The potentials in my opinion in no specific order:
AskJeeves
FindWhat
Infospace
ur thoughts please?
Shak
One other path would be for Mirago to buy up and build on itself.
Would make a nice change to see a ppc but an se as opposed to the other way around.
Mack.
The last I heard, Mirago does something like 25 million searches per month or more, including all of their affiliates. It may be many more than that by now.
Would agree that a US player would be interested in them, and Ask Jeeves have announced plans for Euro expansion, so they would be a good partner.
Mirago, are part of Johnson Press who are regional newspaper publishers, I don't know if Johnson own them 100% but if they don't you could see them being majority owned by Johnson or indeed, being acquired by another major regional newspaper publishing group.
If they were for sale, I suspect a regional publisher in the UK would be the likely buyer.
Leslie
If they could keep a fresher index it would help - but why bother at all when there is PPC. What's the incentive? Not a lot IMHO.
With good partners you'll see that one take off nicely.
I would have thought that AJ would be most likely, however, I'd like to think that it might come from an unlikely source, if it were to come at all.
What they need IMHO is an injection of capital (maybe from an venture capital firm) so that they can compete with Overture and Espotting. Heavens knows the UK market needs it and could easily stand it.
I happen to know that there is a venture capitalist firm on the lookout for just such a proposition, so maybe rather than they sell to a rival, they get cash-injected and beat a rival to death!
they need more good people like Derek Preston up there.
Shak
don't know what you lot have been smoking,
I have over 2 years solid experience with Mirago, and have found them to be clear leaders in the UK marketplace when compared to the other solutions available. Although some issues have occurred, it has been refreshing to deal with a truly UK / Euro based company as opposed to those who have a heavy US slant or outsoure large parts of their operations to countries with little understanding of the UK and fast emerging Euro markets.
Although I have not advertised with them, coming from the position of a strategic partner with a large number of referrals beneath me, the business developement team have always been spot on and gone the extra mile for me.
If anyone from Mirago is out there, keep up the good work and don't whatever you do partner up with a company that will devalue the service I receive.
Daniel Mullin
[edited by: engine at 12:16 pm (utc) on Dec. 16, 2003]
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ncw164x
We've been watching these comments about the 'acquisition of Mirago' with some enjoyment. Although I'm not personally privy to every last detail of what goes on here, I am generally well informed on the major issues.
The origins of the comments about Mirago being purchased are somewhat of a mystery to me. Of course, we're flattered to be considered an attractive proposition. Beyond that, it's not my place to comment.
As for number of searches per month and so on commented above, I can only say that the information is rather out of date. This year we have substantially enhanced our business development team; the number of advertisers, partners and traffic levels bear witness to this.
Technologically you may have seen recent press releases which introduced new features such as source exclusion and dayparting. Our aim is to differentiate ourselves by leading the way with new technologies and listening to the comments of those who use our services.
I still find it amazing that features such as source exclusion (the ability for an advertiser to opt-out of traffic from selected partners) are not more widely available. From my conversations with advertisers at conferences such as the PubConference and Search Engine Strategies, these features are just what's wanted. In spite of this I still hear other engines going on the record to say that they'll not be supporting such capabilities. Amazing!
As for the future, I can only say watch out in the New Year for a series of new services and features. Those of you in Chicago last week will have heard of many issues surrounding the offerings of others. We intend to provide services which address the shortfalls.
As for new organic indexes, these should be published later this week. Size-wise... Rather larger than before.
At this point, all that remains is for me on behalf of Mirago to wish one and all a very Merry Christmas and Prosperous New Year.
Derek
Shak
We've been a traffic partner with both mirago and espotting on various UK sites. Whilst both have served us well in different situations the one big problem from a publishers point of view is the lack of breadth in advertisers and keywords. Although they have decent competition and revenue on popular, high paid words (e.g. the financial sector) outside that the amount of bids is very low which obviously affects publishers revenue. For seemingly reasonable or popular searches the only people bidding seem to be ebay with those awful "Buy random widget on Ebay" ads.
This of course may be an attraction to an advertiser who might be able to pick up some cheap traffic, but unless the amount of advertisers increases I can't see many publisher want to use them ahead of espotting or overture. That said they have always been more than helpful with any queries and retain a more personal feel than some of the larger ppc companies.
I wouldn't want to see them bought out by a larger competitor as with more traffic and advertisers they could certainly be good competition in the UK and European market. I like the new features that they are working on, but surely the most important thing is to be able to drive decent levels of traffic?
f
