Espotting and the OV/Fast deal

[heini]

Where does the acquisiton leave Espotting?
ES has just recently closed a partnership with Fast, getting Fast as backfill for ES sites, and ES PPC on ATW Europe.

Was after all one of the reasons for OV buying FAST to prevent Espotting buying FAST websearch?

[Shak]

Heini,

without wanting to upset people here, I seriously think Espotting will be bought by a major player in 6-9 months.

I know this probably will not go down too well with Espotting (a real nice bunch of people), who read this forum on a regular basis.

It all depends who will end up buying them.

Looks like Ted Meisel's dream of there being "NO ppc" just "overture" is likely to come true.

Shak

[heini]

Hmm, Shak - you think OV wants Epotting? As far as I know ES is not public, they don't have to sell?
Word has been they were so aggressively trying to get in front of OV in Europe they gave out higher shares to portals, thus not working profitable yet?

[heini]

Pandia [pandia.com] has an interesting take on Espotting's situation, pushing forward the notion Espotting could be in need of a search engine partner too, bringing Ask or Look into the game.
I just wonder how potent ES is. In any case they are extremely vulnerable now. They need to do something fast.
Espotting has stated their deals with AV and FAST are not affected by the new development. Mmm. And even if so, their most important partners are Yahoo Europe and, argably, Lycos Europe.
At Lycos OV has pushed ES back to the second row, from regular serps to directory pages and channels. And Lycos is Fast fed forever, not to speak of being a 5% or so shareholder. Not the best conditions for Espotting.

The rumours about Yahoo having something up their sleeves in the PPC area have been amplified since Tim Cadogan left OV for Yahoo.

Currently it doesn't take much fantasy to see a European search landscape with only two big PPC players.

[edited by: heini at 10:09 pm (utc) on Feb. 26, 2003]

[makemetop]

>I know this probably will not go down too well with Espotting...

Oh, I'm sure if someone made them an offer to get out of the market and allowed the owners to retire they would accept. The Overture moves may be an indicator that the 'annoyance' of Espotting is being considered as being something to be bought for a few million - and healthy pensions for the crew.

Afterall, the Espotting team (who actually came out to see me in N. Ireland) pitched for a market to make money. Why not retire - and let someone else do the chores? I'm sure that Espotting is on the Overture shopping list!

[Shak]

makemetop,

you took the words right out of mouth, Espotting are young dynamic and really kicked ass in a rapid fashion.

hey, its all about making money, me, you, espotting, overture etc etc.

no harm in being bought, after all they must have had an exit strategy in mind, and Ov buying them can only be a good thing.

Shak