Why CItySearch bought troubled Insider Pages?

Well, I don't know.

The rationale probably went something like this :
i) 2MM unique visitors
ii) Decent product that focussed more readily on areas outside entertainment
iii) An asset that could be monetized by Citysearch's sales force

Historically, I've been a huge fan of IAC. I saw them as the untold juggernaut of local -- they bought service magic, trip advisor, expedia and sidewalk (microsoft's asset that merged with citysearch). If you properly integrate these services you've got the best property for local search on the web. But, as awesome as they've been at acquiring companies, they've (from my outside perspective) been crappy at integrating and executing these assets.
So while the price may have been only 10 or 13MM dollars, I don't see what they're going to do with the asset(s).
If you saw my post the other day, I thought it made sense for one of the directory or yellow pages companies to buy the company. Oh well...shows what I know.

Comments

[Marcelo Calbucci]

Those are all good reasons. I don't know Insider Pages, but assuming it has some decent service, CitySearch might be acquiring the engineering force behind it as well, after all, there is nothing more "Web 1.0" than CitySearch and they might need some revamping.

BTW, IAC is probably the company struggling the most to join the "Web 2.0" party. Look at CitySearch, Expedia, Evite, Ticketmaster, etc. The have pathetic UI with pathetic rich experience, with pathetic amounts of ads per square inch of screen.

Hey, you should be happy about that, otherwise you might have become a member of the IAC family. :)