February 3, 2008

Microsoft-Yahoo: All About Search, Not E-mail Assets

Tim O'Reilly views Microsoft-Yahoo as a Web 2.0 play with the combined company dominating free (Web 1.0) online e-mail services. In a great post generating lots of buzz, he cites Hitwise data showing Yahoo Mail / Yahoo! Address Book at 58 percent of market share (#1) and Windows Live Mail (#2) at 25.5 percent share (not including AOL).

Tim argues the combined personal and private data from e-mail applications would clear the way for developers to create more powerful Web 2.0 apps and an Open ID system. True. Data assets built on networks can be monetized.

Web 2.0, though, has largely been sustained by next-gen "made-for-adsense" online ad-supported business models, developer sweat equity, and the promise of a Google/Yahoo/Microsoft acquisition exit strategy.

O'Reilly thinks Microsoft would be making a "fatal mistake" to take the battle to Google on its own ground. "That's the very mistake that companies like Netscape made in competing with Microsoft," he notes. I disagree that lessons from the early browser search engine wargames apply in the age of cloud computing.

The primary problem with a pre-Bubble 1.0 Netscape world view: in online advertising, Yahoo properties successfully compete with Google. Hitwise and comScore data show a combined Microhoo entity far more popular than Google's network of sites.

Google's still trying to find ways to compete with the Yahoo/MSN vertical search engines (Finance, News, Sports, Travel, Auto). Fortune 500 brands love them for search-informed display / video ad campaigns. Only YouTube "branded channels" are starting to make significant inroads for Google in strategic digital marketing campaigns.

In O'Reilly Radar blog comments, the often profane but always brilliant Dave McClure of 500 Hats fame notes Google could then jump in to take AOL off the hands of the company formerly known as AOL Time Warner.

McClure also notes the other problem with the e-mail-centric view of the deal: social search engines like Facebook and LinkedIn already have built-in (crude) e-mail systems. Their online e-mail share isn't counted in the Hitwise data, as O'Reilly notes.

What O'Reilly and McClure omit: Facebook and LinkedIn already have better user data with extensive demographic profiles of their members who've given full opt-in permission and share their IDs openly. That's the fatal flaw in the e-mail as strategic asset argument.

The Microsoft-Yahoo deal is driven by search, not e-mail assets or their Web 2.0 potential. Ceding the search market to Google creates a GoogleNet that would supplant the Internet as an open marketplace.

If e-mail had such huge strategic value, Microsoft would have bid on Facebook at perhaps one-third the price: the much-scoffed at and oft-times scorned $15 billion valuation based on Microsoft's current stake in Facebook.

A more accurate way to evaluate the e-mail strategic assets: the success of contextual (content) advertising in Yahoo! Mail and Windows Live / Hotmail. Yahoo and MSN don't break out those numbers. My hunch: they're immaterial to paid search revenue even in the small MSN adCenter / Yahoo Search Marketing numbers that pale in comparison to Google. If antitrust concerns forced a spinoff of e-mail properties, the revenue from email contextual advertising wouldn't even be a rounding error in Google AdSense and the Google Content Advertising Network.

The social graph is radically changing search, driving personalization and more relevant results. E-mail plays a small part in the search equation.

Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft has been successful in building a social network around their online e-mail properties or Yahoo/MSN Groups. It's doubtful they'd succeed by mashing disparate and heterogeneous groups together.

Stay tuned to Techmeme for continuing coverage of the most historic M&A deal in what McClure calls the Internet Revolution, Act II.

Posted by Kevin Heisler at 10:34 AM | Permalink

July 2, 2007

Google Et Al Should Buy Australian Hosting, Financial Times Suggests

The Financial Times suggests that the big three search engines should buy local hosting comapnies if they want to make inroads into the Australian market.

Australia does not have the population of their nearby Asian neighbors, but the market is financially capable and one that the engines are not overlooking. Add to this that the telcos are more protected in Australia and the move of Google and Micrososft to establish data centers and the space gets a little crowded.

"The likes of companies like Google and Microsoft could look to consolidate Australian hosting players to get a foothold in the market", analysts and industry executives told FT.com.

Posted by Frank Watson at 5:34 PM | Permalink

May 19, 2007

Who Said It...

It's the Saturday after major ownership changes have been announced in the online ad business. We have heard all the official reasons for the transactions. The true motivations remain with the players, namely Google, WPP, Microsoft, Yahoo, DoubleClick, 24/7 Real Media, aQuantive and Right Media.

So here's a quick puzzler. Try to match these players with the following "unquoted reasons" likely mentioned behind closed doors, in hushed tones. (Sorry, but answers will NOT be provided.)

– We serve ads to the world. – Improve those CPC buys! – We can change. – Make love, not war with publishers. – We can't keep losing people. – Selling CPMs is dull. – Have advertisers, will travel. – We're all about paid search. – Our publishers are impressive. – No more sweat shop for us. – So few ways to spend our money. – Our optimization rocks! – Don't creative ideas matter? – Welcome Big Brother. – We finally joined the club.

Posted by at 4:44 PM | Permalink

November 20, 2006

Verizon Spins Off Idearc

Idearc is the newly spun off parent of local search provider SuperPages.com. The company started trading today on the NYSE. The SuperPages brand, which survives the spin-off, will continue to publish Verizon yellow pages. SuperPages has been the most progressive of the incumbent YP sites in embracing new business models (PPClick/Call) and consumer trends (ratings and reviews). Indeed, SuperPages sees itself not as a “yellow pages” per se but as a local search and shopping resource. Let's see how far the company pushes that metaphor now that it's on its own.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:49 AM | Permalink

November 7, 2006

Text Link Ads Aquired By MediaWhiz

Text Link Ads has been acquired by MediaWhiz as of yesterday. Text Link Ads (TLA) sells text advertisements on web sites and RSS feeds, they also have a publisher network where small publishers can earn money selling TLA ads on their own site. The dollar figures were not disclosed as part of the release. The Link Building Blog says notes that "the people you will be dealing with tomorrow at TLA will be the same people you have always dealt with since our doors opened in 2003." They will be moving from Cincinnati to New York in a few months to run TLA from within MediaWhiz. Patrick Gavin, co-owner of Text Link Ads, said, "We are excited to join MediaWhiz's team and their suite of products. It is a great opportunity to leverage our publisher base by offering more ways for publishers to make money. This deal will also allow us to offer our advertisers new ways to send traffic and sales to their websites." There are related articles at The Cincinnati Business Courier and the official press release here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 1:12 PM | Permalink

November 6, 2006

Topix.net Gains $15 Million Investment From Newspaper Parents

News aggregator and search engine Topix.net announced a new round of funding in which its newspaper owners, Gannett, Tribune Co. and McClatchy, have invested $15 million in the site to help further develop it. According to Hitwise, Topix has been on a tear and, according to the company itself, is now a "top 25" news site. Over the course of the past year Topix has had success developing community forums and has launched local classifieds. The site also recently implemented a news archive search.

I have more discussion of the investment and its potential implications for newspapers on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 9:06 AM | Permalink

October 31, 2006

SideStep Buys TravelPost

SideStep acquired TravelPost for a combination of cash and stock. TravelPost will become a wholly owned subsidiary of SideStep.

According to the press release, "TravelPost.com has grown into a leading source for unbiased user-generated hotel reviews and ratings, travel news, information resources and travel blogs. The company has excelled at organizing travel information to improve the way people research and shop for travel."

TravelPost, with over 500,000 hotel reviews on its site, might be the smartest little travel site you've never heard of. The coolest feature is the ability to filter hotel reviews by Age, Gender, Budget, and Trip Purpose. TravelPost requires the reviewer to enter demographic information before posting.

As Sam Shank, CEO of TravelPost explained, I'd take trips off of my friends' advice or itineraries and have an amazing time because I'd stay at the right hotel or go to the right restaurant for me. [TravelPost] was a way to automate that word of mouth process."

TravelPost already is a close partner of SideStep, providing a subset of the hotel reviews found on the site. SideStep also works with PowerReviews and offers expert editorial content. SideStep has been an advertising partner of TravelPost for the last 6-8 months.

According to Sam "We have direct relationships with the Online Travel Agents (OTAs) and direct relationships with a majority of the major hotel brands like InterContinental, Hilton, and Marriott. We don't see any of that presentation changing on TravelPost in immediate future, but this acquisition lends itself to lots of experimentation."

Asked if there's a conflict with these advertisers since some of the major OTAs, Expedia and Travelocity, don't work with SideStep, Rob Solomon, CEO of SideStep responded "we're a media company – we want to work with the best advertisers in the space. We'll continue to work with the OTAs. Expedia and Travelocity don't participate in search on SideStep, but they spend money on SideStep in the form of deals and graphical media. While they [OTAs] say they don't want to commoditize their offerings, SideStep had 5 million uniques over the summer. [The OTAs] will wake up and realize have to participate. Travel search is a very real model and a legitimate part of the travel ecosystem. We're where NexTag, Shopzilla, and Shopping.com were 4 years ago."

It's interesting to note that Rob is the former GM of Yahoo! Shopping and Sam is a former employee of NexTag, so they both have plenty of experience with vertical search.

Sam and Rob both stressed the core of this deal is about user generated content. Sam explained "in travel, word of mouth and [recommendations from] friends are key. There's no better source of information than other people like you." Rob added "TravelPost really increases the corpus of information that's out there by allowing users to express their opinions. When you combine TravelPost with our scale, the consumer ends up winning."

Posted by Brian Smith at 9:55 AM | Permalink

October 25, 2006

Next Up For Sale, Digg.com

Techcrunch reports that Digg.com is looking to sell the property for $150 million. Digg's recent discussions to sell included negotiations with News Corp, and some other non-disclosed bidders. The word is that Digg wants "at least $150 million" but no one is willing to pay that much to them.

Specifically one of the reasons mentioned is because Comscore figures claim Digg has "1.3 million monthly unique visitors and flat growth since April" but Digg claims they have "20 million unique monthly visitors and steep monthly growth." Danny reviews Rand's SEOMoz article named Website Analytics vs. Competitive Intelligence Metrics that concludes "no publicly available competitive analysis tool we're aware of provides solid value," including Hitwise or other reporting engines.

So does Digg have 20 million visitors? I do not know. It is hard to measure without direct access to one's server logs and even then things can be spoofed. Advertisers and those looking to sell their sites always want to represent the highest numbers as possible here. But can you trust any of them? There are just too many variables and ways to fudge those figures.

Postscript: Matt Tatham from Hitwise sent me some recent data on Digg.com, so I thought I would add it here.

Recent US data on Digg.com in regards to their potential acquisition talks: -Digg.com's US market share of visits increased 231% comparing the week ending October 21, 2006 versus the week ending October 22, 2005 -Digg.com US market share of visits increased 176% comparing September 2006 versus September 2005 -Digg.com is the third most visited website within the Hitwise US News and Media - IT category for the week ending October 21, 2006 -Digg.com is the ranked at 114 most visited website within the Hitwise US News and Media category for the week ending October 21, 2006 -Digg.com received 55% of its US traffic from Google for the week ending October 21, 2006

Thanks Matt!

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 8:47 AM | Permalink

September 7, 2006

RH Donnelley Buys LocalLaunch

The press release has yet to come out but it's official that RH Donnelley, the third largest US yellow pages publisher, has acquired local SEO/SEM firm LocalLaunch. That means YellowPages.com/AT&T is the only remaining major US yellow pages publisher that has not acquired an SEM firm. SuperPages recently bought Inceptor and Yellow Book purchased ClickForward previously.

I'll do a more elaborate post on my blog later.

Postscript Barry: Just a quick note that ClickZ has more details on this, and the Search Engine Roundtable has the community reaction to the sale. Congrats Justin and Brad!

