Out Fox The $treet

With Amazon.com ( NASDAQ: AMZN     ) expected to enter the local services space this year, it suggests taking the time to recheck the prospects of Angie's List ( NASDAQ: ANGI     ) if Amazon.com sees the space as valuable. Angie's List went public back around the same time as Yelp ( NYSE: YELP ) , but the results have been dramatically different for the related local service stocks. From the beginning, the free-to-join platform of Yelp scaled quicker and attracted more users, but in the end, Angie's List had the higher-quality paid and verified members. In that way, it's the ultimate tortoise versus the hare scenario. Yelp has quickly amassed 132 million monthly users, and Angie's List is stuck with only 2.6 million paid members. Will the paid members eventually have more value? Read the full article here . Disclosure: Long AAPL and YELP. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

The fundamentals of a company aren't always represented in the corresponding stock price and, vice versa, the stock price isn't always reflective of a company's true value. In the case of Yelp ( NYSE: YELP     ) , the company has been firing on all cylinders, generating fast growth and expanding internationally. The stock, however, continues to experience extreme volatility, with price swings of more than 5% in both directions. Lately though, the stock has declined 20% after large gains earlier in the year. Yelp competes in the heavily competitive online consumer review market and is attempting to grab the $133 billion spent on local advertising, particularly the $7 billion spent on Yellow Pages. It competes against other online companies such as Angie's List ( NASDAQ: ANGI     ) and Facebook ( NASDAQ: FB     ) for a share of not only Yellow Pages spending, but billions of other ad dollars spent on local avenues like television, billboa...

One thing for sure, the stock market is not very forgiving of growth stocks that miss earnings estimates, no matter the amount. In the case of Angie's List ( NASDAQ: ANGI     ) , the stock continued a month-long collapse after a third-quarter earnings miss. The company that offers paid members access to reviews of local service professionals generated revenue growth of 56%, yet it wasn't enough to meet analyst estimates. The company remains under extreme pressure to justify how paid memberships outweigh the free reviews on sites like Yelp ( NYSE: YELP     ) . The difference in stock valuations signals that the market thinks the free versions with larger user bases are more valuable. However, investors need to remember that the market tends to overreact and a reversion to the mean could take place in 2014. Remember that Yelp spent most of 2012 in the doghouse trying to convince the stock market that user reviews were a valuable service. Read the f...

In the last month, the price for shares of Angie's List ( NASDAQ: ANGI     ) has absolutely collapsed. The company offers paid subscribers access to reviews of local service professionals and is under extreme pressure to show that paid memberships outweigh the free reviews on sites such as Yelp ( NYSE: YELP     ) . The user review sites both came public around the start of 2012 with valuations in the general $1 billion range, but after the recent weakness in Angie's List's price the stocks have vast discrepancies making them worth another review. The recent declines in Angie's price should also be a major warning that Yelp investors should never get too comfortable. The fundamental case for either stock can shift quickly. Read the full article here . Disclosure: No position mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Though Angie’s List (NASDAQ: ANGI ) continues to produce extremely fast revenue growth, the market was disappointed with the forward guidance for Q3. The provider of verified user reviews showed a large increase in operating leverage though the level of losses might continue to scare off investors. Angie’s List's valuation continues to make an interesting debate between it and fellow consumer review site Yelp (NYSE: YELP ) . Both stocks more » Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

The local ad market offers tons of opportunity and Yelp (NYSE: YELP ) provides possibly the best way to play that market . The local online ad market already has reached $23 billion of the roughly $100 billion spent in local ads each year. Yelp is quickly placing itself as the place to generate high quality leads via check-ins, reservations, clicks to their websites, phone calls, and even directions with a depth more » Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

For the second consecutive earnings report the stock of Angie’s List (NASDAQ: ANGI ) has soared over 30%. Is this due to irrational exuberance or a change of fundamentals at the company? Angie’s List provides a web service that allows paid users the opportunity to find service providers recommended by the community. The company now has nearly 2 million users and spends a large percentage of revenue on sales more » Disclosure: No position mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

While performing research for an article on Netflix ( NFLX ) , the constant discussion on original content made me wonder about other content generators. Especially when considering the massive valuations of entertainment content companies. As an example, nonfiction content creator Discovery Communications ( DISCA ) has a market value of $28B and The Walt Disney Corporation ( DIS ) is worth $111B. Is it possible for user generated content to ever create companies of that size? All of those firms are vastly different from a focus of distributing content in the case of Netflix to the creating content for a vast network of cable channels at Discovery to creating films and TV shows at Disney. In general, all of the companies are involved in the creation and distribution of entertainment content that has historically had significant value creation. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more deta...

