Excite (web portal)

Template:Use mdy dates Template:Short description Template:Infobox website Excite is a web portal, providing a list of hyperlinks to other websites.

Excite was founded in 1993 and Excite.com was the sixth most visited website in 1997. It merged with @Home Network in 1999 and filed for bankruptcy in 2001 after the bursting of the dot-com bubble; the website went into a steep decline in popularity therafter. Excite's portal and services were acquired by iWon and then by Ask Jeeves, which was acquired by IAC Inc. Eventually, Excite was acquired by System1.

History

1993-1998

The company was founded as Architext in June 1993 in Cupertino, California,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> by 6 university friends: Graham Spencer, Joe Kraus, Mark VanHaren, Ryan McIntyre, Ben Lutch and Martin Reinfried, who were all students at Stanford University.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The idea for the company was first discussed in a burrito shop.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In July 1994, International Data Group paid them US$80,000 to develop an online service. In January 1995, Vinod Khosla, a former Stanford student and partner at Kleiner Perkins, arranged a US$250,000 "first round" backing for the project, with US$1.5 million provided over a ten-month period. Soon thereafter, Geoff Yang, of Institutional Venture Partners, provided an additional US$1.5 million in financing. Excite was launched in October 1995.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Jim Bellows was hired to figure out how to present the content in a journalistic manner.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 1996, George Bell joined Excite as its chief executive officer.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 1996, Excite became a public company via an initial public offering; Lycos and Yahoo also held IPOs that month.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 1996, the company acquired the Magellan search engine for $18 million in stock and the assumption of debt.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In November 1996, Excite acquired WebCrawler from AOL and was named the exclusive search engine for AOL, in a deal that gave AOL a 20% stake in Excite.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 1997, the site was redesigned and members of the content crew were laid off.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 1997, the company agreed to sell tickets via Ticketmaster.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Also in June 1997, Intuit acquired 19% of the company for $40 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In July 1997, Excite began offering a free webmail service.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In October 1997, the company reached a deal to be featured in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Also in October 1997, Excite launched operations in Japan in partnership with Itochu.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In May 1998, Excite became the search engine on the Netscape homepage in a 2-year deal worth $70 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 1998, Excite launched online auctions.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In September 1998, the company announced an A$28 million joint venture with LibertyOne to launch services in Australia.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In November 1998, Bank One received the exclusive rights to market banking services on the Excite home page in a partnership worth as much as $125 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Excite received $8 million upfront.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In December 1998, Yahoo! was in negotiations to purchase Excite for $5.5 billion to $6 billion.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1999, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, then graduate students at Stanford University, decided that BackRub, the name of their research project that later became Google Search, was taking up time they should have been using to study. They offered it to Excite for $1 million, but Bell rejected the offer, and later threw Vinod Khosla out of his office after he had negotiated Brin and Page down to $750,000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Then-CEO of Excite George Bell said that the deal fell apart because Larry Page wanted Excite's search technologies to be replaced by Google's, to which Bell did not agree.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

At that time, both Yahoo and Microsoft were interested in acquiring Excite.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

1999-2001

In January 1999, Excite agreed to merge with @Home Network in a transaction valued at $6.7 billion in stock, forming "Excite@Home", with George Bell as CEO. At this time, Excite was the sixth largest Internet portal by traffic.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> AT&T, the largest shareholder of @Home Network, gained voting control of the combined company.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In July 1999, the company acquired Template:Proper name for $425 million in stock and reached a marketing deal with First Data.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In October 1999, Excite launched Work.com.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Also in October 1999, Excite acquired Webshots, an image sharing company, for $82.5 million in stock. In 2001, the founders bought back the company for $2.5 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In November 1999, it launched Excite StoreBuilder, a small-business hosting service.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In December 1999, Excite acquired Blue Mountain Arts, an e-card company, for $350 million in cash and 11 million shares of Excite stock.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In September 2001, it was sold to American Greetings for $35 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In January 2000, the company launched a free internet access service.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That month, it partnered with Procter & Gamble to launch a site to market P&G products to teenagers.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In March 2000, Excite sponsored Infiniti IndyCar Series driver Eddie Cheever, Jr., for the 2000 and 2001 racing seasons in an estimated $3 million deal.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In May 2000, the company announced a web portal for mobile devices.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In September 2000, after the company announced losses, George Bell resigned.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In April 2001, the company announced that it needed financing to continue operations.<ref name=rise>Template:Cite news</ref>

In May 2001, Excite shut down the Magellan search engine.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In June 2001, Excite@Home raised $100 million in convertible note financing from Promethean Capital Management and Angelo Gordon.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It also raised $85 million from AT&T.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That month, Cox Communications and Comcast announced that effective December 4, they would stop using Excite@Home as the exclusive provider of their broadband Net service.<ref name=rise/>

In August 2001, the company fired its auditor, Ernst & Young, after it raised doubts about the company's ability to continue as a going concern.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Promethean then demanded partial repayment of its note.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> That month, Excite.com was the 7th most visited site on the world wide web, with 28.7 million unique visitors.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

On October 1, 2001, Excite@Home filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection with the United States District Court for the Northern District of California and sold its broadband internet access business to AT&T for $307 million in cash.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In December 2001, iWon and InfoSpace acquired Excite for $10 million. The company was rebranded as Excite Network.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2002, Itochu increased its interest in Excite Japan to 90%.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

2004-present

In March 2004, Ask Jeeves acquired Excite.com and iWon.com for $150 million in cash and 9.3 million shares of Ask Jeeves.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Excite@Home headquarters for sale.jpg

Excite@Home headquarters for sale in December 2005. The buildings have since been re-purposed as a medical facility.

In May 2005, Ask Jeeves acquired Excite Europe from Tiscali for €6.1 million.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Ask Jeeves was acquired by IAC Inc. that year.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In November 2006, Excite launched Excite MIX, personalized homepages.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Excite shut down its webmail service effective August 31, 2021.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

See also

• List of search engines

External links

• Template:Official website