Looksmart to Layoff Half of Work Force

[Brett_Tabke]

According to sources, Looksmart [dmnews.com] will announce on monday that it will lay off half of it's work force.

This comes fresh on the heals of a eWeek article [story.news.yahoo.com] detailing that:

Neither Sprinks nor Inktomi Corp. is planning to renew their agreements with LookSmart to use its search listings...

[edited by: Brett_Tabke at 11:13 pm (utc) on Dec. 14, 2003]

[Robino]

That stinks.

Restructuring.

"http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&q=Looksmart"

[martinibuster]

The only outlets they'll have left are the so-called "contextual" advertising places.

They're spiralling downward on a barbed wire.

I hope Zeal survives.

[tictoc]

I feel sorry for their employees and shareholders. I wonder when is the best time to sell their stock!

[Teshka]

>I feel sorry for their employees and shareholders. I wonder when is the best time to sell their stock!

About 5 minutes before that article came out...

[Essex_boy]

poor devils so close to christmas and the new year, really not funny.

Lets hope they ALL find employment soon.

[andy_boyd]

I think that MSN choosing to no longer use their results sunk LookSmart, now this is like kicking them when they are down. It really does look like the end of the road for them. Although I'm sure the majority of their employees will find work, especially when the PPC market is so buoyant.

Someone else will move in and take the ground where LookSmart once stood. Oh well, I'll just have to wave goodbye to my $1,000 of listings. They worked for me too, loads of MSN traffic. :-(

[Artstart]

Looks like Google and Yahoo are trying to push Looksmart out of the picture.

[Chndru]

>Google and Yahoo are trying to push Looksmart out
Google? What did they ever do to LS?

[jimbeetle]

I wonder when is the best time to sell their stock!

October 6th.

<added>Oops. Teshka's post looked so similar to the one before I didn't realize it was a different one. Already have a smart a** in the thread so guess I'm not needed :) </added>

[Artstart]

Google? What did they ever do to LS?

Bought Sprinks to cut off major LS income. If you type in Sprinks url it leads dirrectly to Google Ads page. Only .../index.htm leads to Sprinks itself.

[mayor]

>>Lets hope they ALL find employment soon.

Maybe they can find a job at Google.

[martinibuster]

>>Lets hope they ALL find employment soon.

HQ in Frisco. Anyone laid off in Frisco is going to have a hard time finding another job. It's a B2M scenario.

They won't get any sympathy from most people in the circles I run in- the hard feelings toward dot-commers is still palpable and many folks will be relieved to see them high-tail it back to the little cities they came from.

But I still hope Zeal finds a way to survive this mess.

[kanetrain]

I feel really bad for the individuals. I DO NOT feel bad for the company. IMHO, they really hurt a lot of webmasters and changed contracts on people etc. The company, IMHO needs to disolve.

[percentages]

What goes around....comes around.

The shareholders should have jumped ship in Jan 2000 or before when the stock price went OTT. The employees should have been looking for a lifeboat the day L$ announced they were converting the directory listings to PPC.

It is never nice to see people made unemployed, but it wasn't exactly unexpected. I wonder if the remainder will have the good sense to get out ASAP?

You can never really separate the company from the remaining employees. I'm certain a large number of L$ employees realized they were shafting their customers, just like a large number of employees in other companies knew that they weren't doing the right things before they went belly up.

If you believe your employer is up to no good you should get out then and there......otherwise you have to be partially guilty by association / complacency.

[mquarles]

HQ in Frisco. Anyone laid off in Frisco is going to have a hard time finding another job.

Actually, they're in San Francisco. I'm in Frisco, which is the second fastest growing city in the country, and jobs galore. It's a suburb of Dallas.

Unless you're talking Frisco, Colorado, up in Summit County, or Frisco, North Carolina in the Outer Banks....

MQ

[rfgdxm1]

Unless LS finds some sort of replacement for MSN, things look very bleak. Problem is that there aren't that many places people go to search in appreciable numbers. MSN is one of those few places.

[martinibuster]

Frisco, Baghdad by the Bay, San Pancho = All nicknames for San Francisco. Although many natives dislike the nickname, Frisco, it stuck.

The name originally given to the city by the Spaniards was Yerba Buena (Good Herb).

Interestingly, the "real name" for Santa Fe (in New Mexico) is actually "Santa Fe de San Francisco."

The naming of both cities likely had something to do with the Franciscan Friars who set up missions throughout California and New Mexico.

I'm in San Francisco, myself.

[hannamyluv]

I do have to say, it was kind of tough talking to my LS rep yesterday. He tried to sound so upbeat when he called to inform me about some "changes" they are making. He threw in the MSN thing (I already knew that) and I really wanted to ask him if the job cuts were going to affect him, but I thought it best not to mention it. I suppose that I will find out soon enough.

[Essex_boy]

I thought San Francisco was Spanish for city of angels?

but who cares

[mquarles]

That's Los Angeles.

MQ

[skibum]

We set all our LookListings programs to end on Jan 15. Some that were already not performing were converted to affiliate links and the rep didn't seem interested in handling listings in the new thing where ya buy specific keywords......Good luck to em'

[anallawalla]

I just cancelled our LS account today. My contact there is among 100 who are to go soon (or might have happened by now).

[newwebster]

I removed my Looksmart listing for my index page a couple of days ago, but it is still active in their index. Does anyone know how long it takes to be removed and then be replaced by an Inktomi listing? Yahoo is starting to replace Google listings with Inktomi in my nich now and my Looksmart listing is killing me in this respect.