How He Got His Start in Web Search and PPC Advertising

Monte: Before we get started, what I would like to do is find out a little bit about what got you into the business, how you got interested in the Internet, and a little bit of your background so that people know what really got you engaged in getting into the search engine market and into the … and into Yahoo!

Tim: Yea, believe it or not, I sort of ended up in search somewhat by accident. I came out of school not really knowing what I, you know, what was out there and what I wanted to do; and I ended up working for a trademark search company. I was originally doing searches and then a professional searcher, and then I went on to be a product manager in that company and that sort of…it went from there and then I ended up just working for a lot of different companies throughout the years…for about 10 years working on different products and, when the Internet came along, I started developing web products, taking things like Westlaw and LexisNexis databases and going direct to the consumer on the web. And then I just found the Internet was a much more expansive way to get users to use search. Because, initially when I started in search, you needed to be a professional, you needed to know a lot about creating (sic) language and Boolean searching, and now anyone, you know, my family can just get on the web and do a search and get pretty good results back.

Monte: Yea, that’s great; and having 10 years’ of experience, I guess you’ve seen the industry evolve quite a bit. Back in the old days, it was a lot more cryptic and not as many people were going on the web to find out what they were looking for. They were still using Yellow Pages; and, of course, with the popularity of Google and Yahoo! these days, it’s changing the way people are doing business.

Tim: Yea, I mean back, even in the late 90’s, web search didn’t really have a business model. You know, go to Overture…well Yahoo! Marketing Solutions as it’s known now; but, it was known as Overture. Then go to before that, you know, it was initially just a PP engine where everything was Pay for Performance, and then, when someone had the great idea of syndicating this across, you know, AOL and UltaVista and adding a few paid links up at the top, that’s when the business model really got going and people realized the opportunities in search to make money. I think that’s why going to SES last week you saw 4,500 people attending the show and so many companies were there to exhibit so many exhibitors you realize just how many people are getting into it and just how right the opportunity is right now.

Monte: Yea, definitely. It’s becoming a huge market and I know a lot of our customers are making a lot of money providing search results on their domain parking pages and, of course, companies are spending more and more money online today than they ever were before. Even in the combination of all years combined, this year and next year are supposed to be huge years for online advertisers.

Tim: Yea, that’s definitely right, both on the media side and on the surf side.

Monte: So, one of the things that is interesting is the evolution of Overture, as you said, started off as to Go To and then went to Overture, and now Yahoo! has made quite of an announcement, I guess they made the announce at SES that Overture is going to now be Yahoo! Search and basically the name is going away. How is that transition running in your company and what was really behind that?

Tim: Well, I think Yahoo! is one of the strongest Internet brands in the world, one of the most recognizable brands; and people, after all, are generally buying distribution on the Yahoo! network. So, I think just from that perspective, it made sense to integrate the brands; so that when you have all your advertising dollars and all your brand awareness supporting a single brand, it obviously makes that brand stronger rather than having to figure out a lot…having to support a lot of different brands which costs a lot more money and doesn’t give the full support from our marketing and our advertising teams to that single Yahoo! brand.