Eyein' Jacob: A Look at Jacob Internet's Top 10

You won't find the usual gang of dot-com suspects in the new Jacob Internet fund. Save for two notable exceptions, eBay (EBAY) and CMGI (CMGI), the portfolio does not contain the name-brand Internet companies many managers have been feasting on this year.

Monday, TheStreet.com watched over high-profile portfolio manager Ryan Jacob's shoulder as he built his much-anticipated new mutual fund, company by company, on the condition that it didn't immediately reveal his holdings.

Jacob, who is still building positions in select stocks with some of the more than $150 million he has received from investors, released his 10 largest holdings Thursday night.

They include some second- and third-tier companies -- names you may have heard of, but ones that haven't yet secured spots on the top shelf of the e-economy. Then again, many of the companies that Jacob once held while he was the manager of the (WWWFX)Internet fund -- including CMGI, Yahoo! (YHOO) and Amazon.com (AMZN) -- weren't huge when he first bought them either.

Jacob says he looks for companies that are leaders in their markets or have unique business models that haven't been replicated by countless other dot-coms. You'll see from the list below that Jacob is big on media and content plays and is making a sizable bet in that area. The quintessential Internet mutual fund manager says he doesn't like to buy stocks he thinks are overvalued, which is why many familiar names are absent from the top-10 list.

As you read this list of stocks he began purchasing Monday, keep in mind that this is a mere snapshot of what Jacob was doing that day. His positions could change any time, especially given the about-face nature of the Internet space.

CMGI, the pre-eminent Internet incubator, was a favorite of Jacob at the Internet fund. It spiked on Thursday, rising more than 21 points to close at 221 9/16 after beating analysts' financial estimates.

eBay, the top online auction site, is up 81% this year, though technical glitches and the need to police its users have given the company's management plenty of challenges.

TMP Worldwide (TMPW), the world's leading Yellow Pages ad company, has leveraged itself on the Web through its Monster.com job-search site. A relatively established offline company, its stock is one of the least volatile in Jacob's portfolio. Still, it has more than doubled since the end of October and closed Thursday at 130.

GoTo.com (GOTO) runs a different kind of search engine that allows advertisers to bid on ad placement based on a user's search results. This exactly-what-I'm-looking-for approach has generated some excitement, and the stock is trading around 70, well above its June IPO price of 15.

priceline.com (PCLN) takes haggling to a new level. It allows consumers to name their own price for anything from airline tickets to groceries. But the company hasn't received a big embrace from Wall Street, as many analysts have had difficulty understanding its business model. After taking a huge ride up to 165 during the second quarter's Internet frenzy, the stock has given back much of that gain. It closed Thursday at 57 3/16.

NBC Internet (NBCI) is an umbrella company -- a.k.a. a "merged Web entity" -- and home to NBC's Internet properties, including Snap.com, Xoom.com and CNBC.com. But it didn't generate much excitement on Nov. 30, its first day of trading, when it closed down 14% from its opening price. It has traded lately in the low 70s, after gulping air in the 90s during its debut.

drugstore.com (DSCM) is an online version of your corner drugstore. The company sells health and beauty products as well as prescription drugs through its Web site. Investments from Rite Aid (RAD) and Amazon.com, and the appointment of Microsoft's (MSFT) former VP Peter Neupert as chief executive, have helped generate buzz around this start-up. The stock hit 70 before swooning this past summer, though it has recovered lately to trade in the mid-40s.

Ask Jeeves (ASKJ), the Internet's best-known butler, has impressed users and investors with its plain-language search engine that answers real-world questions. The stock has been bid up as high as 190 and is now trading around 125.

Critical Path (CPTH) handles about 5 million emailboxes for its 180 business customers. A business-to-business player in an area that every business needs, Critical Path watched its stock spike as high as 150 shortly after it went public in March. Though shares of the company quickly swooned during the summer doldrums, they have recovered lately and closed Thursday at 90 1/2.

StarMedia Network (STRM), the pre-eminent Spanish-language portal operator, is hoping to cash in big on the Hispanic Internet market. The stock has been trading lately at half its 52-week high of 70. It closed Thursday at 36 3/8.

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