How Hot Are Net IPOs? Just Ask Jeeves.

SAN FRANCISCO -- How's Ask Jeeves (ASKJ Quote) doing in its first day of trading? The answer: so far, a smashing success.

The widely anticipated debut of Ask Jeeves, a question-answering search engine, was a runaway hit. It was priced at 14 Wednesday and opened at 72. It recently was trading up 51 1/8, or around 365%, at 74. As the only search engine of its kind with easy-to-understand technology, the IPO was expected to have mass appeal.

While the heat in the Internet sector can be partly attributed to a recent string of well-received IPOs, several deals and agreements announced today have also accounted for much of the activity.

Net/Tech Indices INDEX CHANGE % VALUE TSC Internet 24.27 +3.9% 641.20 TSC E-Commerce 0.1 -0.1% 110.36 TSC E-Finance 15/32 +0.5% 91 23/32 Nasdaq 17.60 +0.7% 2703.70

Shares of VerticalNet (VERT Quote) were sharply higher after the business Web site operator said it had acquired three Web site communities to provide business-to-business e-commerce to its site. VerticalNet now has 43 Web properties. The new acquisitions were TechSpex for the machine-tools community, ElectricNet for electrical power industry professionals and Oil-Link for members of the oil and gas industry. VerticalNet was up 11 1/8, or 11%, at 116 1/8 around midday.

RealNetworks (RNWK Quote) said it will provide Microsoft's (MSFT Quote) WebTV Networks with technology that will allow it to support RealNetworks' RealAudio G2 format.

This deal marks RealNetworks' entrance into the interactive television market and also shows that the company is making efforts to get along with Microsoft. The two companies have a long history of antagonism toward each other. RealNetworks was thriving on the news, up 8, or 12%, at 76 7/8. Microsoft was down 1/4, or 0.3%, at 89 15/16.

Lycos (LCOS Quote) was one of the best-performing Internet stocks after the Net portal said it would offer online financial services through WingspanBank.com, a subsidiary of Bank One (ONE Quote). The deal could be worth as much as $135 million to Lycos if performance thresholds are met. Lycos was up 10, or 11%, at 101 7/8. Bank One was up 3/4, or 1%, at 66 5/16.

In another transaction in financial services, Go2Net (GNET Quote) said it was buying Authorize.Net, an online payment-authorization service for e-business. The deal was worth $90.5 million in stock and cash. Go2Net was down 3 3/4, or 4%, at 88 1/8 on the news.

iVillage (IVIL Quote), the online community devoted to women, said it bought Online Psychological Services for $1.35 million in cash and $23.5 million in stock. iVillage was down 1 5/16, or 3%, at 48 15/16.

JagNotes.com columnist Dan Dorfman started a rumor that About.com (BOUT Quote) might be purchased by either USA Networks (USAI Quote) or CBS (CBS Quote). About.com was up 3 15/16, or 8% at 55 13/16, after trading as low as 23 on June 15.