Michael Yavonditte who was previously an executive at IAC, AltaVista, Ziff Davis, Juno and the CEO of Quigo when AOL bought it for $340M, has launched a new site called RakedIn. RakedIn is a wiki like that provides stock related information on companies and individuals from all over the world.
RakedIn is very similar to WikInvest but has a much cleaner design. RakedIn already have over 5 million pages of statistical data and they are hoping to have 20 million by the end of the year. RakedIn provides information about people, public companies and even private companies. RakedIn aggregates new sources from all over the web, up to the minute stock quotes, financial performance, SEC filings, top executives and even latest trades.
I think this product has a lot of legs but they are competing with any people trying to gain market share in this environment.
AOL has been putting the final touches on its new ad conglomerate, Platform A. AOL has confirmed that they have purchased Quigo for a reported $340 million. Quigo is a contextual ad network which has two main services, AdSonar and FeedPoint. Adsonar is very similar to Google’s Adsense in that it provides targeted advertisements on various websites, and FeedPoint is their search engine marketing tool.
AOL Chairman and CEO Randy Falco said, “With Quigo, we are putting the final pieces of Platform A in place. We will be able to offer advertisers and publishers the most advanced set of tools, including contextual and behavioral targeting, superior analytics, and access to the largest display network in the marketplace.â€
Quigo will become part of Platform A which already includes Advertising.com, Tacoda, Third Screen Media, Lightningcast and Adtech.
Overall, the purchases that AOL have made has been a bit surprising. All of these ad networks are in a variety of areas and it is going to be very interesting over the next few years to see if they can put them all into one neat package. Targeting users is vital when it comes to PPC marketing and the company that can be the most efficient at this will control the future of PPC.
