Analytically determining revenue of internet companies using internet metrics
With respect to a current quarter of unreported revenue for certain Internet companies, by processes performed by a computer revenue to date is analytically determined and future revenue for the remaining quarter is statistically projected by modeling revenue based on “Internet metrics”. Actual revenue performance is obtained and one or more “Internet metrics” are measured for a given Internet company. Using the revenue and measured Internet metric data from prior quarters, a regression analysis is performed in order to generate multiple models that reflect the relationship between the Internet metrics and revenue. From these models, one is selected that will most likely yield the best revenue estimates. This resultant model and current Internet metric data are subsequently used to estimate the company's revenue for the current day, week, month, or quarter. These estimates are also used to project the company's revenue for future days, weeks, months, and quarters.
1 - 13 . (canceled)
14 . A method for estimating current revenue of a company, said method comprising the steps performed by a computer of:
obtaining data points for each of a plurality of Internet metrics over a plurality of past quarters, wherein said Internet metrics are related to the company,
generating a plurality of revenue models for the company by using the obtained data points for each of the plurality of Internet metrics,
choosing from the plurality of revenue models a revenue model for estimating current revenue, and
estimating the company's current revenue by applying currently obtained Internet metric data points to the chosen revenue model.
15 . The method of claim 14 wherein each of the plurality of generated revenue models corresponds to one of the plurality of Internet metrics.
16 . The method of claim 15 further comprising the step of:
combining the past quarter of data points for each of the plurality of Internet metrics to create one or more new Internet metrics and corresponding data points, and
wherein the plurality of generated revenue models further includes a revenue model corresponding to each of the new Internet metrics.
17 . The method of claim 16 wherein the choosing step comprises the steps of:
computing r 2 for each of the plurality of generated models, and choosing the revenue model for estimating current revenue based on the largest r 2 value, where r 2 is the coefficient of determination.
18 . The method of claim 17 wherein the choosing step further comprises selecting the Internet metric or combined Internet metric used to make a prior revenue estimation.
19 . The method of claim 14 wherein each of the plurality of Internet metrics is a page-hits metric, a visitors metric, a transactions metric, or a hosts metric.