire that erupted over privacy issues, DoubleClick put its plans to merge names of anonymous users and their activity across the Web with the personally identifiable information database of recently-acquired Abacus Direct.

Back on track. Put away the fire hoses.

Privacy advocates have applauded the company's move to hold off on its plans, which had not been implemented but were only in the planning phase. Clap Clap.

Once a standard is reached, DoubleClick will be able to figure out how to proceed within the rules -- hopefully in the second half of the year. Then it can continue its growth into adult gorillahood.

``I think an opt-out model would be better from a business point of view, but we will make it work either way,'' Epstein said. In an opt-out model, users would choose to not let the company connect names and personal details to their Web activity.

HyperPumper likes the opt-in model. It's win win. An opt-in model would not be as good because it would lower the predictability of the research and add costs to the process. In such a model, users would opt-in to allow their information to be used and sold to advertisers for perhaps an incentive, such as a gift certificate from a retailer. The data from those that do opt-in could be extrapolated to gauge the behavior of other visitors with similar traffic habits, but the data would not be as precise as having the actual person's information.

A standard somewhere in between the two "extremes". It could take the anonymous data that DoubleClick holds and the data from Abacus and link them for a millisecond in time -- just enough to monetize, as they say -- and then throw away the name.

Ca ching.

``Whatever the rules are, I don't think there is going to be complete access to data for five years. Whatever the rules are, the better targeted and better data will always win,'' Epstein said. The company has repeated that it has no intentions of selling sensitive information such as health-related data. Holding off on its plans is not going to affect the company's near-term business. The impact of the plan that drew so much fire would not have been felt for another year anyway.

Anyway.

HyperPumper believes that the online business of Abacus, which is losing money, will follow in the path of its offline business and break-even in five years time. Currently, the offline business has a 38 percent pre-tax profit margin. The online business will probably ziggy this way in the future as well.

For DoubleClick, the company projects to break-even in the third quarter and then perhaps dipping into a loss in the first quarter of 2001-- a quarter that is usually slow because of seasonal reasons -- and then be profitable going forward.

DoubleClick's shares closed up 4-11/16 to 96-3/16 Tuesday

Stay long and prosper.

(Update March 3, 2000)

DoubleClick Cries UncleUncle!

Every so often, bad PR actually affects company policy. Even when the PR is unjustified.

Just ask DoubleClick.

DoubleClick announced Thursday that it's holding off on linking peoples' Web-surfing habits and online purchases with personal information like their names and addresses. "I made a mistake," DoubleClick's CEO Kevin O'Connor said. O'Connor didn't say he'd never merge the two databases. Never is a long time, even in discounted cash flow analysis. No. O'Connor just said his company would take it easy "until there is agreement between government and industry on privacy standards."

Chuckle.

ChuckleChuckle.

Laugh all you want, but you won't see DoubleClick execs laughing over a beer with folks from the Electronic Privacy Information Center anytime soon.

What is this "Electronic Privacy Information Center"? HyperPumper doesn't know them from dirt, but it is a good bet none of'em ever started or ran a company in their lives. Probably a bunch of lawyers. The L word.

Government investigations and privacy advocates put the squeeze on DoubleClick over the last month, but they certainly weren't the only ones. In a page-one story, Johnny Schwartz of the Washington Post laid out the spammed consumer complaints DoubleClick has received, the private lawsuits against the company, and the decisions by AltaVista and Kozmo.com to keep their visitors' data from DoubleClick unless individuals give their permission.

Kozmo.com? Is that like IBM?

New York Times columnist Bob Tedeschi and the WSJ's Andrea Petersen chimed in that DoubleClick's beleaguered stock rose on the announcement. Wow! What an astute observation!

The La La Land Times suggested that strained relationships with clients inspired the change in plans - and besides, DoubleClick was at least a year away from being able to implement the program in question.

Privacy advocates seemed pleased. But HyperPumper bets they are secretly dissapointed the whole matter did not drag on and on so they could get more press attention... and donations. The editor of Privacy Times even told Tedeschi that DoubleClick's about-face might hurt the effort to establish privacy standards. "By doing the right thing, they take a little air out of the balloon."

Yeah. Right. HyperPumper predicts that all of the air is back in DoubleClick's balloon before month's end. This balloon is primed to be DoublePumped.