SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 20, 2008
Google SearchWiki Launches, Lets You Build Your Own Search Results Page
Google AdWords Testing New User Interface
Leapfish Launches Another Meta Search Engine No One Will Ever Use
Last I heard about Leapfish (this was a couple of years ago), they ran a useless but fun tool that provided you with a free appraisal for your domain name based on a variety of ratings and criteria. Now they’re back with an equally useless tool, this time without the fun part.
The company just revamped itself under the ownership of California-based DotNext, morphing into what they refer to as a “multi-dimensional information aggregator,” which is actually nothing more than yet another meta search engine. You know the kind: sites that pull together search results from real engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo and attempt to differentiate themselves by adding tabs for meta-searching images, videos, Q&A, blogs, and so on. Leapfish also displays a number of static, non-customizable widgets on their homepage for the latest news, weather reports, and a stock market summary, which is a kind of step backwards from all the start page personalization efforts we’ve seen over the years.
The company is actively contacting potential advertisers to buy keywords for top positions in their search result listings for a flat fee—typical registration fees are reportedly around $1000 and there’s a yearly renewal fee of 5% of the amount spent —which would give them a “lifetime” guarantee for a top slot for that keyword, but they also get the opportunity to resell it later to another advertiser. Of course, this is only beneficial if Leapfish becomes big, and the chances for that are slim.
The premise of meta search engines is that the aggregation process digs up the most relevant results across different sites and technology platforms, all on a single page. What I want to know: if these meta search engines (and boy, are there many) deliver significantly better results or a greater experience than a Google’s or Yahoo’s core search technology can on its own, then why doesn’t everyone flock to them instead?
The answer: people don’t want to get as many search results as possible and they don’t care about how large the unindexed part of the internet is, let alone what they might find on this so-called “invisible deep web.” All they want is a quick, convenient way of obtaining decent information from a source they know and trust. Or do you honestly visit Search.com, Dogpile, Zuula, Fazzle, Clusty or Mamma.com to get what you need? (I can go on with this list forever, but ask Mark Cuban about how much that last one is worth).
Don’t get me wrong: I see the value of startups trying to improve search and driving innovation both on a technology and a business level, and I’m sure some will be able to compete and carve out their piece of the market. In fact, I hope some of them will. Because no matter what your opinion is on human-powered search, semantic search, vertical search, or social search engines, you have to admit several companies in that space are trying to push the envelope, often drawing attention from the big guys or keeping them honest at least (see yesterday’s announcement about Yahoo Glue, for example).
For me, though, wanna-be search engines like Leapfish don’t clear that hurdle.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Live Current Media In Trouble, Raising Cash
Live Current Media, a Canadian company which is in the business of developing, operating and monetizing premium domain names, has raised a little over $1 million through a private placement. The money comes from Live Current’s own management team and a couple of outside investors, and is expected to be the first part of a private funding which could total up to $2 million in the next 15 days.
Live Current, which changed its name from Communicate.com earlier this year, is a publicly traded company (OTCbb:LIVC). The investors paid 65 cents per unit, a premium of 38% to yesterday’s closing price of 40 cents.
The company acquired YCombinator startup Auctomatic in March 2008. A month after, it was time for a far bigger deal: it signed a $50 million deal to obtain the exclusive online rights to official content from the Indian Premier Cricket League. (Live Current owns Cricket.com and operates IPLT20.com, the official site for the league). When we reported on the deal, we wrote:
It is a pretty big commitment for Live Current Media, a domain-name company with revenues of $9 million last year and a net loss of $2 million. The Canadian company is basically betting its entire $51 million over-the-counter market cap on this deal.
And that was before the economic meltdown. Now, Live Current is being forced to sell up to six of its premium domain names, including Communicate.com, Brazil.com, Vietnam.com, Indonesia.com, Malaysia.com, Canadian.com and GreatBritain.com, hoping to fetch a combined total of $6 million to $10 million. It could turn into a fire sale or worse, deadpool tag for the company, unless they can convince some outside investors that they’re able to turn the ship around.
Most of Live Current’s revenue, which was nearly $2 million for the quarter ended September 30, comes from its Perfume.com operation. But with a gross profit of $352,435 and expenses of $2,343,285, those numbers aren’t going to do the trick.
Live Current CEO and Chairman, Geoffrey Hampson, said in a statement:
“This financing, in addition to the expected proceeds of the previously announced sale of up to six non-core domain names, is consistent with management’s strategy to ensure that sufficient cash resources are available to meet our obligations through the end of 2009 while minimizing dilution for existing investors.”
Only time will tell if the cash resources are sufficient enough to keep the company afloat.
(Hat tip to DomainNameWire)
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
A Small Business Search Marketing Thanksgiving From A-Z
Google’s Mobile App Uses Undisclosed Proximity Sensing System and Why You Should Care
Senor Gruber has uncovered a trick inside Google's Mobile app that uses an undocumented method to access the iPhones proximity sensor. In normal situations, the iPhone proximity sensor - the little thing in the top of the iPhone that knows when you have it up to your face - can be turned on or off. When it's on and you place the phone up to your ear the screen stops responding. When it's off, the sensor does nothing. This is key because no information is passed during this on or off toggle. There is no way to tell if the proximity sensor has been triggered.
Building SEO Momentum by Using a Consistent Site Structure
FanIQ Keeps Fans In The Game, Membership Jumps 2000% This Year
FanIQ, a sports site that focuses more on entertaining its users than bogging them down with the stats and opinion pieces found on the likes of ESPN, has had a landmark year. The site launched in 2006, but hasn’t really hit its stride until now: since January, the site has grown by over 2000%, recently hitting as many as 2.4 million unique users and 1.5 million registered members. These figures pale in comparison to the larger sports sites and popular fantasy leagues, but the rate of growth is very impressive nonetheless.
FanIQ differentiates itself from other sports sites by offering a set of casual games and community features alongside more traditional sports headlines. To encourage participation, the site has a points system that rewards users who write blog posts and play the site’s integrated trivia game. These points are just for show (though CEO Ty Shay says that many users are still intensely competitive about them), but in the future the site will offer virtual goods and other rewards in exchange for points.
The site has raised around $3-5 million in funding (the exact amount was not disclosed), with investors including Vantage Point Ventures, Peter Thiel, Paul Martino, Keith Rabois, and Jeff Fluhr. Other startups in this space include Open Sports (which has a similar web portal) and Watercooler and Citizen Sports, both of which design sports oriented applications for social networks.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Real Girls Media Picks Up Strategic Funding From Meredith
Real Girls Media, a San Francisco-based online publishing company specializes in—you guessed it—social communities for women, has raised an undisclosed amount in funding led by Meredith Corporation, which took a minority stake in the company. RGM, which was founded in 2006, had previously raised $6 million in Series A funding from 3i and WaldenVC.
The agreement adds Real Girls Media Network’s traffic (which comes primarily from flagship community site DivineCaroline) to Meredith’s network, which the company claims increases Meredith’s unique visitors to an admirable 15 million uniques each month. Meredith and Real Girls Media will combine their ad inventory and sales forces, Meredith has a new way to distribute relevant content to their target audience, plus they get to use RGM’s proprietary technology platform for advertising.
Sounds like a mother-daughter thing to us.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
