Search Engine Optimisation, Promotion and Internet Marketing

LookSmart acquires Furl.net

24 September 2004

San Francisco internet search company LookSmart has purchased Furl.net, a service that enables users to save a full-text copy of any page on the web.

Massachusetts-based Furl.net allows users to search and share saved data, online articles, product information, electronic receipts, favourite websites and other interesting or important pages. Furl also provides options to share and discover information via email subscriptions, RSS feeds, blog integration and personalised recommendations.

"A lot of us in the industry recognized that Furl was something special as a way to crack the search nut differently," said LookSmart vice president of web properties, Kevin Krim. "It's really darn useful, so it attracts a loyal use base. It has amazing synergies with a number of our businesses."

LookSmart officials said Furl would remain an independent website and unveiled plans to make it more robust, including increasing the storage quota for users to five gigabytes.

Adverts will now be included in Furl results when users search their archives. Furl launched its service in January this year and was approached almost immediately by large internet search companies.

Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. The sale of bookmark service Furl to LookSmart was completed in July, but not announced until this week.

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