Posted by Greg Sterling at 12:49 PM | Permalink

August 21, 2006

ClickTracks Acquired By J.L. Halsey

The ClickTracks web analytics service has big news today, that it has been acquired by marketing technology firm J.L. Halsey. J.L. Halsey also owns marketing tools such as Lyris, EmailLabs and Hot Banana. Congrats to John and all the crew over at ClickTracks! More information from the press release here.

Postscript: Halsey Goes Beyond E-mail With Two Acquisitions from ClickZ has more details on the sale, including the $10.6 million valuation on it.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:55 AM | Permalink

August 17, 2006

Seevast: It's Kanoodle & More

Catching up on some industry news earlier this month, Kanoodle has done some restructuring. Previously, Kanoodle offered both search and contextual ads. Now, Kanoodle only offers search ads. Contextual ads are being sold through a sister business unit, Pulse 360. Meanwhile, the Moniker domain traffic service has been acquired and will run as a third sister business. Above all of these is a new operating company, Seevast. For more, see this ClickZ story: Kanoodle Makes Acquisition, Becomes Seevast.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 1:36 PM | Permalink

July 25, 2006

SuperPages Buys Inceptor

As reported in ClickZ today, SuperPages, which is itself up for sale, has acquired SEM firm Inceptor for an undisclosed amount. Verizon has been the most forward thinking and acting of the yellow pages publishers when it comes to offering performance-based products and leveraging search. This acquisition gives SuperPages more range in what it can offer and how the company can implement it -- and brings that cost in house.

For more on this deal see my blog post.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:36 AM | Permalink

July 7, 2006

SuperPages For Sale

Verizon has formally filed with the SEC to sell its directory unit, which contains the print yellow pages and online yellow pages/local search businesses. A likely sale could bring as much as $15 billion. And because AT&T does not look like it's going to spin off its directory business, SuperPages could fetch a significant premium.

Verizon has been by far the most experimental and innovative of the US directory publishers to date, embracing PPC marketing and PPCall (including in the print directory). It has also sought to expand the product definition by integrating web search, Shopping.com, eBay listings, ratings and reviews and other content to broaden the utility and usage frequency of SuperPages.com.

Indeed, the company has sought to expand from the notion of a ?yellow pages? site into something more like a local shopping portal. The company has also reconceived its role, vis-à-vis local businesses, from strictly a yellow pages publisher to a local marketing agency, which sells print and online yellow pages in addition to other products (including SEM).

Read a longer version of this post on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 7:29 PM | Permalink

June 12, 2006

Reflecting On Direct Hit, The Google Rival

Perspective: The man who would be Sergey from News.com talks with Gary Culliss, formerly of Direct Hit, on cashing out of search early on. Google and Direct Hit came along at the same time (see Counting Clicks and Looking at Links from me in 1998). Ask Jeeves bought Direct Hit, making the original group involved with it a good chunk of money. But Direct Hit effectively died as a brand and a technology while Google....

I disagree with News.com that in 1998, Google was somehow lumped in with "non-household name" sites while Direct Hit was the shining hope. They both got a lot of attention, but Google very quickly surpassed Direct Hit as the wunderkind to watch. A little bit of history and reflection, in this Q&A.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:19 AM | Permalink

June 8, 2006

IceRocket Sale To Think Is Off (Update: Discussions Still Going)

That deal for Think Partnership to purchase blog search engine IceRocket? Andy Beal notes that it's off.

Postscript: Think has second thoughts about IceRocket from the Texas Startup Blog has a comment from IceRocket that discussions are still ongoing.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:16 AM | Permalink

May 30, 2006

Marchex Acquires Local-Vertical Search Company Openlist

New York-based Openlist, a local, vertical search engine, was acquired by Marchex, which provides search and contextual marketing but also owns a network of thousands of "direct navigation" domains. Little-known Openlist was co-founded by former Jupiter analyst Matthew Berk as Local-i and has been around for roughly two years.

The deal is worth $13 million in cash and stock and Berk, among several others, now joins Marchex. One can think of Openlist as Citysearch built by aggregation. I think that Openlist is doing some of the most interesting work in Local right now; and the acquisition makes Marchex a potentially more formidable company in both local and vertical search.

You can read a more extensive post about the deal and the two companies on my blog.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 8:49 AM | Permalink

May 15, 2006

Planet Discover Acquisition a Potential 'Turning Point' for Newspapers

I spoke this morning with Terry Millard, CEO of local-search vendor Planet Discover. As has now been widely reported, the company was purchased last week for an undisclosed sum by Gannett, which is now the nation’s largest newspaper publisher in terms of number of publications and revenues.

Millard and his brother, who is the CTO, will stay on. Gannett intends to operate the company like PointRoll, as a separate entity. Planet Discover is behind “integrated search” at three Gannett publications and many more newspapers, as the industry tries to confront adoption of the Internet for lookups that used to be done exclusively in newspapers and yellow pages offline. (Newspapers have been dealing with the challenge to classifieds usage and revenues for several years.)

Millard told me that the acquisition and forthcoming investment will enable the company to pursue its long-term product roadmap and further build out the company's search-technology infrastructure.

Here are the results for a query on ?home improvement? on Tuscon.com, which Planet Discover powers. The company is also behind McClatchy?s Triangle.com and South of Boston Media Group?s Wicked Local Search. And while the user experiences on these sites are imperfect, they are considerably better than what's available through most newspaper sites.

The general idea is: improve site search and the user experience and more usage will ultimately generate more revenues. I agree with that logic but local market fragmentation makes it somewhat more complex to realize than the ?ipso facto? relationship I describe.

Gannett has said it will roll out Planet Discover?s search technology on all its local newspaper sites. And while newspapers have been getting into local search here and there in dribs and drabs, this development marks a turning point for the industry. Similarly, but in a different way, so does the earlier McClatchy-WebVisible deal to sell paid-search distribution to local newspaper advertisers.

Gannett's acquisition will force newspapers large and small to think about site search and their local search strategies more generally.

In addition to newspapers, there are many ?constituencies? in local search vying for eyeballs as well as advertisers: yellow pages, search engines/portals, vertical sites, classified sites, local TV affiliates and local radio sites. Not all are executing of course. But this list illustrates how crowded this nascent market is becoming ? also how fragmented.

There are dozens, if not hundreds of local sites that accept ads and many more places where consumers can search for local information online. Aside from the major search engines and some yellow pages sites, "local search" is a confusing proposition for everyone. In the aggregate it's a multi-billion dollar opportunity but realizing that opportunity is complicated and a long term proposition.

Newspapers have long had the capacity (on paper) to ?own? local search but have had trouble executing because of their internal cultures and reluctance to radically overhaul or otherwise experiment with newspaper sites. ?Secondary brands? (e.g., YourHub.com, Sacramento.com, Readexpress.com) are emerging, which allow newspapers to experiment with different content, different functionality and navigation while still preserving the ?sacrosanct? main newspaper site. Successful experiments can be incorporated into the main site. An alternative strategy is to have a local search destination, such as Triangle.com or Sacramento.com that pushes newspaper site content out through that single engine/portal.

Despite the furious competition between Google, Yahoo!, MSN and directories in local (and maps), no one yet owns the category. Newspapers and yellow pages publishers have a local sales channel, which provides an advantage in acquiring and retaining local advertisers. But search engines have considerably more traffic. Nobody has all the pieces of the local search puzzle. All of this makes for an interesting dance of business development and partnerships.

Judging from history, the newspaper industry would be something of a long shot to succeed in local search. But the future of newspapers depends increasingly on the Internet ? a fact that newspapers now clearly understand. And they are becoming more serious by the day about it.

Posted by Greg Sterling at 1:57 PM | Permalink

April 19, 2006

Fox Interactive Media Invests In SimplyHired, Levinsohn To Join Board

The vertical search space continues to attract interest from major media companies. This morning, SimplyHired announced it raised $13.5m from Fox Interactive Media (FIM) and Foundation Capital.

FIM represents the interactive assets of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which made a splash last year by purchasing MySpace. In total, FIM properties reach aproximately 70 million unique visitors a month.

Ross Levinsohn, FIM’s president, will join the SimplyHired board of directors.

If you're looking for a primer on the job search market and SimplyHired, read my recent Q&A with SimplyHired's Phil Carpenter.

Posted by Brian Smith at 12:30 PM | Permalink

April 14, 2006

MSN Windows Live Search Getting Answers Service; May Partner Or Acquire Eurekster

Via Threadwatch, Microsoft Gets Social from BusinessWeek has news that Microsoft may be buying or partnering with Eurekster to bring social search features to its MSN Window Live Search service. An question answering service is also coming.

What's MSN Windows Live Search, by the way? Since Microsoft doesn't seem to know if we're supposed to use Windows Live Search (launched last month) or MSN Search (launched in 1998), MSN Windows Live Search is my name for covering both bases at once. Personally, I like how it preserves the MSN brand while adding yet another word to the search service's name. It rolls off the tongue. I'm going to go MSNWindowsLiveSearch someone or something right now.

BusinessWeek confuses the forthcoming Q&A tool with social search. Those are two completely different types of search features/services, of which Q&A is the least important. In fact, it just reeks of another "me too" move that's not going to budge MSN Windows Live Search's usage among searchers.

I mean, LookSmart Live never took off after being launched in 1999. Neither did Ask's Answer Point, which came out in 2000. Google Answers, which was kicked off in 2002 the same week Answer Point closed only generated 0.01 percent of Google visits in November. Yahoo Answers was launched only in December, so perhaps it will grow. But it probably won't. Wondir is still going, but it's hardly had the growth and notice of some social sites like YouTube.

Real social/personalized search coming to MSNWLS is much more important, because it really is something I expect will take us into that next generational jump. Eurekster certainly has plenty of experience in the space, having ushered in the current round of social search attention since it launched back in 2004.

Here are some key stories from me on social and personalized search, if you really want to come up to speed on changes:

• Direct Hit Debuts Personalized Search  
• Eurekster Launches Personalized Social Search  
• Search Personalization: A Marketer's Perspective  
• Google Relaunches Personal Search - This Time, It Really Is Personal  
• Yahoo My Web: An eBay For Knowledge

FYI, this will be MSN's second time around with a social search feature. In 1999, they carried Direct Hit results, which was a rudimentary form of social search based on tracking aggregate clicks. Direct Hit results were dropped sometime before 2002.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:10 AM | Permalink

Cuban's IceRocket Sold To Think Partnership

Cuban Sells Blog Search Engine from Red Herring covers marketing firm Think Partnership planning to purchase the IceRocket blog search engine, which is coowned by billionaire Mark Cuban. Terms aren't disclosed, but Cuban won't be making another billion off of this, safe to say. Red Herring estimates Think has about $20 million available, if this is a cash deal. Think seems to be hoping the purchase will help it spread its affiliate marketing work out further, perhaps to help form a new blog advertising network. Press release is here.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:16 AM | Permalink

March 17, 2006

Alibaba.com Uses $750M of the $1B (USD) Yahoo Paid

Alibaba.com, which acquired Yahoo China, used $750 million of the $1 billion dollars Yahoo injected into Alibaba.com as part of the acquisition. This has given Yahoo a 40%, majority, ownership in Alibaba.com. We learned this from Jack Ma Keynote Address today in China. The coverage at my blog says that Jack Ma said something to the affect of, "the truth is $750 million out of the $1 billion given to Alibaba was either spent or reinvested." You can read Forbes.com thoughts on this here.

Posted by Barry Schwartz at 10:38 AM | Permalink

January 18, 2006

Mobile Search: Gannett Invests in 4INFO; Upsnap.com Acquires XSVoice, Now Offering Streaming Audio on Your Phone or Device

Two more mobile search items to report today.

A joint press release from mobile search provider 4INFO (a service I blog about and also use very regularly) and media giant Gannett (USA Today is one of their properties) informs us that Gannett is making a minority investment in 4INFO and also entering into a marketing and distribution agreement with them.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Collaboration between the companies will begin with USA TODAY and be introduced to other Gannett newspaper and broadcast operations, including Captivate Network. This will include promotion of 4INFO?s mobile real-time information such as sports scores and weather within relevant sections of USA TODAY.

