**OT** Go2Net to Invest $10M in XpertSite
xpertsite.com
By Uday Lal Pai
India Correspondent, asia.internet.com
[March 17, 2000--MUMBAI] Go2Net (Nasdaq: GNET) announced this week that it will invest US$10 million in XpertSite, an online "person-to-person" advice site.
The strategic alliance also includes a multi-million dollar marketing and promotion component through which XpertSite will be prominently featured on the Go2Net Network.
The agreement will enable XpertSite's AskMe Network, a person-to-person question and answer (Q&A) service, to be integrated across the Go2Net Network.
Users of Go2Net will thus have access to the AskMe Network, which has over 30,000 experts and advisors answering a wide range of questions.
"XpertSite is excited to have reached this agreement with Go2Net," said Udai Shekawat, co-founder of XpertSite. "We share a common vision for the value of person-to-person Q&A and the importance of establishing the AskMe Network as an open platform for the Web," he said.
"XpertSite is uniquely positioned to capitalize on one of the Internet's most rapidly emerging categories," said Russell Horowitz, Go2Net's chairman and CEO, who will join XpertSite's board of directors.
Horowitz explained that this form of user-generated content is already proving to be extremely popular, and will rapidly become a valuable resource for a broad range of Web sites.
The AskMe Network, a service that integrates Q&A into third-party Web sites, was launched for public preview by XpertSite.com in October 1999.
Quality is assured through a combination of user ratings, published profiles of the experts, and by allowing users to review experts' previously posted answers.
Users can now easily ask personal questions and get truly customized answers in response, claim company sources. |
