Deal Radar 2008: Travel Ad Network Executing Flawlessly

Travel Ad Network (TAN) is the leading vertical ad network focused exclusively on travel. It reaches users across 50 websites including Lonely Planet, Kayak, RandMcNally, Skybus Airlines, Groople, TravelHero, BootsNAll, AreaGuides, HotelsByCity, EuropeForVisitors, AirGorilla, and many others. Top advertisers with TAN include American Express, Vacations to Go, Best Western, Netherlands Tourism, Tourism Australia, etc.

Deal Radar 2008: Kosmix+Adify – Potential Google Challenger

Kosmix is a vertical portal startup. Founded in 2006 by Anand Rajaraman and Venky Harinarayan, founders of Junglee, this site aims at creating a ‘Home page for every topic’. Featured Kosmix sites are RightHealth, RightAutos and RightTrips focusing on health, autos and travel verticals. They have also been working on other verticals like politics, finance,

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Is Google Scared?

Why this charade, if not? In a “Pot calling the kettle black” statement, Eric Schmidt whimpered that Microsoft’s Yahoo bid is anti-competitive. My poor little Google, let me rock you and soothe you … Here’s an excerpt from last week’s analysis on Google’s earnings: “Revenue on Google’s site stood at $3.12 billion, up 58% y-o-y.

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Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 4)

SM: How big is the market? How do you calculate TAM? What is your business model? CL: We’ve reviewed a great deal of research on how large the market is for online travel advertising and very specifically banner advertising on travel websites. Forrester says that online travel advertising is an $8-billion-a-year industry in 2007, growing

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Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 3)

SM: What was the market landscape like when you founded the company? CL: When we started Travel Ad Network, Google AdSense had just launched its textlink product and everything was about textlinks and performance advertising. No one talked about users; it was all about clicks. And the terms “branding” and “online” weren’t used in the

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Vertical Travel Ad Network CEO Cree Lawson (Part 1)

In the world of entrepreneurship, a universally accepted doctrine is doing more with less. In this case study series, I bring you an entrepreneur who has done exactly that. Cree Lawson, founder and CEO of Travel Ad Network (TAN), is our guest this time, and will share his story with all its blood, sweat and tears.

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Trend Radar 2008: Verticalization Everywhere

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know, I am a huge believer in verticalization of the web. In fact, my entire Web 3.0 thesis is based on this idea. In 2007, we saw the beginnings of verticalization. In 2008, I expect this trend to become rampant in all aspects of the

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News Corp. Charging Ahead

News Corp. has certainly been the most bold and dramatic dealmaker of 2007. Murdoch gets it. WSJ print revenues were up 7% in October and online revenues were up 30%. I have already discussed, why the WSJ acquisition is a good one, and suggested that the WSJ should go free. This week, Bear Sterns Analyst

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