Excite to exit UK by year end...

[NFFC]

Following Excite's withdrawal from the European mainland [webmasterworld.com], The Register reports that the UK operation may close at the end of the year;

"This is absolutely not the case. We absolutely deny this. This is not correct at all. This story is entirely wrong and full of factual errors."
Evan Rudowski, MD of Excite Europe

The Register [theregister.co.uk]

[Brett_Tabke]

That is rather sad to hear actually. I was hoping for the big Excite comeback of 2001. I'm surprised AT&T would sell them up the river without a fight.

[lloyd]

I too have heard that they are leaving town.

I have also read on various newsletters that it is unlikely that the .com version will make it to the end of the year as well.

Is this good or is this bad. Pesonally I wont miss it. It is not the best, in fact it isn't even in the Top 10 any more - in my view.

Even AV now looks vulnerable. Goto and other PPC will take over and everything will go to paid submissions. Why? Because you have to make money somewhere and banners just are not paying at the present.

Whether this will give the user unbiased results remains to be seen.

I hope AV can survive. This time next year we could be down to the following major players - Yahoo/Google/AOL/Open Directory/MSN/Inktomi/Altavista and the Goto's of this world.

[vis]

"and the Goto's of this world."

Wonder if they will include Espotting? A number of sites have all received unsolicited e-mails from them in the last day or so.

Sign of desperation.