Congrats to the 4INFO team. Could today's announcement be the beginning of a time where we see other large media organizations getting more involved in the mobile search space? We will be watching.

Next, UpSnap, another mobile search company has acquired XSVoice, a mobile entertainment company. The news release focuses on how XSVoice will now allow UpSnap users to receive streaming audio (music, news, sports, etc.) via their mobile phone or device. The UpSnap home page today includes links to how to access this streaming audio content like this rock music "station."

If I'm not mistaken, UpSnap is leveraging an XSVoice service called the Mobile Broadcast Network (MBN) to power this new feature. MBN has been around for some time (and now shows that is part of UpSnap). I've used it several times in the past and the audio quality can vary from ok (spoken word, news, etc.) to poor. Of course, various conditions including bandwidth issues, weather, and the quality of your speaker or headset can go a long way in determining the audio quality. I'm looking forward to taking another look at this audio service and seeing what develops. Cool idea.

You can learn more about MBN here. In a nutshell, MBN and now UpSnap allows the user to have audio content delivered by simply dialing a US phone number. The service works on both mobile phones as well as landline phones. Example: To access a station playing ambient music, + Dial: 1-615-727-9201 + Login (Registration, web-based, is free) + Enter the station code for Ambient, 1760 + That's it. Music should begin playing immediately.

Of course, make sure your phone (whatever type it is) offer lots of long-distance minutes (assuming your outside of the 615 area code). Otherwise, this could start costing. The content itself is free.

Web access to the content directory is now available either via UpSnap or on your mobile web browser. Check this page for info.

The biggest question I have about the audio content is that with some mobile phone providers now allowing people to download and/or purchase and play MP3's, iTunes, and even listen to satellite radio, will the audio quality that's now available suffice in the long run? I think the service might have a brighter future focusing on non-music content like interviews, news, and sports. Streaming podcasts anyone? Of course, many Smartphones have offered MP3 players for years. For example, using my Treo and some software for the Palm (Pocket-Tunes), I cannot only play any MP3's but also stream LIVE any station offers an MP3 stream. For example, most Shoutcast stations and feeds are in MP3 format.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:36 PM | Permalink

January 10, 2006

AOL Acquires Truveo Video Search and Crawling Technology For Undisclosed Sum

News from AOL this morning that they've acquired video search engine and video crawling technology, Truveo, for an undisclosed sum. The deal was formally signed on December 21st and is being made public today.

Truveo first went launched in beta last summer and we blogged about it here. Truveo technology crawls the open web for video files using a technology they developed called "visual crawling."

From the Truveo site: For video to be searchable, it is also necessary to collect meaningful text metadata to associate with each video file. Of course, we rely on standard techniques, such as mining closed-caption transcripts and importing RSS feeds. The vast majority of video on the web, however, does not have any closed-caption or RSS metadata available...Whenever our visual crawlers find a new video on the web, they can also "visually" examine the context of the surrounding web application. In most cases, this examination reveals a bounty of rich and detailed metadata related to every video.

A quick search using Truveo's advanced search interface last night found up content from numerous sources including Reuters, CNN, BBC News, Fox Sports, and MSNBC.

So, as of today AOL owns both Truveo and Singingfish multimedia search sites and their crawling technology. Seattle-based Singingfish was acquired by AOL in 2003 and still maintains a standalone site along with a presence on the AOL Video Search site. It will be worth watching how AOL uses each technology.

According to AOL, look for the Truveo technology to begin appearing on AOL Video in the next few months.

As I've pointed out before, AOL continues to develop into a major player in the video/multimedia search scene. 2005 was a big year for AOL Video Search that included:

• The launch of the new AOL Video Search site. It's an impressive site. I posted this overview on the day it launched.
• Announced several new content partners including Reuters, MTV, and iFilm.
• Had success streaming live and offering archived versions of musical performances from Live 8
• Began beta testing AOL Hi-Q? that allows high quality (in terms of file size) video files to be downloaded while your computer is idle.

Finally, a few weeks ago we learned that video search is a part of the new Google/AOL deal. The announcement says that both companies will collaborate in, "video search and showcasing AOL's premium video service within Google Video." What this means is still to be determined. Where will AOL video results appear on Google Video results pages? How many results will be shown? Will they be separated into their own section or merged with Google results? Will both companies eventually negotiate together for new content? As they say, especially in the world of video, stay tuned.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:01 AM | Permalink

December 14, 2005

Experian Parent Buys PriceGrabber For $485 Million

Well, that didn't take long. Little more than a month after PriceGrabber CEO Kamran Pourzanjani told me that his company would "continue to do well as a stand-alone company," retail and financial services company GUS PLC announced today that it has bought PriceGrabber.com for $485 million.

GUS may not be a familiar name, but its subsidiaries include Experian (credit reports), and U.K. retailers Argos and Homebase. Earlier this year GUS purchased loan-lead site LowerMyBills.com for $330 million.

This is the third major shopping and comparison search engine acquisition this year. In June, eBay acquired Shopping.com for $625 million, and a week later Shopzilla agreed to be acquired by media company E.W. Scripps for $525 million.

Who's next?

When I was preparing my annual shopping search roundup I asked Stephen Imbler, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of NexTag whether NexTag was on the market. He told me that "our intent is to be a large successful internet company," and that a buyout or IPO was one of the "options" the company was considering.

Become.com is also a likely target. Co-founders Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yung are old hands at the build and sell game. The pair sold one of the first shopping search engines, MySimon to C|Net in January 2000 for $700 million. Yun created the Wisenut search engine and sold it to Looksmart in April 2002 in an all stock deal valued at just under $10 million at the time.

Smarter.com is another possibility. Headed by a group of ex-Overture execs, the company has been profitable since the get-go, according to Smarter.com co-founder Talmadge O'Neill. The company is also moving aggressively to build up a presence in Japan and China, one of the fastest growing online markets in the world.

Postscript From Gary: Experian's interactive division also owns LowermyBills.com, MetaReward, Affiliate Fuel, ClassesUSA.com and Experian Consumer Direct. Orange Country, CA based PriceGrabber maintains its own site and also powers shopping search on many other sites including Ask Jeeves, Comcast's web portal, and others. It also has an agreement with MSN. PriceGrabber offers products and services from about 9000 merchants.

PriceGrabber was formed in 1999 and employs 140 people.

More in this Bloomberg report and the official press release. More about Experian Information Services itself on this overview page from Hoover's.

2005 has been a "year of consolidation" in the shopping search space as Chris recently pointed out in : Shopping Search Week 2005. This article does a fantastic job of reviewing the year and includes details abouts eBay's purchase of Shopping.com and Shopzilla's acquisition by E.W. Scripps.

Since Chris wrote this article another development I see as important in shopping search is the recent inclusion of eBay items into the MSN Shopping database. As noted earlier, MSN has a partnership agreement to provide contnet to PriceGrabber.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 11:24 AM | Permalink

December 6, 2005

Answers.com Buys "Answer Extraction" Engine Brainboost for $4 Million in Cash and Some Shares of Restricted Stock

Word from Answers.com that they've acquired an "answer extraction" database that utilizes NLP (natural language processing), Brainboost.com for $4 million in cash and 439,000 shares of restricted stock.

The developer of Brainboost, Mr. Assaf Rozenblatt, has joined the Answers.com team as Director of Natural Language Research. My experiences with Brainboost over the years have been mediocre at best. At this point answers to questions (What is...? How many...? Who are?) are derived from open web content that doesn't always give a quality factual answer. Does a teacher want a student citing, http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/realname.html ? Of course, this is new technology, and something we'll likely to be seeing more in the future. So, Answers.com's investment is likely a good business move. In many ways, it's similar to the ZoomInfo tech we blogged about earlier today.

Brainboost (www.brainboost.com) works by scouring digital content and extracting candidate answers to natural language queries. It then ranks those candidate answers heuristically and displays the highest-confidence results in simple English form. Answers.com will apply Brainboost's answer extraction techniques not only to the Web at large, as implemented currently, but to Answers.com's own growing content library of attributable reference sources.

The last sentence can only be a good thing for Brainboost with the implementation of Answers.com material that does go well beyond Wikipedia data. Plus, having Answer's resources both human and financial can only help.

Again, it's the librarian in me talking here but it's one thing to get an answer (something) but it's also crucial where (the source) of that answer. Sometimes the best answer (currency, scope, authority) doesn't come from open web. Of course, Brainboost can help the searcher get to an autoritative source but the question is will the person take the next step.

Ads on results pages are provided by Google.

Since you were likely wondering what type of answers you can find. Here are a few sample questions that came to mind in the past five minutes (literally), remember results may vary: + Who owned the Chicago Cubs in the 1960's...No mention of Phillip K. Wrigley (yes, the gum guy). + Who are the members of Coldplay?...No mention of Chris Martin and the rest of the guys. + What does WGN (the TV and radio station) stand for? Correct? World's Greatest Newspaper + Where was Carl Bernstein born (Woodward and Bernstein)? Date yes, location no. + When is Labor Day in 2006? No dates given. + What is Boomer Esiason's real name? No answer + What does the luggage or baggage tag MSY stand for? No answer. Btw, the correct answer is New Orleans. + Who is the founder of the Wikipedia? No answer. Sorry Jimmy. + What is the name of the stadium where the Washington Wizards play? No go. + What are the names all six children on the brady bunch? No go + Who is the Prime Minister of Canada? Nope. No mention of Paul Martin. + What is the nickname of Texas Christian University? Nope. Answer, Horned Frogs.

However, my friend Tara from ResearchBuzz had better luck. Back in March, she had some positive comments about the serivce.

Postscript: Ask Jeeves in July launched Web Answers that mines or extracts the open web for "answers" in real-time. This is not to be confused with Ask's Smart Answer program which takes content from structured sources. More about web answers in this post (2nd half). Like BrainBoost, caveat emptor with this type of service. Here is a question (Where is Diego Garcia) answered by a AJ Web Answer.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:13 PM | Permalink

November 21, 2005

U.S. SEM Firm Innovation Interactive Acquired by Japan's Livedoor

It's SEM acquisition time! Clickz reports that Japan's Livedoor has acquired Innovation Interactive, parent to 360i and SearchIgnite. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Innovation's clients include large SEM customers like Office Depot and Forbes, as well as thousands of small business customers using its self-service online marketing tools. Its SearchIgnite search management software helps sophisticated marketers and advertising agencies like Digitas manage their own SEM campaigns.

More info in this news release.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:38 PM | Permalink

November 14, 2005

Omnicom Buys Resolution Media

Omnicom Buys Its First SEM Agency from ClickZ covers ad and marketing conglomerate Omnicom Group purchasing Chicago-based Resolution Media.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:36 AM | Permalink

November 4, 2005

Autonomy Buys Verity

The two largest players in the enterprise search market are now one. Autonomy is purchasing Verity for $500 million, according to this Red Herring story. The combined companies will have 16,000 customers, including those using Inktomi's former Ultraseek platform, which Verity acquired in December 2002.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:06 PM | Permalink

November 2, 2005

Think Partnership Acquires Web Diversity

Think Partnership, parent of search marketing firm WebSourced, has acquired UK based Web Diversity for a combination of cash and stock. As part of the acquisition, Web Diversity will continue its operations in Europe and open a Hong Kong office. More details in the press release announcing the acquisition.

Posted by Chris Sherman at 3:13 PM | Permalink

October 26, 2005

Award Winning Jux2 Meta Engine Sells on eBay for over $100,000

The eBay auction for the award-winning Jux2 meta search engine (also a great tool for checking search engine overlap) has just ended and the winning bid was for $101,100 (Wow!!!) by a bidder named 3vCap. Congrats to Aaref Hilaly and the rest of the Jux2 team. For more about the now completed Jux2 auction (what was actually for sale, what you didn't get, etc.), see my post from about a week ago.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:47 PM | Permalink

October 12, 2005

Google and Comcast are in Talks to Acquire Minority Stake in AOL

Here we go again. More news on the AOL/Microsoft/Google story.

