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Type of site | Search engine |
|---|---|
| Successor | Go.com |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Owner | Disney Interactive |
| URL | infoseek |
| Commercial | Mixed |
| Launched | January 1994; 31 years ago (1994-01) |
| Current status | Closed as of 1999 |
Infoseek (also known as the "big yellow"[1]) was an American internetsearch engine founded in 1994 bySteve Kirsch.[2]
Infoseek was originally operated by theInfoseek Corporation, headquartered inSunnyvale, California.[3] Infoseek was bought byThe Walt Disney Company in 1999,[4] and the technology was merged with that of the Disney-acquiredStarwave to form theGo.com network.[5]
Infoseek launched in January 1994 as a pay-for-use service.[1] The service was dropped in August 1994 and Infoseek was relaunched as Infoseek search in February 1995.[1]
In 1995, Infoseek struck a deal withNetscape to become the default search engine onNetscape Navigator.[1]
On June 11, 1996, Infoseek'sinitial public offering started trading onNasdaq (under the name SEEK) at $12 per share.[6]
In coopertion with Aptex Software (then a division of HNC Software), Infoseek was the first search engine company to develop and launchbehavioral targeting, via its UltraMatch targeting algorithms. The developmental partnership with Aptex was announced in 1996[7] and the technology was released the following year.[8][9] UltraMatch utilized Aptex's SelectCast neural networking software.[10]
By September 1997, Infoseek had 7.3 million visitors per month.[11] It was the 7th most visited website that year (5th in 1996) and 10th in 1998.[12] Infoseek acquired theWebChat Broadcasting System in April 1998.[13]
In 1998, Disney purchased a 43% stake of Infoseek, and incorporated the site into its various media businesses. Around the same time, Disney acquired theStarwave Corporation, which included ESPN.com and ABCNews.com.[1] In 1999, Disney acquired the remaining Infoseek stock it didn't own. Disney bundled its Starwave properties and Infoseek and formed the GO.com portal.[4] That year, Infoseek engineerLi Yanhong moved to Beijing, China and co-founded the search engineBaidu.[1]
In February 2001, Disney decided to cancel the service and lay off all staff. Also in 2001, Bernt Wahl, Andy Bensky and 15 software engineers, all Infoseek employees, led a management buyout attempt from Disney but were ultimately rebuffed.[14]
Infoseek's Ultraseek Server software technology, an enterprise search engine product, was sold in 2000 toInktomi.[1] Under Inktomi, Ultraseek Server was renamed "Inktomi Enterprise Search". In December 2002 (prior to theYahoo! acquisition of Inktomi), the Ultraseek product suite was sold to a competitor Verity Inc, who re-established the Ultraseek brand name and continued development of the product.
Rakuten agreed in November 2000 to acquire Infoseek Japan for $81 million.[15]
In December 2005, Verity was acquired byAutonomy PLC. Under Autonomy, Ultraseek ceased to be a stand-alone product and became a modular component under the IDOL platform. It continued to be developed and marketed as Autonomy's entry-level keyword-based site search offering until afterAutonomy was acquired byHewlett-Packard (HP) in October 2011.
The "infoseek.com"domain name redirects to "go.com" and the Infoseek brand name is no longer used in North America.[1] However, the Australian domain and the Japanese domain still operate with the Infoseek name.[1] The Japanese domain name now operates as a web portal known as "Rakuten Infoseek".
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