NexTag sells stake for $830M, after facing death in 2000
Private equity firm Providence Equity Partners has acquired a two-thirds stake in comparison-shopping site NexTag Inc. for about $830 million, according to the WSJ’s Kevin Delaney.
The deal values the San Mateo, Calif. Nextag at about $1.2 billion, and represents an amazingly lucrative deal for NexTag, which is just one of dozens of shopping search engines and which arguably doesn’t have any clear technology advantage compared to others.
VentureBeat has tried reaching the company over the past… Continue Reading
Roundup: Nextag, ThisNext, Amp’d, Lala, Ask3D and much more
(Updated) Here’s the latest action, catching up for the past two days:
Boring shopping Web sites attract interest — There are so many shopping search engines, we’ve given up trying to count. And yet investors remain interested. Santa Monica, Calif.’s ThisNext, a social shopping Web site, has raised a round of venture debt Western Technology. It lets people share and recommend products with friends. This comes after rumors that private equity firm Providence Equity Partners is buying… Continue Reading
The courtesan sisters of comparison search, and Thefind
Updated
If you’re searching to buy a product online, there’s no single “branded” engine that stands out — and for a reason. All of the major shopping engines sites have sold out to advertisers.
This may represent a grand opportunity: If a Google-like search engine emerges in shopping, perceived to be without bias, it could be hugely popular. It could “become the ubiquitous brand,” said Dan Ciporin, the former CEO of Shopping.com, calling this a “missed… Continue Reading
Wize.com, the search engine that ranks products
Wize.com, a San Mateo start-up, has launched yet another search engine for consumer electronics and other goods.
Wize’s promise hangs on a single, skinny thread: Its “Wize Rank” concept. Wize Rank is a numeric ranking of products (from zero to 100). Each product is rated according to how well users and reviewers judge it, along with the buzz it’s getting. It is a cute play on Google’s concept of “Page Rank.” The exact “Wize Rank” formula… Continue Reading