My first job in the online marketing industry was at BTLookSmart, a $100m joint venture between BT and the San Francisco based LookSmart.
I started in 2000 as the Shopping & Travel Editor reviewing 55 websites a day for insertion into the LookSmart Directory.
After a couple of very happy years BT pulled out in 2003 and a few of us stayed on as LookSmart UK.
By that time I was revenue manager and we were selling PPC links on MSN.co.uk
In late 2003 LookSmart decided to pull the plug on the London office after MSN decided to drop the deal.
We had three months to wind the office down.
Below are some photos I took on the last day.
I had the privilege of being asked to turn out the lights…….
View From My Window
All Gone
Tidying Up Loose Ends
Tears…
No Tears…
What Are You Staring @?
Time’s Up!
Subscribe to the RSS feed or to email updates!
If this site has piqued your interest in hiring Mel, either as a speaker for your event or as a consultant for your business, contact him now to start a conversation about how he can help...
Get in touch with Mel
It is quite incredible to see how much money has been thrown at the Internet to see “what sticks”. Looksmart so nearly could have survived and thrived I think, given their Microsoft contract. The killer for them was their delay in coming up with a PPC product – but hey… the world moves on and it seems that everyone involved leaned enough to be employable in the indistry! Thanks for sharing, Mel.
The decline and fall of LookSmart seems to have proved a couple of things:
1. Humans don’t do it better. 🙁
2. For the want of an efficient pricing model (the Vickrey auction was already out there for the copying), LookSmart’s attempt at PPC was doomed to failure as it did nothing to sync up with the friction-reduction potential of online pricing of ads as practiced by Google/Overture.
Wow. Those pictures bring back some memories of sitting in reception waiting to see you guys. Was it really 5 years ago?
[…] and I go way back to about 2002 when I was working at Looksmart. It was Dixon who got of the phone with my boss Rob Pearson and let the world know on […]