The Wall Street Journal has just posted a report that Google and cable television/high-speed Internet giant, Comcast, are in "serious discussions" with AOL (Time Warner) about acquiring a "minority" stake in AOL's portal business (not the dial-up access part).

From the WSJ: How closely Google and Comcast are aligned in the talks isn't clear. Google approached Comcast about participating in a bid for AOL last week, according to a person familiar with the matter. But Google may end up making a bid on its own, another person said.

We've mentioned several times that AOL has yalked to Microsoft about acquiring a minority stake in the company. Actually, the original NY Post story in September noted that AOL had also talked at that point to Google and Yahoo. A few weeks later the Time Warner CEO told the NY Times that he sees AOL has an important asset for his company.

Is any of this surprising? Hardly! It's war out there folks especially between MS and Google.

Btw, if you're thinking the local tv ad buys, an ad on Google could also get you an ad on a Comcast Cable System. Comcast has about 21.5 subscribers. Of course, a new MSN adCenter ad could also get you placement on the many cable systems TW owns and operates. TW Cable has about 16 million subs (analog and digital). Both companies also operate hi-speed net accees, digital phone, and digital recorder services.

Postscript: TheStreet.com has more from the WSJ story including some numbers.

Postcript 2: From Reuters: The talks between AOL, Google and Comcast have progressed over the summer, but one source warned that the discussions were still in early stages and could fall apart.

AOL contacted Comcast earlier this summer and has held separate discussions with Google over potential investments, the sources said.

Google has discussed with AOL interest in AOL's free Web-based services, such as instant messaging and programming. In addition, Google contacted Comcast last week over possible interest in executing a joint investment, one source said.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:31 PM | Permalink

October 11, 2005

Recap: VeriSign Acquires Moreover

Talk today about the VeriSign acquisition of news aggregator of Moreover. Here'a a quick recap of what people are talking about:

+ Via Niall Kennedy's Weblog Moreover Technologies has been acquired by VeriSign for between $25 million and $30 million.

+ via Rafat Ali and PaidContent.org "Gleaned some more info on the Moreover's acquisition by VeriSign, through sources ... the $25 million is on the low side; it is closer to $30 million, from what I know. Google did come in at the last minute with a higher bid, but too late ... the deal was done."

+ Via The Street.com "This latest acquisition is a part of an attempt to provide "some structure to the endless content or chat available on the Internet and to monetize blogs," said one person familiar with the company."

+ Via Nick Denton's Blog (Denton was a co-founder of Moreover) Fast Internet Business History Fact from Nick: "Moreover, which had a joint venture with the makers of Blogger, was all lined up to buy the company back in January 2001."

Last week, VeriSign acquired the Blogs.com ping service from Dave Winer.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:42 PM | Permalink

October 7, 2005

Weblogs.com Ping Server Bought By Verisign

Dave Winer's Weblogs.com ping service has been purchased by Verisign. Dave does a rundown on the sale here. Verisign does a rundown here. Why do you care? You probably don't need to.

Blog search engines and feed reading services can and do take pings from Weblogs to understand when content is updated. But it's not the only service you can ping, if you want to send out notifications.

But why wouldn't you depend on pining Weblogs? Right now, there's no reason not to. But while Verisign pledges pinging will remain free, it also talks about adding "value added services" for a fee. Potentially, that could mean getting some pings out faster than others. Or not. We don't know, and it remains a "we'll see type of thing."

The main point is this. Ultimately, I think pinging will be heading down a path of pinging the most important places in addition to any centralized server. So if Weblogs suddenly did get all into charging for rapid response, you'd still be able to notify other places despite it.

For example, you can (and should) ping Yahoo directly as explained here. Yahoo doesn't need to wait for you ping Weblogs or even Blo.gs (the service Yahoo bought in June).

Technorati has its own ping server, and I expect that any major player may ultimately have their own, perhaps with registration barriers or other systems to cutdown on ping spam. Any smart marketer will hit these in addition to a centralized server.

The entire pinging thing got you down/head spinning? Basically, most of this is probably built into the blogging tool you use. But a good starting place for more is Ping-o-Matic, which helps you send pings manually if you need to, plus has useful background.

By the way, in addition to Verisign buying Weblogs.com, the ping system, AOL yesterday bought the entirely different Weblogs Inc. network of blog sites.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:15 AM | Permalink

September 26, 2005

Blog Buzz News: PubSub Improvements Coming, BuzzMetrics Sold

PubSub to Measure Blog Influence by Category from ClickZ says that PubSub is supposed to release a new version of its LinkRanks service, to help you find key blogs in various topics. Watching to see what comes up. No news yet on the PubSub blog. Top of my list is a hope that PubSub goes back and measures links from actual blog posts rather than just feeds, because of the problems with this I covered before. Meanwhile, BuzzMetrics Bought By Israel-Based Trendum covers word-of-mouth firm BuzzMetrics being bought by Trendum.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:00 AM | Permalink

September 15, 2005

Microsoft Talks To Time Warner About Acquiring a Piece of AOL

Via a post in our forums, we learn of a NY Post article: AOL's Time May Be Up, about Microsoft talking with Time Warner about about acquiring a piece of AOL.

Under the plan being considered, Microsoft would pay some money to Time Warner for the AOL stake, leaving the two companies approximately equal partners in the venture.

The article also says that AOL has also talked with Google and Yahoo about acquiring part of the service.

Of course, a partnership between MS and TW/AOL would likely have implications for Google. Why? Google ads are visible on AOL Search results pages. Google could/would loose eyeballs if AOL begins showing advertising from MSN's soon to launch AdCenter service. For site owners, an implication is also that AOL's Google-powered results would be replaced by MSN's own crawler results.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:17 PM | Permalink

September 2, 2005

Think's Purchase Of Proceed Interactive Officially Off

Proceed Acquisition Won't Proceed at ClickZ covers how a planned acquisition of search marketer Proceed Interactive by Think Partnership -- parent company of WebSourced and KeywordRankings.com -- now is officially off. Think says Proceed failed to meet conditions of the sale, including audited financial statements.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:20 AM | Permalink

August 18, 2005

Copernic Still Wants Their Mamma.com

Clickz is reporting that the deal that has Mamma.com acquiring desktop/enterprise search provider, Copernic.com, is back on. Mamma.com's plans to acquire Copernic were first announced in November 2003. Then, in February of this year, the deal was called off when Copernic pulled out of the deal due to an SEC probe of Mamma.com.

From Today's Clickz article: "Based on further due diligence, we are now confident that Mamma.com is a strong and very well managed company. We are positive about closing this transaction which will create a new organization capable of competing with the best of breed in the search engine sector of the Internet," Martin Bouchard, executive chairman of Copernic Technologies, said in a statement.

Posted by Gary Price at 1:11 PM | Permalink

August 15, 2005

Murdoch Wants Blinkx

According to a story in the LA Times, News Corp is in talks to acquire multimedia (video and audio) search engine Blinkx. Stories about Mr. Murdoch's rapidly growing interest in acquring Internet properties (not only Blinkx) have reached a fever pitch after conference call last week and his acquisition of MySpace a few weeks ago.

Blinkx celebrated its first anniversary last week and while it's best kn own as a multimedia search tool that allows you to search metadata and/or mechanically generated transcripts (using speech recognition technology that they've developed in-house) and then view or listen to the content online, Blinkx also provides a search client (Blinkx 3.0) and "Smart Folders" technology that News Corp. would also be able to utilize.

Also worth noting, several weeks ago Blinkx began providing transcript search for podcast content. Podscope from TVEyes also offers this service. Both services are free.

We've chronicled what Blinkx has been up to since just about day one. Here's a list of what we've posted in the past year.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:31 PM | Permalink

August 8, 2005

Indeed.com Gets Funding from The NY Times

Last Friday, I posted that job search vertical SimplyHired.com received some funding from angel investors. Today, News.com reports that Indeed.com (another job search vertical) has received a $5 million investment from the New York Times, Union Square Ventures, and Allen & Company.

This is yet another Internet investment from the NY Times. In February/March they purchased About.com for $410 million in cash.

Posted by Gary Price at 3:22 PM | Permalink

July 13, 2005

Andy Beal Departs WebSourced Over Differences

Andy Beal of Search Engine Lowdown has announced he's left his day job -- vice president of search marketing for WebSourced -- due to philosophical differences over the direction of WebSourced. His Why I've Resigned from WebSourced post doesn't provide further information on those differences. More may emerge in comments on his blog. Threadwatch has some discussion, and Barry points to another resignation from a prominent WebSourced person recently, Jason Dowdell. He also said he left due to differences with the company. WebSourced recently gained two other well known search marketers, Mike Grehan and Heather Lloyd-Martin, as covered in our past post, CGI Holding Buys More, Changing Name To Think Partnership. Both are still with the company.

Postscript: Andy has removed the post explaining his reasons for leaving WebSourced. He explains why to Threadwatch.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:10 PM | Permalink

June 16, 2005

360i Acquired By Innovative Interactive

Search marketing firm 360i has been purchased by Innovation Interactive, 360i tells us. Innovation Interactive is the parent company of eXact Advertising and paid listings service BrainFox. eXact Advertising, which currently encompasses search marketing and other services, will now focus solely on delivering contextual ads.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:36 AM | Permalink

June 6, 2005

Shopzilla Sold to E.W. Scripps for $525 Million

Shopping search is hot.

As you know, eBay purchased Shopping.com last week and today, we're learning that Shopzilla (they also operate BizRate) has by acquired by E. W. Scripps Company for $525 million in cash. Scripps owns numerous newspapers, tv stations and satellite tv networks (HGTV, Food Network, Fine Living, etc.)

A webcast will take place here at 5:30 PM EDST this afternoon.

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Shopzilla / Bizrate Acquired.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:52 PM | Permalink

June 1, 2005

eBay Goes Shopping and Acquires Shopping.com

Just crossing the wires is news that eBay (you've heard of them) has acquired comparative shopping search site, Shopping.com. According to the Wall Street Journal (sub. req) and TheStreet.com, eBay will pay about $620 million in cash or $21 per share for all of Shopping.com's outstanding shares. Shopping.com became a publicly traded company in October 2004.

From the WSJ: Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America, said in an interview that eBay became interested in Shopping.com when it noticed its sellers listing merchandise on comparison-shopping sites, as well as eBay. Shopping.com, which is free to consumers, generates revenue primarily from merchants that pay fees when Internet users click on listings to reach their Web sites.

Mr. Cobb said eBay plans to integrate its listings with the product listings available on Shopping.com so sellers can reach another pool of buyers. "This is about continuing to fuel our biggest business," he said.

Lorrie Norrington, president and chief executive of Shopping.com, said the deal will bring Shopping.com users broader choices. The Brisbane, Calif., company, which will be operated as a separate eBay business, plans to marry its Epinions product and merchant review system with eBay's seller and buyer "feedback" system, which lets buyers and sellers rate their experience.

The news release announcing the acquisition is here.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:42 PM | Permalink

May 20, 2005

Ask Buys Excite Europe; To Share Excite.com With Infospace

A Reuters article about 10 days ago mentioned that Ask Jeeves was planning on offering new services throughout Western Europe. These plans were made a bit clearer today when Ask Jeeves announced that they have acquired Excite Europe from Tiscali for an undisclosed sum of money.

From the news release: The acquisition of Excite Europe will extend Ask Jeeves' ownership of the Excite brand beyond the United States, giving the Company ownership of Excite's Internet domains throughout Europe as well as control of existing portal offerings in several major European markets including Spain, Italy, France, UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

Want to discuss the acquisition? Check out this SEW Forums thread.

