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LookSmart announces today that David Hills has been appointed as the company’s Chief Executive Officer, effective October 25, 2004.
Mr. Hills will succeed Damian Smith, who has served as interim CEO since January 2004.
Mr. Hills, 48, has nearly twenty-five years of experience in media sales, operations, and a wealth of interactive media experience in online advertising, search marketing, paid listings and subscriptions.
He has served as President, Media Solutions for 24/7 Real Media since August 2003, overseeing all domestic media, search and technology businesses for the company.
Prior to joining 24/7 Real Media, he was COO and President of Sales for About, Inc., which owned About.com and Sprinks, the innovative pay per click service.
Prior to that, Mr. Hills held various media executive positions for subsidiaries of Cox Enterprises, including Vice President, Sales for Cox Interactive Media, which owns and operates a network of Web sites focused on local content; Vice President and Director of Cox Interactive Sales, which operated an Internet advertising network; and Vice President for Telerep, a television advertising sales representation firm and a division of Cox Broadcasting.
“I am thrilled to be joining LookSmart and leading the team in delivering high impact and relevant paid listings to our advertising customers and search engine partners,” said Mr. Hills.
“With the company’s restructuring efforts completed successfully, and a focused plan for returning to operating profitability, LookSmart is in great shape to grow and expand its business, taking advantage of a very robust search marketplace.
We have superior technology and business assets, coupled with the tremendous expertise of the team in place, that provide a solid growth platform for the future.”
“Dave Hills is a seasoned and highly successful leader, with demonstrated experience in growing businesses through strong customer focus and disciplined execution,” said Terri Dial, Chair of LookSmart’s Board of Directors.
“LookSmart is well-placed in a rapidly-growing industry, and the Board is confident David will deliver on the promise that our unique technology assets and business model hold.
The Board would like to thank Damian Smith for his effective interim leadership of the company, and wishes him every success as he returns to pursue a promising business career in his native Australia.”
Source: Search Engine Journal
LookSmart and the University of California, Berkeley, today announced a partnership under which LookSmart will develop a branded web search property for Cal Athletics.
This deal will support the university's athletic programs, while supplying highly relevant search results to Cal students and alumni.
Beginning this summer at CalBears.com, CalBearsSearch.com and via a toolbar application, CalBears Search(TM) will provide results powered by LookSmart's proprietary search technologies and 1.2 billion URL index.
Each time users click on a paid listing, a portion of the revenue will go to support Cal Athletics. CalBears Search(TM) will also feature free access to LookSmart's full text article database.
"Cal becomes the first major university with its own branded search engine," said Steve Gladstone, director of athletics. "Students, alumni and Bear Backers will perform their web searches here, knowing the ad revenue that is generated will directly support our commitment to excellence and rise to national prominence."
Cal Athletics will promote CalBears Search to Cal's 20,000 faculty and staff and 165,000 alumni living in the Bay Area through an integrated radio, print and interactive marketing campaign.
Solomon Fulp, director of corporate partnerships for Cal Athletics said the university selected LookSmart as its partner based on their flexibility, "LookSmart demonstrated the ability to develop a world-class, branded web search property that becomes a valuable asset both for the athletics department and the university."
Damian Smith, CEO of LookSmart, said the relationship would give advertisers a new source of high quality search traffic at a reasonable price.
"UC Berkeley, its students, staff and alumni have been responsible for critical advances in Internet technology and are among the most knowledgeable and influential web users. We're honored to partner with Cal Athletics for this groundbreaking program."
Source: LookSmart
LookSmart (LOOK) reported a net loss of $7.1 million, or 7 cents a share, for the quarter ended March 31, 2004.
A year ago, the company reported net income of $1.1 million, or a penny a share. Revenue for the San Francisco-based Web search company was $27.6 million vs. $29.4 million for the year-ago period.
The company's results beat the consensus estimate of a loss of 9 cents per share for the period, according to analysts polled by Thomson First Call.
LookSmart announced earlier Thursday that it had acquired Net Nanny, an online filter, for $5 million. The company also raised its expectations on revenue and earnings for the year.
LookSmart officials said they expect to report revenue for the year of $76 million to $81 million, up from $45 million to $50 million.
Its net loss, previously forecast to be in the $26 million to $30 million range, was narrowed to $20 million to $22 million.
The company's shares closed Thursday at $2.44, up 8 cents.
Source: CBS Marketwatch
Troubled internet search firm LookSmart revealed that its CEO has stepped down as it continues to restructure its operations in the wake of losing its key partner MSN last year.
The company, which said last month that it planned to lay off half its global workforce, announced that Jason Kellerman has stepped down as CEO and board member and that a board-directed search for a successor is now underway.
In the meantime, Damian Smith, previously CEO of LookSmart Australia and VP International, has been appointed to fill the gap as the company's interim CEO.
The company also said in a statement that it has made substantial progress in its restructuring efforts, including recently selling off the assets of its Australian operation to its yellow pages business partner, Sensis, and the closing of its UK office, first revealed by Netimperative on 8 December.
LookSmart expects to reduce its headcount from 429 at the end of the third quarter 2003 to less than 200 by the end of the current quarter.
"The team and I are now completing the restructuring of the company to align our operations with the significant reduction in revenue expected," said interim CEO Smith. "We are dramatically cutting costs and positioning our pay-for-placement business for growth."
The global deal with MSN, which accounted for about a third of LookSmart's revenue, ended on 15 January. MSN said late last year that it had decided not to renew its agreement with LookSmart after tests revealed that its own search technology, alongside that of Overture's, provided better results.
On a good note, LookSmart said that it expects results for its fourth quarter to be better than expected with revenues between $43m and $45m.
It will report final financial results for Q4 and provide a more detailed update on its restructuring plans on 5 February.
Source: Net Imperative
Although the LookSmart database does include listings from the volunteer based Zeal directory, most of the results are now pay-per-click text ads.
Microsoft's MSN.com portal has for a long time added LookSmart's directory listings to its search engine results.
Obviously someone at MSN realized that the LookSmart results reduced the quality of the overall search results. Moreover, it became hard to distinguish between paid entries and regular search result.
Pandia has previously reported on MSN's decision to abandon LookSmart. Last week LookSmart results started disappearing from MSN-sites all over the world, and will probably be gone in most countries shortly. (In Norway we continue to see LookSmart "Web Directory" results, though).
In the future MSN.com will deliver search results from the Inktomi search engine, and add text ads (predominantly from Overture) marked as "sponsored" and "featured" sites.
Later this year, or -- more likely -- next year, MSN will replace Inktomi with its own search engine.
Source: Pandia
