Looksmart Simply Doesn't Figure - It's Nowhere to be Found - But WHY?

"Inspired by a Brian Morrissey tweet, this board game is fun way to think of the complicated advertising technology ecosystem. - - - -  Don’t read anything into the board positions - all companies are 'priceless'."

The words from the board-game's creator (Terence Kawaja), who is a Strategic Advisor/Investment Banker at LUMA Partners LLC,

Yes. It's a send-up of Monopoly - display ad style...and simply a fun follow-on from his ecosystem landscape map for display advertising.

ADTECHOPOLY

See it on Slideshare.

My problem is, that (& like trying to find "Wally" - from on both these works of art), I must again ask Terence, the Question.

"Where's LOOKSMART"?

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@tkawaja Terence Kawaja

Introducing ADTECHOPOLY; the board game inspired by @bmorrissey http://bit.ly/iu7NDx #allingoodfun

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In a 2nd contact with Mr Kawaja I had 'Tweeted' a friendly message, but recieved no reply. - - Perhaps it may be the case that Terry isn't 'familiar' with Looksmart's position in this massive equation, yet?

This (my message, as can be seen below), did contain a linked 'prompt' to my very own instapost here: "Looksmart to provide Data, Data, Data...across Exchanges?"

seekingalpha.com/instablog/36191-looking...

Follow the following "Tweets", as exchanged:

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Interconnector Ross Bradley

@tkawaja Tut-tut Terence!! And STILL no Looksmart? Oh Dear!! :) http://tinyurl.com/3tm6sl5

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Twitter is fun! - - But most importantly, it allows all to deliver a message to others who may have an interest, as such. - I did "Tweet" to Terence once before and had (in fact) got a reply back from him, as follows:

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Interconnector Ross Bradley

@tkawaja Looksmart doesn't rate a mention on the famous Terence Kawaja's eye chart? http://tinyurl.com/3sfm4ku

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A quick (and rather cordial) reply came from Terence, as follows:

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tkawaja Terence Kawaja

@Interconnector Looksmart is search PPC while the slide maps only display players. Looksmart is on our search landscape - I promise

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Of course, I did 'beg to differ' on that reply, but realise that Terence Kawaja clearly is, a very busy man. - twitter.com/#!/tkawaja

But (I began to think), is that what he REALLY thinks of Looksmart?

The extent or, limit to what he knows of Looksmart?

I mean ....

There are proven strong evidential relationships between Facebook, Microsoft and Looksmart. Microsoft and IACI's ask.com had both helped build the award winning AdCenter platform for Looksmart.

Within an investor presentation (back in May 2010 - current report) Looksmart's AdCenter management platform was (itself) claimed to be .........'currently processing about 2B queries/day'. - - This (in itself) would then equate to a substantial 60bn queries handled/month.

For Direct Advertisers & Agencies, the Co (at the time), offered:
–
Transaction-based: CPA (cost-per-acquisition)
–
Page view-based: CPV (cost-per-view)

And, Looksmart had clearly told all: (In the Q4 Report, CC)

....."we are accelerating the productization of our performance based advertising offerings. - -  that we began testing in the last few weeks of the fourth quarter.
  
We are now proposing the cost per visit or CPV model to our impression customers, who are targeting new visitors to their sites."

And, Performance marketing (especially surrounding "re-targeting"), is surely THE Hottest Show in Town, these days!

Looksmart Simply Doesn't Figure. It's Nowhere to be Found. But WHY?

Now LUMA Partners (a company that Terence Kawaja started), is said to acts as a “strategic advisor” - - representing companies that are BOUGHT. - tinyurl.com/6aelbog

We can only hope Terence gets a better understanding if he ever gets to advise on Looksmart - should they SELL (say) a 'controlling stake' interest, to a big media company like a News Corp or, the likes of it.

[Microsoft is using Appnexus & the FOX?]

I Tweeted back to Terence, with my tongue firmly in my cheek. :)

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Interconnector Ross Bradley

@tkawaja A new board-game 're-model' or, will Looksmart soon get to become, the "die"? :)

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Today the anouncement that Looksmart appoints Benoit Vatere as Vice President, Distribution Network never even raised a bar of interest over on Yahoo's LOOK board.

This new member of Looksmart's Team we're told, was a co-founder of Magnify 360: Behavioral Marketing. Crunch-base doesn't include this about Benoit Vatere - nor does it's profile of the Co, Magnify360. (Who had received $2.5M in a Series A funding, back on 8/12/08)

They have interesting technology that includes behavioral targeting, too. [magnify360.com Learn how to drive your online revenue.]

It's a significant appointment with some real background, I feel.

They (Magnify360) have a close association with Kenshoo ..Who have also gained a mention or, two before, here on my instablog postings:

tinyurl.com/3s95amp

I was pretty 'bullish' on Kenshoo here. tinyurl.com/3v2m6rb:

LOOK: 3:59PM EDT: 1.84   0.01 (-0.54%)

All an opinion, as always.

LC

Disclosure: Long LOOK and happy to be so....
.