Hey Sarkie! Here is some more info re the excite deal- What is the story with iwon??
O
Infospace and Excite
What a difference a couple of years or even six months make.
In May 1999, AtHome completed its purchase of Excite portal for $6.5 billion. Earlier this year, ExciteAtHome put its portal assets up for sale as it struggled to run an ad-supported business in a declining advertising market. In the spring, venture capital firm Redpoint Ventures' $30 million offer for the Excite portal was rejected.
On Friday, ExciteAtHome agreed to sell its portal assets to InfoSpace (INSP: news, chart, profile) for $10 million in cash, pending bankruptcy court approval. The defunct-provider of broadband access filed for bankruptcy protection last month.
InfoSpace, with $227 million in cash and cash equivalents, would consider the purchase negligible, given that just last July it completed its $1.1 billion acquisition of Go2Net, an Internet firm that housed online game sites, services, news and information properties.
As part of the transaction, InfoSpace will receive domain names, including the Excite name, and the millions of Excite users that have a personalized Excite page. "The main reason to buy the assets is to increase traffic for our search, directory and wireless services," said Infospace CEO Naveen Jain, who said the marginal cost to operate the site is minimal. He would not disclose the revenue the Excite portal generates.
In a binding arrangement with Iwon, InfoSpace will sell off other non-search and directory assets to Iwon. Jain said Iwon would handle e-mail services and provide the content, such as news and weather.
Infospace does not have an investment in Iwon, but still maintains investments in many private and public Net companies, such as messaging company Commtouch Software (CTCH: news, chart, profile). |