Editors Choice After a rocky start as a public company, has  Angie’s List  (NASDAQ:  ANGI )  finally turned the corner? The company that regularly spends a major portion of revenues on sales and marketing was able to generate strong membership growth by only increasing marketing spend by 10% in Q4. Will the company be able to continue the trend in 2013? The company helps consumers find local service professionals in more than  more » Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

After reporting earnings on Wednesday night, Yelp (YELP) soared nearly 20% over the next two trading days. Why did this social media play jump while so many others have been falling to lows? The company connects people with great local businesses via more than 30M local reviews and approximately 78M unique visitors during Q2 2012. The main reason for the surge is that Yelp reported stronger revenue numbers that led to a solid EBITDA beat. The company also successively talked about the potential of mobile monetization though the actual results were immaterial. In reality, the company appears to have the same issues as Facebook (FB) so far. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

When listening to the Q112 earnings call this week for Pandora Media (P) , it really struck me that this company was mostly built on the old business model. Sure, companies such as Pandora, Angie's List (ANGI) , and Yelp (YELP) have new relevant services, but none of them have veered much from the labor intensive model of hiring local sales reps to find advertisers. The Pandora earnings call had one very shocking number. The company had hired 79% more sales reps than last year. Sure, the company told a great sales story of how a local car dealership found advertising on its services more compelling than terrestrial music channels since the ads could be more targeted. When, though, will these companies attract advertisers without a sales rep and large marketing budgets? Developing a business model attracting a bunch of costly users is nice, but how about attracting paying subscribers? Sure Pandora may attract millions of users, but the real issue for media companies, including even...

Recent spin-off TripAdvisor (TRIP) [see Spin-Off Mania Benefits Alert Investors] had possibly the most disappointing Q4'11 earnings report reviewed so far. The spin-off from Expedia (EXPE) offered huge potential as it became independent from the bigger corporation. TripAdvisor provides a travel research platform which aggregates reviews and opinions of members about destinations, accommodations, restaurants and activities throughout the world. In a way, the travel version of IPO filer Yelp (YELP) and recent IPO Angie's List (ANGI). With 50M monthly users and expanding Facebook interaction, TripAdvisor appeared to provide huge earnings growth potential. Read the full article on Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No position mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Any investor paying attention should know this last week was the busiest IPO week in the U.S. in years. The slate was headlined by well-known Facebook game maker Zynga (ZNGA), with secondary focus on Jive Software (JIVE) and luxury retailer Michael Kors (KORS). The rest of the IPO's had limited focus. Already knowing the issues with Zynga are similar to Groupon (GRPN) and Angie's List (ANGI), we quickly zipped past that offering (dropped 5% on first trading day Friday). Read Why Angie's List Shouldn't Be Listing for more details. MIchael Kors is interesting as well, but the stock looks pricey and investors already have plenty of luxury retailers to buy. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions mentioned. Please review the disclaimer page for more details. 

Angie's List (ANGI) offers independent reviews of local service providers via its subscription-based web platform since it was founded in 1995. At first glance, ANGI provides a more proprietary system with a defensible moat than fellow internet listings of Groupon (GRPN) that recently listed or Zynga (ZNGA) that is in the process of listing. ANGI would appear to be a more attractive investment. After all, the company has a long history of service provider reviews that a new service could never match. Knowing the work history of a contractor over the last 5-10 years has to be invaluable and this kind of information would prevent any startup from matching the Angie's List's offerings. Conversely, a new startup has the potential to offer a better daily deal than GRPN or a better Facebook game than Zynga. Read the full article at Seeking Alpha. Disclosure: No positions. R ead the disclaimer page for more details.