A Net Stock with a Great Pop

Here's one company whose Internet commerce bubble isn't about to bust any time soon: Sealed Air Corp. (SEE), the Saddle Brook (N.J.) company that makes Bubble Wrap, the clear-plastic packing material that everybody--including Chief Executive T.J. Dermot Dunphy--loves to pop. After all, those items people snap up online have to be shipped somewhere, and they're all going to have to be very carefully wrapped.

Dunphy's lips, however, are sealed. He won't discuss how much of his revenue is generated by e-commerce sales, but some Wall Street analysts consider Sealed Air so primed to ride the online wave that they're calling the firm a ''backdoor Internet play.'' Sealed Air sells its Bubble Wrap, Instapak foam padding, and Jiffy padded envelopes to e-commerce customers such as Lands' End, eToys, and Amazon.com. Analysts say Sealed Air racked up more than $1 billion in revenues from protective packaging sales last year. They expect sales to grow 9% this year, nearly triple historical levels. Says analyst Joel G. Tiss of Lehman Brothers: ''As the Net boosts the amount of stuff getting shipped around the world, all that stuff has to be protected.''

Investors agree. The company's stock has surged from 27 last Oct. to around 60. That just proves there's more than hot air in Bubble Wrap.

Marcia Stepanek

Xtreme Commerce

You wouldn't imagine Steven Rothschild, the slightly wonky entrepreneur who founded Furniture.com Inc., as a great storyteller. But the 40-year-old really fits the bill with the tale about how he came up with his latest online venture. At home one day, his wife began complaining about what a pain it was to find lightbulbs for their dog pen. That's when the entrepreneur saw, er, the light: bulbs.com, an online service that sells just bulbs!

That's not to be confused with Justballs!, mind you. Justballs!, which is a seven-month-old startup, sells more than 1,700 balls for sports, from $1.95 Spaldeens for stickball to $199 billiard ball sets. Then, of course, there's eBags Inc., which specializes in sporting, business, and travel bags. And Shovels.com, Sunglasses.com, and WebTea. Guess what they sell.

What's going on? Extremely vertical e-merchants are bucking the trend of such companies as Amazon.com Inc. and the shopping areas on portals devoted to the widest variety of products imaginable. With extreme verticals, the point isn't to offer a wide range of products, but a lot of the same thing. Bulbs.com, for example, says it plans to have 5,000 different types of lightbulbs out of an estimated total market of 7,000. Now, that's extreme.

With This Mouse, I Thee Sever

Got a bad marriage but a good modem? Rather than fly to Las Vegas for a quickie divorce, more couples will soon be calling it quits on the Web. Desktop Lawyer, a British online legal service, is scouting out partners for its e-divorce service in the U.S. and Europe. Sound like a cyberscam? Desktop Lawyer has proven its case. Since July, 1,500 couples have paid $130 to download the software. That's cheap. British lawyers typically charge $800.

Desktop's clients simply log on to desktoplawyer.com to get the software. The package includes a questionnaire that draws up a divorce contract according to the answers. Once customers e-mail the completed documents to Desktop Lawyer, they proceed by snail mail to the courts. With costs this low, maybe divorcees will have enough money left to vacation in Vegas.

Inka Resch

It's a Wild Ride for Jeeves

Here's proof the Internet can be just as much fun as TV game shows: Pick the right venture-capital investment and you can win big prizes. Consider Geoffrey Y. Yang of Institutional Venture Partners in Menlo Park, Calif. When partners at IVP make home-run picks that bring in profits of $100 million or more, they win, to borrow from TV: ''A ne-w-w-w car!'' Already, he's driving a Mercedes CL500, thanks to Excite Inc.

Another set of wheels--or more--may be on the way. Yang is responsible for IVP's investments in Ask Jeeves and MMC Networks, which both topped $100 million in profits before the stocks dropped recently. If they rise again, Yang will get his cars even though he and other IVP partners are forming a new firm with VCs from Brentwood Venture Capital. Yang says he hopes to bring the old tradition to his new firm.

Timothy J. Mullaney

But Who Has Time to Floss?

When harried employees of such Silicon Valley companies as Intuit, Netscape Communications (AOL), and Cisco Systems (CSCO) are choosing a dentist these days, they use simple criteria: Does the dentist have a) a valid license? b) modern equipment and techniques? c) collision insurance?

Turns out ''Internet time'' is at once increasing employee teeth gnashing--and diminishing their chances to treat it. So, three years ago dentist Arnold Keiles in Palo Alto, Calif., decided to go to the Web's warriors. He called Winnebago and ordered a custom-built ''mobile dentistry unit'' with all the latest gadgets, from digital X-rays to a Web-based appointment service. Keiles's company, On-Site Dental Care, now has six of these $325,000 mobile units, which hit a couple dozen companies each week and serve hundreds of high-tech employees.

Companies don't pay, per se--they just make sure On-Site accepts their dental plans and then allow the mobile units onto their sites. Backed by local investors, the entrepreneurial Keiles hopes to bring drive-by root canals to other high-tech centers within the next five years. Oh boy.

Joan O'C. Hamilton

TABLE: Cybersquatters in the High Rent District

How do you cash in on the Internet gold rush without putting in 18-hour 
workdays at a Web startup? Internet addresses have become the Web's equivalent 
of real estate speculation.

Web address         DRUGS.COM

Original owner      Eric MacIver, Mesa, Ariz., who wanted to start
                    an online pharmacy
Buyer               Venture Frogs, San Francisco Web investors
Price/Date of sale  $823,456 / August, 1999

Web address         WALLSTREET.COM

Original owner      Ehud Gavron, the owner of an ISProvider in Tuscon, Ariz.
Buyer               Players Sportsbook and Casino off the coast of Venezuela
Price/Date of sale  $1.03 million / April, 1999


Web address         BINGO.COM

Original owner      Bingo, Inc., an Anguilla-based game company
Buyer               Progressive General Lumber Corp. of Vancouver,
                    which changed its name to Bingo.com Inc.
Price/Date of sale  $1.1 million / January, 1999


Web address         PORSCHCAR.COM

Original owner      Saeid Yomtobian, a Sherman Oaks (Calif.)-based
                    Internet nerd
Buyer               Porsche Cars North America
Price/Date of sale  Zero/Transferred to company by court
                    order February, 1999


Web address         PRESIDENTORRINHATCH.COM

Original owner      Joseph Culligan, a Miami private investigator,
                    goading the Senator into passing a law
                    against cybersquatting
Buyer               None yet
Price/Date of sale  Asking price $45,000