(FORTUNE Magazine) – In the late 1990s, web-search company Infospace (INSP, $38) had a crazy plan even by Internet bubble standards: It would get paid to deliver all kinds of glitzy online content to the tiny black-and-white screen of your cellphone. That business didn't take off, the bubble burst, and Infospace shares, which had once traded as high as $1,300 (adjusted for stock splits), tumbled to a low of about $4 in the fall of 2002.

Amazingly, though, Infospace survived. And it now finds itself in two very hot businesses: Internet search (think Google and Yahoo) and mobile content. Through portals like Dogpile.com and directories like Switchboard.com, Infospace collects fees for directing traffic to other sites. Meanwhile, it turns out that the wild scheme to deliver games and ringtones to cellphones wasn't that crazy after all. A new generation of handsets featuring color screens and broadband Internet connections are driving rapid growth in phone downloads. Infospace posted sales of $250 million last year (up 89% from 2003), driven by a 231% gain in mobile revenue.

Is it too late for investors to dial in? Skeptics note that Infospace's margins in the mobile business are shrinking. And the company faces competition from new wireless-content companies--an upstart explosion so frenzied it sometimes feels like 1999 all over again. However, Moors & Cabot analyst Jason Willey, who rates Infospace a buy, thinks its strong relationships with wireless carriers--it serves as a middleman between cellular operators and content providers--means the company will get its fair share of the booming mobile-data business. Right now Infospace is trading at 27 times 2004 earnings. That's a reasonable markup to the S&P 500's trailing P/E of 20, considering that Infospace is growing roughly three times as fast as the average S&P company. And compared with mobile-game company Jamdat (at 86 times last year's earnings) or Google (at 123 times), Infospace looks like a bargain. If a sequel to the web bubble is unfolding, investors might do well to bet on a solid company that survived the last one. -- Stephanie N. Mehta