In other Ask Jeeves news, the company has agreed in a "comprehensive settlement of litigation" with InfoSpace to share marketing costs and revenue from the Excite.com Web search function.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:36 AM | Permalink

May 18, 2005

UK's Yell Purchases Large U.S. Phone Directory Publisher

Reuters and Bloomberg News report in the article: Yell snaps up more U.S. directories that the UK publisher has acquired TransWestern, one of the biggest independent publishers of U.S. phone directories. Yell paid $1.58 billion.

It may seem counterintuitive given the popularity of Internet search engines like Google, but to find local goods and services, the yellow pages are still king. "It's the local market and the small guy rather than the Web-based businesses or the large chain stores," said Paul Bates of the British brokerage Charles Stanley. "It's still an effective medium."

Posted by Gary Price at 10:20 AM | Permalink

May 12, 2005

Refinery Acquires directMASS Search Agency

Another search marketing firm gets acquired -- this time, directMASS, by interactive firm Refinery, which counts Campbell Soup and Comcast among its clients. More details from the press release about the purchase.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:49 AM | Permalink

May 11, 2005

Google Makes An Acquisition: Dodgeball.com

Reuters is reporting that Google has acquired dodgeball.com. Will Sergey, Larry, and Eric soon be out there promoting dodgeball games around the world? Nope, not even close. Google is now in the mobile social-software business. Here's an FAQ about the acquisition.

dodgeball.com is currently available in 22 U.S. cities (the company has been around for about 5 years) allows you to find other dodgeball.com users via text messaging. In other words, use dodgeball.com to meet-up with friends, make new friends, etc.

Still confused? Here's how dodgeball.com was described in a recent issue of New York magazine. The story ran in the "mating" column.

Now that people are breaking up with each other through text messaging, it?s only natural that the hottest social-networking program to emerge in recent months is Dodgeball, a free texting service that lets users tell their friends and crushes what bar they?re in at any moment so they can meet up.

This Wired story has more about dodgeball and a similar mobile social-networking service in the UK. It also has a useful overview of how the service works.

It works, explained founder Dennis Crowley, by having users check in with text messages announcing where they are. Then, because dodgeball maintains a database of hundreds of nightspots in each city, anyone on a user's friends list who is within 10 blocks gets a message that his or her pal is nearby.

The service also has a "crush" feature. Users view profiles of other members and designate ones they'd like to meet. If the object of a crush is nearby, he or she gets a message to that effect. The system maintains privacy by identifying users only by screen names.

Interesting acquisition? For sure. You know me and my interest in mobile. (-: Perhaps Google might be thinking of selling advertising in the text messages that get sent to dodgeball.com members looking to meet up. How about Google working with advertisers to offer special deals for members. For example, if you and your friends want to head to a movie after meeting via dodgeball.com, show a recent text message at a nearby movie theater and get in for a reduced rate.

What I'm unclear about is what dodgeball.com has to do with Google's mission to, "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Is it time for Google to modify their mission statement?

Whatever the case may be, let the speculation begin!

Posted by Gary Price at 7:42 PM | Permalink

April 26, 2005

Like Search Engines, Search Marketing Firms Growing Revenue

Fathom that: Ask Jeeves veteran gets successful search result from the San Francisco Business Times profiles search firm Fathom Online and worth a read for those who need a refresher on how search marketing companies are growing as investment and acquisition targets.

San Francisco-based Fathom earned $20 million in revenue last year and expects to double that to $40 million this year (though a large chunk of that may go right back out to the search engines themselves).

The company, only three years old, employs 50 people and expects to reach 100 by the end of the year. It has a single outside investor that's contributed $6 million, so far. But Fathom CEO Chris Churchill -- a former Ask Jeeves exec -- says there are no plans to go public or sell in the near future.

Meanwhile over in Texas, Range Online founders Cheryle Pingel and Misty Locke were recently named in Fast Company's new list of Top 25 Women Business Builders. Like Fathom, Range pulled in over $20 million in revenue last year.

Cast your mind back to January, and you may recall Efficient Frontier had announced (link to PDF press release) they were managing over $100 million in annual paid search marketing spend. What really caught my eye about that, aside from the double zeros behind the one, was the claim they handled more than any other search marketing firm.

I didn't necessarily doubt that they were handling more revenue than anyone else, but how could they prove that? They company's PR firm emailed back:

To answer your questions -- there are no pure-play public search engine marketing firms so there is no public information on fees, spend under management, number of advertisers - so we need to use our data to understand the market.

We were able to compile a list of the top 400 paid search advertisers by using our proprietary technology and our knowledge from the sales cycle. We download the bid landscape each day for all of our keywords (over 7.5 million in 2004 alone) and we run models and estimates to determine how our customers should buy in the space. We also run competitive analysis to figure out what their competitors are spending in the marketplace.

This gives us enough data from our every day activities to identify the top spenders. In addition, our sales team talks to the top 1000 advertisers all day long, so we know what people are spending based on actual conversations. Based on our top 400 spenders list, we were able to confirm that we manage more than any competitors.

That $100 million, by the way, is purely the in-and-out money. In other words, it's what's managed on behalf of Efficient's clients, not what the company itself keeps. So total revenues generated are higher, though what's actually retained by Efficient (as with the other companies above) is less.

By the way, bringing things back to Fathom, that company and Efficient recently teamed up (PDF release) to share services.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:11 PM | Permalink

April 18, 2005

TiVo Talks to Google and Yahoo

Can you name another service that here in America that has become a verb as quickly as Google has? I can, it's TiVo.

Stefanie Olson and Richard Shim at News.com report in TiVo courts search giants that unnamed sources are saying that the digital video recording company is in talks with both Yahoo and Google about some type of partnership. Another source says that TiVo is also talking to both companies about a possible equity investment. No one from TiVo, Google, or Yahoo would comment on the story. Stay tuned. (-:

Last month, TiVo announced a major partnership with Comcast (a major cable tv company in the U.S.), that will allow Comcast customers that opportunity to use TiVo services.

"...a TiVo deal might allow Google or Yahoo users to find video files on the Web and then watch them on their televisions. Web surfers might provide some personal information, including their TiVo serial box number, in order to download video directly to their TiVo box. A credit card number might also be required, if the video had an associated fee. TiVo would collect a share of the fees from either customer payment or from advertising-supported video."

On a related note (in the sense that it involves video) is news that Sony Pictures Entertainment will announce that they will soon begin building a digital library of its film content.

Posted by Gary Price at 11:23 AM | Permalink

April 15, 2005

Copernic Will Not Be Sold to Mamma.com

Nothing like a government probe to spoil your plans.

The deal that had Mamma.com acquiring Copernic is no more. According to this news release, Copernic pulled out of the deal due to the now "formal" SEC investigation of Mamma.com that we blogged about the other day. Thanks to Eric Baillargeon for the news tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 6:08 PM | Permalink

April 12, 2005

Yahoo Acquires TeRespondo Latin American PPC Search Network

Yahoo has acquired TeRespondo, a Brazillan PPC search network that plays in the Latin American market.

Clickz's Kevin Newcomb writes in the article: Yahoo! Buys Brazilian PPC Search Network, that the terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Overture opened an office in Brazil in October 2004 and has built a distribution network that includes Yahoo, Cadê?, IBest and Bondfaro. It will now include all the sites in TeRespondo's network, including MSN Brazil, UOL, IG and Buscapé audience. The company provides each advertiser with a full-service account manager to translate and review client keywords and phrases to make sure they are relevant and effective for a Spanish-speaking audience.

Posted by Gary Price at 4:52 PM | Permalink

April 5, 2005

Sabre Holdings Purchases IgoUgo Travel Info Community and Database

Dow Jones reports that a major player in travel, Sabre Holdings, has purchased the online travel community and searchable vertical database of travel reviews, IgoUgo, for an undisclosed sum in an effort to offer more travel info and also get involved with paid search.

Sabre is the owner of Travelocity and the Sabre Travel Network, the world's largest electronic travel reservation service (what many travel agents and airlines use).

Access to the IgoUGo database and community will soon be available on Travelocity.

According to the news release, Sabre will enhance the engine by developing its own vertical search technology.

"Developing a keyword search engine specifically for travel is a natural extension of Sabre's 30-plus years of experience in travel search technology," said Eric J. Speck, executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Sabre Holdings. "We have leveraged the skills of a very talented group of mathematicians who have previously established an expertise in solving complex travel-related algorithms to create this new search engine. Sabre Holdings plans to enhance the capabilities of the keyword search engine and then combine it with the plethora of real-time information in the Sabre system to enhance offerings from the company's other businesses, including Travelocity and Sabre Travel Network... The enhanced IgoUgo site will enable Sabre to participate in the growth in paid search advertising."

The Dow Jones story adds: ... IgoUgo won't compete with Sabre online travel agent Travelocity, nor will it channel bookings to Travelocity, he said. Travelocity Chief Executive Michelle Peluso has declined to participate in the start-up search engines. She has said search engines tend to focus travel choices on price, commoditizing the industry at a time when airlines can least afford it. Further, she views search engines as competition, just like any other online travel agent.

More in the DJ story: Sabre Holdings Buys Travel Search Engine IgoUgo.com, and this news release. Additional info about Sabre Holdings in this Hoover's fact sheet.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:53 PM | Permalink

March 31, 2005

Google Acquires Zipdash and More From The Google Annual Report

We posted yesterday, within minutes of it's publication, that the Google 2004 Annual Report was available.

After reviewing the document SiliconBeat's Michael Bazeley notes that ia the list of Google's subsidiaries, we learn that the folks in Mountain View acquired a company called Zipdash that offers maps and traffic info for mobile devices. Discussion threads about annual report are available in our forum and over at Webmaster World.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:28 PM | Permalink

March 30, 2005

CGI Holding Buys More, Changing Name To Think Partnership

CGI Holding Corporation, the company of many search marketing brands, has gained additional ones recently and will undergo a name change to Think Partnership.

CGI Holding is the parent company of online marketing firm WebSourced, which in turn operates the search marketing division of KeywordRanking.com. Search Engine Lowdown's Andy Beal is VP of search marketing for both of those units.

CGI Holdings Continues Buying Spree from ClickZ looks at how CGI has acquired Smart Interactive, the two-person UK-based search marketing firm headed by Mike Grehan. It's the second time Grehan has hooked up with a large, US-based firm. He'd joined iProspect in November 2003 but departed a few months later. CGI provides additional details on the acquisition in the press release.

The ClickZ story looks at some other recent acquisitions, including the purchase of affiliate marketer KowaBunga Marketing and an intention to buy another affiliate player, PrimaryAds. More details also in this ClickZ story about those purchases, WebSourced Adds Affiliate Power, plus this announcement via Search Engine Lowdown.

CGI is still working through another purchase, that of merging with Proceed Interactive. It also hired Heather Lloyd-Martin who ran her own small SEM shop in December.

CGI changed its AMEX stock symbol earlier this month to THK, for Think Partnership, the name it seeks to have shareholders approve. From company CEO Gerald M Jacobs, in a press release about the move:

"We have chosen the new name Think Partnership Inc. because our Company is a collaborative partnership of entrepreneurs and proven business leaders who are demonstrating innovation and execution in some very exciting Internet sectors. Ben Jennings and I, and the dynamic entrepreneurs who lead our operating companies -- Pat Martin of WebSourced; Scott and Kristi Mitchell and Paul Widisky of Cherish; Steve Thanhauser, Lewis Finch and Greg Cox of MarketSmart; and Rick Anderson of Ozline -- are deeply committed to building our Company based upon the principles of decentralized management, collaboration and mutual respect among partners, aggressive growth both internally and via acquisitions, the delivery of highly professional services to our clients, and profitability for the mutual benefit of our employees and shareholders. We want our future merger partners and employees to 'think partnership' in every aspect of our businesses, so we have adopted that mantra as our new corporate name."

