InfoSpace
Infospace Inc., founded by Naveen Jain, is a mobile entertainment provider, a private label search engine and an online directory[1]. The company has two divisions, Infospace Mobile, and Infospace Search & Directory. They provide the WAP portal as well as ringtones, wallpapers, games and mobile search features for many US cellular carriers. InfoSpace's branded search sites include Dogpile, WebCrawler, MetaCrawler, Zoo.com and WebFetch. Switchboard was acquired by InfoSpace, Inc. in June 2004.
History
InfoSpace was founded in March 1996 by Naveen Jain after he left Microsoft as a senior executive of MSN. The company, starting with only six employees, built an online yellow pages service to be funded through advertising. Naveen Jain stayed on as its CEO until December 2002, when he left to start online information commerce company Intelius.
Infospace went public on December 15, 1998 closing up $5 at $20 a share. The company raised $75 million in the offering.[2]
In 2003, InfoSpace acquired Moviso[3] from Vivendi Universal Net USA. Moviso provides ringtones, wallpapers, and video games, usually accessed through a mobile handset enabling wireless carriers to charge a fee for these downloads.
September 2006 InfoSpace released news[4] that a carrier partner would be working directly with major recording labels thus negatively impacting their core business. This is expected to begin early 2007.
InfoSpace was trading at $18.31 as of October 2007.
Source
[1] Infospace Find It Service from GoMo News
[2] Fastsearch and Infospace relationship form GoMo News
[3] Infospace and Virgin Mobile from GoMo News
Additional Information
Naveen Jain; Forbes 400 Richest in America 2000
Naveen Jain; A success story
Naveen Jain; Biographical Information
Naveen Jain; The Innovative Leadership
Intelius.com; Another Successful Entrepreneurial venture by Naveen Jain
Naveen Jain; Stevie Award for Best New Company
A Resource for Information on Naveen Jain
Naveen Jain; Smarter than Bill Gates