LookSmart, the one-time Australian internet success story founded in 1995 by Melbourne IT entrepreneurs Evan Thornley and his wife, Tracey Ellery, had its Australian operations acquired by Sensis yesterday.
The demise of the now San Francisco-based company began at the end of last year when Microsoft pulled out of the operation.
Mid-way through last year, Looksmart’s seven non-executive directors resigned after differences in opinion formed after Thornley was made chairman, based in Australia. Another of the disputes was over the future direction of the company and one of the directors felt the company should be focusing its energies more in the corporate world.
Thornley will remain at the helm of the business in the US, with Australian boss Damian Smith as chief executive while holding out for a recovery in the US market.
Yesterday, LookSmart announced it would cut back half of its staff in the US.
Sensis’ chief executive officer, Andrew Day said its aim is to establish Sensis as the major player in local Australian advertising and search industry and its growth strategy includes the development of online, voice and wireless multi-media search solutions tailored for the local market.
“The LookSmart assets, which are some of the best search tools in the market, will assist us to meet our online business objectives whilst supporting both new and existing customer bases in Australia,” Day said.
“The development of search marketing products is a natural step in our online evolution. We will continue to develop the LookSmart assets as part of our online growth strategy that will see us deliver our content to customers and users in a range of new ways.
Day said Sensis has in excess of 30,000 paid online display advertising customers across three of Australia’s leading online sites.
“The deal also allows Sensis access to certain LookSmart employees who are very experienced in the Australian search market. These employees, skilled in search technology development, will provide considerable depth to our knowledge base.”
Sensis will make technology and employees available to LookSmart under a service agreement to enable LookSmart to continue to support its current Australian customer contracts.