If approved, it will be the third name for the company. Before being known as CGI Holding Corporation, it was formerly called North Star Petroleum, Inc, according to the company's history profile.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 9:34 AM | Permalink

Digital Impact To Be Acquired By Acxiom

Data management and marketing company Acxiom is to acquire Digital Impact, giving the company a new search marketing presence. Digital Impact gained search marketing capabilities through its acquisition of Marketleap last year. Acxiom to Acquire Digital Impact from ClickZ and Acxiom Acquires Digital Impact from MediaPost.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:43 AM | Permalink

March 29, 2005

NetIQ To Spin Off WebTrends

NetIQ is selling its WebTrends web analytics division -- which also is home to the WebPosition rank checking tool -- to the division's management team and a private investment firm Francisco Partners for $94 million. WebTrends to Go It Alone from ClickZ has more.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:39 PM | Permalink

Google To Acquire Urchin Web Analytics Firm

Google is to acquired the Urchin web analytics firm, which provides both hosted and log-based tools for understanding how people are interacting with web sites.

The Google press release notes that the company plans to continue offering the tools to site owners and marketers, though it doesn't say whether pricing would change. I imagine that Google might offer some versions completely free, in order to build greater marketshare. The company has done the same with many of its other products, such as with the Picasa photo management tool.

One reason to jump into web analytics is that the search companies understand that as search ad prices rise, people will only be willing to pay more if they can justify this by showing better conversions. Web analytics can help those who aren't tracking conversions or who are tracking conversions at only a basic level to better understand the full picture of what happens on their web sites. For more on this, see my Most Conversions Happen Offline; You Need To Measure These! post.

This is one reason why both Yahoo and Google already offer free conversion tracking tools to their advertisers (Yahoo info here; Google info here, though the link to the page with more info on the tool has disappeared). Providing full web analytics may help companies improve conversion even more. Yahoo already owns web analytics technology that it obtained through its 2003 purchase of Keylime. Now Google joins the club.

How much is the deal for? The Google release doesn't say, but John Battelle reports a tip of the $30 million range. SiliconBeat reports the same.

Want to discuss? Please join our forum thread, Google Buys Urchin.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:47 AM | Permalink

March 24, 2005

Lawsuit Filed in IAC/Ask Jeeves Acquisition

Are legal issues going to cause problems for the IAC/Ask Jeeves deal?

The New York Post reports that an Ask Jeeves shareholder has filed a lawsuit in Deleware saying that AJ execs did not get a fair price for the company.

Ask Jeeves shareholder Richard Wiltsie said in a suit filed yesterday in Delaware Chancery Court that company directors agreed to the deal "without fulfilling their most basic obligation to conduct a full and fair sale process" to get the best price.

More in the article: Suit Says Iac Bid For Ask Jeeves Too Low

Posted by Gary Price at 12:24 PM | Permalink

March 23, 2005

Three Newspaper Publishers Acquire 75% of Topix.net

Congrats to Rich Skrenta and his Topix.net team.

Today, the company is announcing that a group of three newspaper publishers (Tribune, Knight-Ridder, and Gannett) are jointly acquiring 75% of Topix.net. Ownership will be evenly split amongst the three companies. Topix.net founders will retain a 25% percent stake. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The Tribune, Knight-Ridder, and Gannett consortium are also joint partners with CareerBuilder.com, Cars.com, ShopLocal.com and other properties.

Rich and his team will remain in place to hopefully develop more impressive services (I would love to see more international resources) with the influx of capital that will now be available. That's good news.

I said in January that if asked to name my favorite new resources (from my researcher perspective) of 2004, Topix.net would be at the top of the list. As someone always on the prowl for news and info, I find great via Topix. I'm also thrilled that they are continuing to add more sources to their database. At the moment they're crawling about 12,000 sites.

From a business perspective, many organizations have also noticed Topix.net services. 2004 saw deals with Ask Jeeves, Citysearch, The New York Times, Findory, and Wondir. Recently, AOL said that they're using Topix.net services on AOL Local.

Rich Skrenta told Search Engine Watch that today's deal has been in the works for about four months and the new investors are "keen" on keeping Topix editorially independent versus giving a higher ranking and placement to content from their publications. That's crucial. He also said that the partnership will allow these publishers to leverage advertising inventory from their other properties while using Topix.net 150,000 topical "channels" (including one for every U.S. Zip Code) to show more contextually related advertising.

For example, someone browsing the BMW "channel" might be shown cars for sale in their local area from the Cars.com database or a person reviewing the Nursing channel be shown job openings in their area from CareerBuilder.com.

For more about Rich Skrenta, here's an interview with him from SearchEngineBlog and another from ResourceShelf.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:02 AM | Permalink

March 21, 2005

Snapfish Gets Reeled In by Hewlett-Packard

Ready for another acquisition in the photo sharing and storage space? Yes, it's not exactly search but after today's news about Yahoo acquiring Flickr and Google offering Picasa, I thought it was worth mentioning here.

H-P has acquired an online photo sharing, storage, and editing service called Snapfish.

Details in the article: Hewlett-Packard agrees to buy Snapfish.

Btw, what is it with fish and online tools and services? Snapfish, Singingfish, GoFish?

Posted by Gary Price at 8:53 PM | Permalink

IAC-Ask Jeeves 2005 Vs. IAC-Lycos 1999 & The Need For Being Inclusive

I just listed to the investor webcast about the proposed InterActiveCorp-Ask Jeeves deal. My first thought was how familiar it sounded to proposed (and failed) InterActiveCorp-Lycos deal of 1999, that promised mega cross-promotion but also raised the fear of a lack of diversity in results.

IAC was called USA Network at the time, undergoing a name change later in June 2003. The idea back then was that all the great IAC properties were going to gain from cross-promotion within Lycos search results and vice-versa. My Lycos To Merge With USA Network article from back then revisits this more.

Fast-forward to today and the comment from Ask Jeeves CEO Steve Berkowitz on how the merger of IAB-Ask will allow people to "search, find and complete a task all within the boundaries of one company."

The obvious question is why is the failed deal of back then is suddenly OK today? The model itself, however, never was an issue. Instead, it was one that Lycos shareholders didn't think the deal offered them enough, as the CNNMoney article Lycos, USA call off merger covers more.

What was alarming then from a searcher point of view and remains so today is the idea that people will somehow never be able to escape the clutches of an IAC site in search results. Looking for tickets? Say hello (and only hello) to Ticketmaster! Need to book a trip? Meet Expedia, and forget assuming there are other travel sites.

Both IAC's Diller and Berkowitz have said that any promotion will be in the best interests of the searchers, so the specter that it will be IAC-only content doesn't sound likely. And that's good, because while the Lycos deal never happened, Lycos itself still went down a disappointing route for about two years where any search was dominated by results leading back into content on the Lycos portal. It was a bad experience and cost the search engine many users, leaving it today no longer among the major players.

All the major search engines have been developing and expanding their vertical search properties, of course. And aiming users into their own verticals does make a lot of sense. Ask Jeeves already partners with Citysearch for local results. Using those results for local searches makes just as much sense as Google or Yahoo losing their own local search results.

I think the balance is that in the end, cross-promoting or directly diverting searchers into your vertical/specialty search properties is fine, as long as those are great, inclusive resources. So is it an issue that if you search for something on Google, it might route you into its Froogle shopping search engine, rather than web search results. No, because the experience is better. Froogle still gives you a comprehensive look at listings from across the web.

The same will be true for IAC-Ask Jeeves, if the deal goes through. Anywhere IAC's got some great inclusive verticals, heavy promotion or even invisible tab promotion will be welcomed.

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Barry Diller's IAC To Buy Ask Jeeves.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:51 AM | Permalink

Official: IAC/InterActive Corp To Acquires Ask Jeeves

The story is now crossing the wires that it's official, IAC/InterActive Corp will acquire Ask Jeeves for $1.85 billion in stock. An investor call open to the public is scheduled for 11AM Eastern here. For some additional background, see also our earlier post WSJ: IAC/InterActiveCorp Close to Acquiring Ask Jeeves.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:00 AM | Permalink

March 20, 2005

WSJ: IAC/InterActiveCorp Close to Acquiring Ask Jeeves

Note: see updated post, Official: IAC/InterActive Corp To Acquires Ask Jeeves.

According to a just published article in the Wall Street Journal, Ask Jeeves is set to be acquired by Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp for about $2 billion in stock.

The Wall Street Journal article is only available to subscribers but highlights are available in these posts from Dow Jones and Marketwatch.com.

+ According to the WSJ, the deal could be announced as early as today. However, "exact details of the deal weren't available...and the transaction could still fall apart at the last minute."

+ Officials for AJ and IAC are not commenting.

+ Other IAC/InterActiveCorp properties include Expedia, CitySearch, Ticketmaster, eVite, and Match.com.

+ Worth noting: Ask Jeeves Local (launched last year) is powered with data from IAC's CitySearch.

While we're talking Ask Jeeves, Matt Hicks takes a look at some new "Teoma like" refinement features (Teoma's founder calls them "navigation through concepts" that will go live on the AJ site in the next few weeks. The technology was demonstrated last week at the ETech Conference. The article doesn't mention if the Teoma.com site will continue to offer what's presently available or also offer these new features. Whatever the case, I do hope they'll also continue to offer the "Resources" section that has been part of a Teoma results page since the site first went live. Using the Resources section is a great way to find "link rich" (aka meta) pages.

The article also mentions that Jeeves will soon launch "Ask Jeeeves Alpha" a site where they'll offer the public a chance to test new services.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:35 PM | Permalink

Yahoo Acquires Flickr

Well the rumors that have been circulating for weeks are true, Yahoo is acquiring the web-based photo sharing site, Flickr. A post on the FlickrBlog says that Flickr's parent company has been acquired by the folks in Sunnyvale. The post also notes that Flickr WILL NOT become Yahoo Photos but Yahoo Photos and other Yahoo services (Yahoo 360?) will offer Flickr features

Yahoo isn't commenting on the acquisition at this time but the Wall Street Journal notes that people close to the deal have said that Yahoo/Flickr deal would be for "well less than $50 million."

Last week, Yahoo announced and Danny blogged about the upcoming launch of the blogging/photo sharing/bloggine service, Yahoo 360.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:30 PM | Permalink

March 14, 2005

SEMs: Your Days Are Over (Not)

Search-Specific Agencies Fight for Survival from MediaWeek comes away from the SES NY show earlier this month with this frightening sounding conclusion: "Many SEMs also likely wondered whether the event might be their last trip to New York."

What's up? Interactive and traditional media agencies will buy everyone up, that's what. As I've written before, I have a bet going with a friend that this will NOT happen, and I'm sticking with that.

Yep, there's going to be more acquisitions as we've had in 2004. Yep, interactive and traditional firms will grow capabilities. But there will be plenty of space I feel for search-specific shops. That's especially true when you consider there are lots and lots of firms that are small, that serve a particular niche, a particular location or clients that simply cannot afford nor want the cost of a big agency to do the job.

One search marketing firm's CEO is quoted as saying SES will be really different next year, with the suggestion being it will be all agencies at that point. Hey, I've been to them all since they started. Change is par for the course. But I'm happy to wager there will still be plenty of independent search marketing firms out there. Maybe fewer, and maybe the agency presence will be stronger. But don't also forget that there's been a bigger change at the conference that the article doesn't mention -- significant growth in those who do SEM work in house for their companies. The in house SEM contingent has grown and grown.

By the way, at our SES Chicago show in December, someone asked me if it made sense to start referring to search engine marketing as just search marketing. I agreed, as did the room full of people at the forum where it was raised.

I've actually already been doing this slowly over the past year, saying search marketing rather than search engine marketing, which I started using as an umbrella term back in 2001 (see Congratulations! You're A Search Engine Marketer! and Search Engine Marketing: You Like It, You Really Like It.

