Search Engine Milestones for December 2003
Notable news and announcements from the web search world during the past month.
Notable news and announcements from the web search world during the past month.
Notable news and announcements from the web search world during the past month. Announcements without links to online versions were received via email.
Warning: The links and descriptions below are from official press releases, and may contain marketing hyperbole, claims or euphemisms not necessarily endorsed by Search Engine Watch.
December 3
Findwhat.Com Announces Strategic Relationship With Verizon Information Services
Under the terms of the revenue sharing-based licensing agreement, FindWhat.com will provide the technology and business operations expertise to support enhanced local SuperPages.com advertising services.
Interchange Beta Testing Local Search Solution
The new product is targeted towards online and offline directory publishers as a technology platform that enables them to participate in the high-growth online local-search advertising market.
December 4
Espotting Media and Lastminute.com Announce Pan-European Partnership
The deal will see lastminute.com incorporating Espotting’s listings on the exit pages of four of its channels – ‘hotels, ‘flights’, ‘holidays’ and ‘flight+hotel’ dynamic packaging functionality – and is already live on the UK hotels pages.
December 5
Shopping.com Launches Consumer Demand Index
Updated weekly at www.shopping.com/cdi, the Consumer Demand Index charts the hottest shopping search terms, reveals the week’s biggest gainers, identifies a stand-out trend and offers a top ten list of brands and model numbers for one of this season’s most in-demand products.
December 8
AdSubtract Introduces New Search Sanity Feature
AdSubtract PRO 3’s Search Sanity feature blocks paid or sponsored search engine results, the fastest growing segment of the online advertising industry.
Kanoodle.com Introduces Technology Managing Active/Inactive Status Of Pay-Per-Click Search Terms
AutoScheduler allows advertisers to set search terms to “active” or “inactive” status based on the time of day, day of month, or month of year.
LookSmart Signs New Sponsored Search Partners
LookSmart today announced that it has added three new partners to its bid-for-placement distribution network. SearchFeed, myGeek and ABCSearch will join existing sites such as CNET, Road Runner, InfoSpace, LookSmart.com, Cox Internet, Mamma.com and Alltel.
December 9
Shopping.com Launches New Smart Bidding System
The new Shopping.com Smart Bidding System enables merchants to automatically adjust their bids within the Shopping.com Network in real time, making it easier to manage customer acquisition campaigns on Shopping.com.
December 10
Copernic today announced its new consumer search application, Copernic Meta, a free meta-search application that integrates with the Windows operating system and Internet Explorer.
Department of Homeland Security Chooses Atomz Search to Power its Terrorism Readiness Web Sites
The Ready campaign is dedicated to educating Americans about how they can prepare themselves and their families for potential terrorist attacks or other emergencies.
Lycos: Music File Swapping Service KAZAA Dethrones Dragonball as the Most Searched Term for 2003
Terra Lycos today announced The Lycos 50’s annual list of top 50 search terms for the year 2003. The Lycos 50 (http://50.lycos.com) is a weekly list of the most popular people, places and things users are searching for online. Kobe Bryant and Britney Spears, Web’s Most Wanted Man and Woman; American Idol, Top TV Show; The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions Top Movie; Iraq War, Most Searched News Event
Net Applications to Integrate Alexa Data Services in Hitslink Enterprise
Net Applications today announced that they have forged a relationship to offer Alexa Data services with Hitslink Enterprise Website & Keyword Analytics.
December 11
Alacritude Adds Millions of Articles to eLibrary, Announces Agreement with Thomson Gale
eLibrary provides access to more than 28 million documents from 2,600 sources — a vast collection of articles going back as far as 20 years. Sources in eLibrary include newspapers, periodicals, newsletters, directories and transcripts from television and radio stations (including cable television companies).
December 15
aQuantive’s Atlas DMT Announces Acquisition of GO TOAST
Atlas DMT, an advertising technology provider and an operating unit of aQuantive, Inc. (Nasdaq:AQNT), today announced the acquisition of GO TOAST, a provider of paid search management and optimization tools. Denver-based GO TOAST will retain its brand identity and operate as part of Atlas DMT.
Groxis Ships Next Generation of Award-Winning Visual Search Tool
The new software can now organize and visually map thousands of search results in just a few seconds from multiple search engines and content sources simultaneously. This also creates the opportunity to build Grokker plug-ins to virtually any content source, database, or search engine on the Net.
December 16
LookSmart Adds Keyword Bidding to LookListings
LookListings will now make it easier to purchase search traffic from LookSmart’s network of distribution partners, by offering both bid-for- placement and paid inclusion in one product. This means that advertisers may now pinpoint customers with specific keywords or reach a broader audience using relevancy-based inclusion targeting — or do both — in the same LookListings campaign.
December 17
Enhance Interactive (Formerly Ah-Ha.Com) Unveils New Corporate Identity, Expanded Product Offerings
Enhance Interactive’s new products include: Keyword Matching Options, providing greater exposure for clients’ keyword listings; and Listings Manager, allowing clients to easily manage multiple listings simultaneously.
December 19
Google Expands AdSense Program
Publishers will now be able to sign up for the AdSense program through Spanish, French, German, Italian and Japanese interfaces.
Kelsey Group Predicts Local Paid-Search to Reach $2.5B by 2008
In a new white paper to be released next week entitled, “A Closer Look at Local Search,” The Kelsey Group estimates 10 percent of all searches that are local also have a commercial intent, in that they ultimately result in a buying decision.
December 22
At less than half the size of other toolbars and powered with “Query Catcher”, the MiniBar lets users view clustered search results from any web page and automatically captures any search term entered into a search engine or toolbar such as Yahoo, Google, Altavista, MSN, etc. without having to re-type the query.
December 24
FindWhat.com Updates Status Of Merger Agreement With Espotting
FindWhat.com and Espotting continue to be engaged in negotiations to restructure the proposed merger of the two companies. As a result, FindWhat.com and Espotting have entered into an amendment to their Merger Agreement which changes the date on which either party may terminate the existing Merger Agreement if the transaction has not been consummated, from December 31, 2003 to January 31, 2004.
December 29
Vodafone Selects FAST For Worldwide Mobile Search Services
The new search facility on Vodafone live! enables customers to use their mobile handsets to search across an extensive portfolio of content and an index of worldwide WAP content using a hosted installation of FAST Data Search.
NOTE: Article links often change. In case of a bad link, use the publication’s search facility, which most have, and search for the headline.