MarketPosition.com Archives for Oct, 2003
October 15, 2003
U.S. Bancorp Analyst: "The search market has become the Holy Grail of Internet Marketing."
Big news for the search engine marketing industry: Senior Research Analyst Safa Rashtchy of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray Inc. was recently quoted as saying, "The search market has become the Holy Grail of Internet advertising and continues to grow faster than our expectations."
October 15, 2003
LookSmart Class Action Settlement: You May Be Entitled to Hundreds of Free Clicks or Even a Cash Refund
As some of you may recall, LookSmart infuriated countless customers last year when it announced that it was converting everyone's lifetime listing in the LookSmart catalog to a pay-per-click program. Obviously, people that paid a "one-time" fee of $199 or more for a LookSmart listing were none too thrilled at the idea of having to pay ongoing fees every month. LookSmart informed all of its customers that if they wished to remain listed in the catalog, they would now have to pony up a fee for each click-through they received.
October 15, 2003
MSN Canceling LookSmart Contract
In what LookSmart critics may see as poetic justice, LookSmart's stock fell 50% October 7th, 2003. This did not follow the proposed lawsuit settlement. Instead, it came after an announcement that MSN would not be renewing their contract with LookSmart after January 15, 2004. MSN currently carries LookSmart's listings and accounts for a hefty 65% of its revenues. MSN also serves results from Inktomi, now owned by Yahoo.
October 15, 2003
AllTheWeb and AltaVista Merging: What It Means To You
Back in February 2003, Overture announced its intentions to acquire both AltaVista and FAST, the Norwegian search company operating AllTheWeb.com. We're now seeing the merging of the two engines' technologies.