I still prefer the acronym SEM for the activity of search marketing, however. Saying SM sounds odd. SEM is also used as shorthand for the firms involved in search marketing: SEMs. I've been wondering if perhaps another shift is in order here, such as SMAs (for search marketing agencies) or just saying "search agencies" might make sense.

What about SEO and SEOs? I still use those terms and will continue to do so for activities specifically about getting better "free" or "organic" or "natural" listings on search engines and for firms that only do that. My Intro To Search Engine Submission explains this a bit more, plus how search marketing is the combination of many activities involved with getting search-targeted traffic.

Want to comment? Join our forum thread, Will SEM exist 3 years from now?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 8:49 PM | Permalink

March 9, 2005

SEO Big For About.com

What's the value of organic search engine optimization? It apparently contributed quite a bit to the $410 million that the New York Times paid for About.com. Note the heavy discussion of how SEO has helped About in driving traffic in this Online Journalism Review article, About.com CEO explains why NYT spent $410 million to buy site.

Quoted about About's SEO efforts is CEO Peter Horan. Behind the scenes, it's SEO veteran Marshall Simmonds, one of our regular SES speakers, who orchestrates the optimization and in-house training of all those guides to help their content naturally do better.

Want some tips on what he does for the big site of About.com? See these past SearchDay articles and SES forum coverage: Big Sites + Big Brands = Big Search Engine Marketing Challenges, Home-Grown Search Engine Optimization, Big Sites / Big Brands

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:50 AM | Permalink

February 25, 2005

360i Buys SearchIgnite

Search marketing firm 360i has purchased SearchIgnite, a search management software company. The move gives 360i internal technology for bid management and other search marketing tracking services. More here from the press release.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 2:46 PM | Permalink

February 21, 2005

Seared Ahi Tuna, Bloglines, and Ask Jeeves

The San Francisco Business Times has a bit more about the Bloglines/Ask Jeeves deal in the article: Bloglines: Ask Jeeves exec gets his news fix with acquisition.

Being a fan of the service, I reached out to Mark Fletcher and set up lunch," [Jim] Lanzone [senior vice president of Search Properties at Ask Jeeves] said of Bloglines' CEO. The two met on a scorching September afternoon in San Carlos' A Tavola restaurant. Overheated and overscheduled, they skipped past small talk. Lanzone learned that Redwood City-based Bloglines, which by some counts has 50 percent market share for so-called feed aggregators, was being courted by VC firms and other Internet outfits. They continued their conversation again in November at a Berkeley noodle shop over seared ahi tuna.

More about the AJ/Bloglines deal in this SEW Blog post. Also, AJ has already created a Smart Search shortcut for blog and RSS info. We mentioned it last week.

Posted by Gary Price at 12:24 PM | Permalink

February 17, 2005

Does Yahoo! Want A Piece of Indiatimes?

The Financial Times is reporting that Yahoo! is in talks with Indiatimes about acquiring a minority stake in the company.

A senior executive at privately-owned Bennett Coleman, whose newspapers such as the Times of India are among the country's best selling titles, confirmed that negotiations were taking place but added that the group was also talking to private equity funds... Yahoo is looking to strengthen its presence in India, having recently consolidated its position in China. It has a fledgling e-commerce partnership with Rediff.com and a small research and development unit in Bangalore.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:56 PM | Permalink

The New York Times Buys About.com

The bidding is over and the winner has been named. Word this afternoon that The NY Times will become the new owner of About.com. The Times will pay Primedia $410 million in cash. About.com was purchased by Primedia in 2000 for $610 million in stock. Earlier this month we linked to an article that said Yahoo, Google, and AOL were also bidding for About.com. More in the Marketwatch.com article: New York Times to buy About.com.

Posted by Gary Price at 5:50 PM | Permalink

February 8, 2005

Yahoo!, Google, and AOL Place Bids To Purchase About.com

The New York Times article: About.com, Primedia's Web Venture, Is for Sale, alerts us to the fact that the About.com property is for sale but also that both Yahoo!, Google, AOL, and The New York Times are bidding to purchase the site.

Final bids must be received by today. According to The Times, the asking price is $350 million to $500 million.

About.com, bought by Primedia in October 2000 for $690 million in stock, was envisioned as a primary link among the company's many print publications, Web sites, newsletters and video programs. It offers a network of about 475 Web sites on a range of topics.

Posted by Gary Price at 8:56 AM | Permalink

It's Official: Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines

Today, Ask Jeeves is announcing that they've acquired Bloglines, a well-known, critically acclaimed, and free web-based RSS aggregation tool for an undisclosed sum of money. The move confirms rumors that have been around since Saturday.

Jim Lanzone, senior vp of search properties at AJ has been a Bloglines user since its early days and thought the service would would fit well with what Ask Jeeves already provides.

"This acquisition is more of an investment to allow Bloglines to achieve their roadmap more quickly," Lanzone said.

According to Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher, the deal has been in the works since last September.

At the present time, Ask Jeeves has no plans to change anything about what Bloglines offers. It will still be available at Bloglines.com and will remain free. While many know and use Bloglines as an RSS aggregation service, it offers a wide array of tools including:

+ A weblog and RSS search engine that Ask Jeeves hopes to turn into a "world class" resource using their Teoma technology. + A weblog publishing platform including an option to quickly clip and annotate items from weblogs and feeds. Blogs are hosted on the Bloglines server. + A directory of RSS feeds. + An option to access your email discussion lists using the Bloglines aggregator while simultaneously reducing spam to your primary email account. + User Interfaces in six languages.

The LawLibTech blog offers an excellent Bloglines tutorial.

Today's acquisition also fits well with Ask Jeeves recently discussed mobile search plans. Bloglines works with WAP enabled devices. In fact, this is the way I frequently access the service.

The acquisition should could also help with Ask Jeeves getting some attention and "cred" in the blogging, RSS, and "early adopter" communities where Bloglines has a very large and loyal user base. Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher began the service in June 2003. He sold another online service he started, eGroups, to Yahoo in September 2000.

The acquisition is another step toward Ask Jeeves rebuilding a great brand in search it originally had but which faltered between around 1999-2002.

Not The Same Old Butler In the past two years, Ask Jeeves has moved from a lackluster web search provider to a well-rounded search service that I not only use but have zero problems recommending to others.

In my view, the turnaround began with AJ's purchase of Teoma in September 2001 and ending the idea of using humans to pre-suppose thousands of question and answer sets. In 2003, Ask was one of the first large web search providers to jump on what is now a growing trend of providing direct answers on search results pages.

2004 was a busy year for The Butler. Not only did he trim down and get a makeover, but Ask Jeeves:

+ Launched a local search product (using data provided via a partnership with CitySearch) + Introduced, My Jeeves, a personal search product + Continued developing and releasing new "Smart Answer" options including Famous People Search + Debuted a desktop search product

Moving forward, I believe one of the biggest challenges Jeeves faces is their name and their past. While many people know that Ask Jeeves is a search tool, it's often associated with the poor service that Jeeves previously provided. Acquisitions of a high quality service like Bloglines, should help the company get many more people to take a look at the work that they've been doing for the past four years.

Postscript: Welcome, Bloglines! from the Ask Jeeves blog provides the tale of the purchase from Ask Jeeves vice president Jim Lanzone, along with how Ask hopes to build with Bloglines to create a great blog search engine. Bloglines also has a FAQ and information on the purchase here: Letter to Bloglines Subscribers

Posted by Gary Price at 12:01 AM | Permalink

February 7, 2005

Ask Jeeves To Buy Bloglines? Postscript, the rumors are confirmed: It's Official: Ask Jeeves Acquires Bloglines.

Various places are reporting that Ask Jeeves is to acquire the Bloglines feed search and reading service:

• Ask Jeeves Buys Bloglines at Napsterization is apparently the source of the rumor, though neither Ask Jeeves or Bloglines are quoted confirming the acquisition.  
• Ask Jeeves to buy Bloglines? from News.com revisits the Napsterization post and notes that Ask Jeeves has scheduled an announcement for Monday.

I can confirm that as with the News.com story we've been told Ask Jeeves will be making an announcement today and are preparing a story to release for it. Due to an embargo on the news, we can't discuss what we've been told unless the embargo broken by someone citing an official Ask Jeeves source.

The Napsterization post notes that the newly launched Ask Jeeves Blog has had exclusive links to Top Blogs and Most Popular Blog Links provided by Bloglines, further signs of some type of potential partnership.

If the move happens, it will leave Google as the only major portal not offering some type of feed subscription service. See also:

• MSN's Third Portal To Gain Blogs; Where's The Blog Search? for a recap of where major players are in offering blog and feed subscription services.  
• My MSN Adds Feed Discovery Support for an update on changes at MSN.

• Yahoo Doesn't Need Six Apart Or Blog Ownership For Ad Purposes on why Yahoo or any other search engine doesn't need to own a blogging platform to fuel pay-per-click growth. There are other good reasons, but this isn't one of them.

Want to discuss? Visit our forum thread, Ask Jeeves Reportedly Acquires Bloglines.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 6:44 AM | Permalink

January 27, 2005

Isobar's Fay On Multiple Search Groups

Last month, iProspect was acquired by Aegis Group to be part of its still relatively new Isobar network. Isobar also encompasses Carat Interactive, which provides SEM services. So now one group has two different units with search marketing services -- very similar to the situation with WPP operating mSearch and Outrider, that I wrote about earlier.

In Q&A with Sarah Fay from iMediaConnection, Isobar US's new president Sarah Fay (formerly president of Carat), touches how Isobar will deal with the two. They won't be rolled up into some master Isobar brand -- and yes, they might even compete with each other both for search clients or for the same pot of money to go into different types of marketing. But they'll also be encouraged to cooperate, as well. Says Fay in the story:

Each of the Isobar agencies will have its own P&L, which may incur some competition within the group. But each of the agencies is also strongly incented to work together and to cross-refer business within the group. Each of the agencies is expected to collaborate in sharing knowledge, tools and best practices. I believe our agencies are different enough that the synergies far outweigh their competitive cross over.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:14 AM | Permalink

January 20, 2005

iFrontier, Rawhide Absorbed

Some updates on old SEM names we're finally losing due to past acquisitions.

First, i-FRONTIER is to be no longer, as least as a brand name. It's being fully integrated into into sister agency Avenue A/Razorfish (which itself needs a much better name!). Some more details from ClickZ: i-FRONTIER Brought Under Avenue A/Razorfish.

Meanwhile, Rawhide -- acquired by eXact Advertising last September, now has been absorbed completely into the company, though it will be known as eXactSearch. More details in the company press release.

FYI, I've added an updated my chart on various search marketing firm acquisitions. You'll find it here: Will 2005 Bring More SEM Acquisitions?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:28 AM | Permalink

January 18, 2005

Yahoo Doesn't Need Six Apart Or Blog Ownership For Ad Purposes

It's kind of obvious that Yahoo will gain some type of blogging solution in the future. It's the only major portal not to offer this, as I've written before: MSN's Third Portal To Gain Blogs; Where's The Blog Search?

David Jackson has a write-up in Yahoo to acquire Six Apart? on why he thinks Yahoo will gain blogging capabilities by acquiring the makers of the popular Movable Type platform.

MovableType's great -- we use it ourselves -- and so would be of interest to anyone who wants to own blogging technology. But the idea Jackson has that Yahoo needs blogs to fuel its pay-per-click growth? Nah.

Google bought Blogger because it was cheap and it figured it could make money but putting its contextual ads out on many of the Blogger sites. But Google later pulled those ads and make them optional. That's wise, because you aren't going to make friends by forcing anyone to carry your ads. So much for needing to own the platform to build ad revenue.

In addition, blogs can be hard to target with ads, given that they often have different types of content mixed onto the same page. MediaPost just had an article looking at this: Blog Ads Hit Rough Patches.

