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View Full Version : Looksmart Australia sold to Telstra Sensis

Chris_D
21-01-2004, 00:09/12:09AM
Looksmart's Australian operation has been sold to Sensis.

http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/0,39023166,39115779,00.htm

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/01/21/1074360802233.html

I just heard there have been a few more redundancies than you would have expected after having read these press releases....

Chris D
Sydney
Kal
21-01-2004, 00:58/12:58AM
And we thought they couldn't possibly get any worse... :rolleyes:

Thanks for the scoop Chris!
ihelpyou
23-01-2004, 20:03/08:03PM
LOL. My, oh my. LS is going down faster than I thought they would.
Dez
26-01-2004, 23:25/11:25PM
It was a strain for them coping with MSN, and when the wheels fell of that waggon, well it's all down hill from there.

I can't say I ever found what I was looking for when searching with LookSmart, ever, not once!

I never managed to get http://WebSearch.COM.AU included in their listings, even when I paid! Go figure that out!

But Evan T walked away from it a zillionare so goal acheived I guess.

I'm surprised they didn't offer to sell out to MSN, but then perhaps the offer was never made.

I recall seeing them hit the front page of sites like www.ANZWERS.com.au and others, and wondering "****, thats werid, why would you a) send all your search engine users away to another site and create chrun, b) surely there can't be that much money in paid listings and clickthroughs yet, and c) I bet that doesn't last too long, it's a broken business model".

I was 99% wrong, it made lots of money, it seemed to add value to lots of sites.

But it cost heaps to run, it costs heaps to sell, it costs heaps to maintain the drive and with some big spends like WiseNut, Zeal and others, and still really no actual value derived from those investments, you've got a clasic dot com meltdown, again.

But hey, don't count them out till they are delisted I say!

++Dez;

I work for bandwidth!

http://WebSearch.COM.AU
The Australian Search Engine

ps: naturally I've always been rather envious of their success, so it's a little sad to see them die in the end, but one MSN deal, a world leader does not make you!