Google's real success with AdSense hasn't been in owning the blogging platform. First, it has signed partnerships with major publishers. Second, it offers an easy-to-use self-serve system that anyone can tap into. Google rolled that out last year, and now you all but stumble over its AdSense placements.

If Yahoo really wanted to turn the web into its billboards, in the way Google does, it would make more sense to have a similar type of paid listings program that any publisher could use.

The downside is that in doing so, advertisers have less control over the targeting of their ads. Kraft wasn't happy to find itself showing up on a pro-white web site recently: Kraft Supports Pro-White Groups? Lack Of Search Ad Targeting Makes It So. Open the flood-gates of self-serve, and problems like this for Google could hit Yahoo as well.

Cory Kleinschmidt over at Traffick takes another swing at the targeting problem in his recent AdSense Faces Extinction -- Unless Google Shakes Things Up post. In it, he points out how uneven targeting is an issue that threatens AdSense. He also notes there are other programs out there to tempt bloggers and other publishers -- which means again, owning the platform doesn't guarantee you the billboard space.

There are good reasons for Yahoo to own a blogging platform, and maybe it will be Six Apart. But the assumption that paid ad placement as a key reason to do so isn't a major factor, from where I sit.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:45 AM | Permalink

December 29, 2004

And Expect More SEM Firm Acquisitions

Search Agencies Ripe for Picking from ClickZ takes a look at how further acquisitions of SEM firms may occur following in the iProspect acquisition last week. Several quotes, though mainly from those at SEM firms, rather than agencies. But no doubt we'll see more cashing out. Proceed's acquisition was announced the day after this was written. And while iProspect might have kicked off the latest round, the reality is that 2004 already had a number of acquisitions prior to that. A recap of those, in handy chart form, in my past post: Will 2005 Bring More SEM Acquisitions?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:31 AM | Permalink

CGI Holding To Acquire Proceed

Only days after the acquisition of iProspect by a major marketing group, CGI Holding Corporation goes the other direction and intends to gobble up Proceed Interactive, which specializes in search marketing.

Proceed? They just went through a name change and were formerly called Meandaur. CGI Holding? It's the parent company of online marketing firm WebSourced, which in turn operates the search marketing division of KeywordRankings.com

Some brief details from ClickZ: Proceed to Merge with CGI. Value? In total, 1.3 million of CGI shares, half now, half based on performance over the next four years. Over-the-counter shares are currently trading at $6.15, so call it around $8 million, assuming the "restricted common stock" making up part of the deal is the same as publicly trading shares.

Some more details via a release on Search Engine Lowdown. That's Andy Beal's blog. Andy, of course, has a side gig as VP of search marketing for WebSourced.

Earlier this year, WebSourced also acquired Global Promoter, and the company has a letter of intent announced in November to merge the traditional marketing services of MarketSmart into its operations.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 10:28 AM | Permalink

December 23, 2004

Will 2005 Bring More SEM Acquisitions?

I bet a friend last year that no, ad agencies are not going to swoop in and eat up all the search marketing firms out there. Hmm -- might have to pay out. Actually, I'll still stand by my guns that there's long going to be a place for the standalone search marketing shop.

Still, yesterday's purchase of iProspect has people wondering if there will be more buy-ups. DMNews.com looks at this in iProspect Deal Could Ignite Agency Buying Frenzy with various quotes.

It's also a good time for me to take some of the past acquisitions and make a nice little chart, as I love charts so much:

SEM Firm

Bought By

When

Amount

MarketSmart

WebSourced

Jan. 2005

$8 million

Proceed

WebSourced

Dec. 2004

$8 million

iProspect

Aegis Group

Dec. 2004

$50 million

Rawhide

eXact Advertising

Sept. 2004

???

Decide Interactive

24/7 Real Media

Aug. 2004

$26 million

Global Promoter

WebSourced

June 2004

$150,000+

Performics

Doubleclick

May 2004

$65 million

Marketleap

Digital Impact

July 2004

$4 million

SendTraffic

Traffix

June 2004

$5 million

Go Toast/ eonMedia

aQuantive (for Atlas DMT division)

Dec. 2003

???

i-FRONTIER

Avenue A/Razorfish (formerly Avenue A)

Dec. 2002

???

Website Results

24/7 Real Media (formerly 24/7 Media)

Dec. 2000

$95 million

WGI

WPP's Outrider  (part of mediaedge:cia)

March 2000

$2 million+

mSearch (formerly Advanced Positions.com)

WPP's Mindshare (part of mOne)

2000

???

MMG

Outrider  (part of WPP's mediaedge:cia)

June 1998

???

I've tried to stick with companies that were pretty firmly in the search marketing space from a service perspective that were consumed by traditional or semi-traditional agencies. Some of these we had yesterday, and I came across a nice article by Fredrick Marckini listing a few more: SEM Predictions for 2004 (The SEM CEO's View).

Fredrick, of course, is founder and CEO of iProspect -- so he fulfills his prediction of three-to-six SEM acquisitions in 2004 by getting his own company bought (and congrats, Fredrick).

Some other notes. Tempus bought a stake in MMG beginning in June 1998 to form a core part of its Outrider division. It looks like it gained the entire company from founder John Audette in Spring 2000 (side note: Bend, Oregon, where MMG operated from, remains a hot bed of SEM activity from those who later left the company).

Tempus also bought 75 percent of WGI in 2000 for $1.5 million and the rest apparently in April 2002 for some amount I can't locate. So, I've called it $2 million plus. Also, by this point Tempus had been bought by WPP -- which operates Mediaedge:cia -- of which Outrider is the digital marketing unit. So, I'm sticking with Outrider as the "purchaser" for both MMG and WGI.

Ready to sell your own firm or buy one? You might want to check out our past SearchDay article, How Much is a Search Marketing Firm Worth?

Finally, a reminder for those interested in things related to acquisitions and revenues. Search Engine Watch members have access to categorized lists of stories on these topics stretching back for years, within our Search Topics area.

Our search revenues category covers material of all types relating to revenues in the search space, while our search acquisitions category covers items relating to the purchasing and mergers of companies.

Postscript: I've added some WebSourced acquisitions and links in the chart provide more info. Value for Global Promoter involves some shares that can be earned over a two year period, so initial payout is shown. MarketSmart is actually an ad firm, rather than an SEM firm. Also added the mSearch and Rawhide acquisitions -- links again provide more info.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 12:02 PM | Permalink

December 22, 2004

iProspect Acquired by Aegis Group

Search marketing firm iProspect was acquired today by the UK-based Aegis Group and will become part of their Isobar digital network.

According to a report on the Revolution web site, Aegis paid about $50 million for iProspect.

Here's a list of some other notable acquisitions in the SEM space (it has been a very busy year):

+ 2004...24/7 Media Purchases Decide Interactive

+ 2004...Digital Impact Purchases Marketleap

+ 2004...Doubleclick Acquires Perfomics

+ 2003...aQuantive Acquires Go Toast

+ 2000...Web Side Results Acquired by 24/7 Media For $95 Million

Posted by Gary Price at 10:39 AM | Permalink

November 25, 2004

Mamma Has Plans to Acquire Copernic

Mamma.com, the Montreal-based metasearch engine has signed a letter-of-intent to acquire Copernic.

Copernic, also a Canadian company, offers several desktop and enterprise search apps including Copernic Desktop Search. Here's our review.

Other products Copernic offers include a metasearch client app (Copernic Agent), a free toolbar that allows you to add any search engine to it with a single click (Copernic Meta Toolbar), and summarization software.

About a month ago Copernic created a separate company, Coveo Solutions, to market its enterprise search software.

According to the announcement, the plan is to close this transaction in the first quarter of 2005.

Thanks to S.C. for the news tip.

Posted by Gary Price at 9:00 PM | Permalink

November 4, 2004

Yellow Page Companies To Buy YellowPages.com

BellSouth and SBC Communications are to purchase YellowPages.com, which they apparently hope can be built into an online business index for the United States. More from News.com: SBC, BellSouth let their fingers do the walking.

The companies expect the new site to generate 50 million consumer searches per month. That's 1.7 million searches per day. To give you some perspective, globally Google does about 200 million searches per day on its own site and those of its partners. I think about 100 million of those are based out of the US.

So this new move isn't much of a threat to the major search engines. They've got tons of local traffic already. But it might make the joint venture more attractive for another acquisition, by a Google or Yahoo.

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 1, 2004

Report: Yahoo Emerges as Leading Bidder for MarketWatch.com

Last week it was widely reported that online business news publisher MarketWatch.com was up for sale. Today, The Deal reports that Yahoo, "is emerging as a leading bidder" for the company.

Yahoo!, although viewed by some as less likely to make a play than media organizations such as Dow Jones & Co. and Viacom's CBS, which already owns 22% of MarketWatch, now has the inside track, said a source close to the situation.

"Deals can break down, but it's Yahoo!'s to lose," the source said. "It's probably more a matter of price, and MarketWatch may want to smoke out other guys into making a bid. But Yahoo! has the cash and stock to pull off a deal, and they aren't afraid to pay a premium."

Posted by Gary Price at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 27, 2004

Google Acquires Satellite Image Software Firm

Matt Hines at News.com reports that Google has acquired Keyhole, a company the provides software to view satellite images and virtually "fly" across the world. Financial terms were not disclosed.

An FAQ on the Keyhole site reads, We do not have any announced plans regarding how this technology will integrate with our current products and services.

Here's the news release.

Google has already lowered the price of the software to $29.95. Sorry Mac users, this is PC only stuff.

This is Google's second image-related acquistion in three months. In July they acquired Picasa, digital image organization software.

Google as "big brother" types will likely have comments about the acquistion since Keyhole received funding in 2003 from In- Q-Tel, the non-profit venture capital fund of the CIA.

Two Comments:

About a year ago you were able to access some aerial/satellite images from GlobeXplorer when searching with MapQuest. However, this service is no longer available (at least I can't find it).

It will be interesting to see if Google adds satellite image links next to each address via their phone directory and/or Google Local. Of course, with all of the negative press they received (undeserved) when the masses realized that addresses were available, an image of the location (even though they're accessible eleswhere) might really cause a freak out.

The acquisition is also great marketing/branding. You'll notice on Keyhole's home page CNN and other news organizations use their products. Now, users will likely see something like, "Satellite Images from Google" on television. A great way to reinforce their brand (in a very cool way) and the belief that Google's got all the data.

Finally, and this is VERY COOL, stop by TerraFly. This database allows you to "virtually fly" across the United States (no software needed). Basic access is FREE and additional bandwidth is fee-based. Once you're on a satellite or aerial image, click on any portion of it, and access statistics and other info about the area you've selected.

UPDATE: ++ Battelle chats with former Keyhole CEO, now manager of Google's Keyhole unit, John Hanke.

++ SEW Blog reader Bernhard S. who let's us know about map.search.ch. He writes, "it uses aerial photographs from switzerland overlaid with a street map, you can interactively zoom (click mouse) and pan (drag mouse). it is only based on javascript (no java, no flash) and runs on all platforms (ie, mozilla & co, safari)."

For example, here's Google's Zurich office from above.

Posted by Gary Price at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 23, 2004

LookSmart Buys Furl Web Clipping Service

Today's SearchDay has details of LookSmart's purchase of Furl, which lets you save the full text of web pages and collect them into an online archive: Looksmart Acquires Furl.net. One reason behind the purchase? LookSmart sees it as a way to leverage user behavior to create better search rankings. Want to comment or discuss? We have a thread going in the forums: LookSmart buys Furl?

Posted by Danny Sullivan at 7:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 14, 2004

Yahoo Acquires Online Music Service

I was wondering out loud the other day if Google would consider purchasing or starting an online music service.

Today, Yahoo announced that they have acquired MusicMatch, a popular online music service and software program for $160 million dollars in cash.

Posted by Gary Price at 2:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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