Spedia Unveils Surf+ Tech - Spedia.com launches Surf+ application - Brief Article

Brandweek, Feb 26, 2001 by Janis Mara

Spedia.com, an online incentives marketing company, this week will launch its Surf+ technology. The Web-based application gives participating search engines a new way for advertisers to better target ads via keywords. Surf+ will also allow users to block pop-up windows and cookies, and translate live online text into French, Italian, Spanish or German.

The Surf+ plug-in can be downloaded for free from Oakland, Calif.-based Spedia's site. Search engines pay an undisclosed licensing fee to use the technology. In addition to Surf+, Spedia.com offers games such as Solitaire and Tetris. Users garner reward points--which are redeemable for cash--by viewing ads.

Surf+ works as an overlay on users' browsers (currently only compatible with Internet Explorer) and can turn any word or phrase into a highlighted link that, when clicked, takes the user to a given search engine's results for that phrase. This is similar to NBCi's QuickClick offering.

"So, if you click on 'anthropology' in an article online, if Yahoo were a customer of Spedia's [currently, they are not], this would take you to Yahoo's results for the word 'anthropology,'" said Greg McAllister, national sales director for Spedia.com.

Essentially, Spedia.com is a distribution partner for search engines. Companies such as Google and FastSearch (not currently Spedia partners) are moving away from being destination sites and becoming more like technology companies seeking to distribute their service, usually by setting up search boxes on individual sites. Spedia offers these companies a unique way to catch users' eyes and give the users access to the search engines.

Spedia is betting that its two million registered users and other site visitors will download Surf+ both for its blocking and translation functions as well as the easier accessibility to search engine results. The company, which has been in existence for a year and a half, offers products such as SpediaBar, which rotates banner advertising, introduced in August 1999.

So far, Spedia has signed up one search engine, Kansas City, Mo.-based SearchHound.com, a "pay-per-ranking" intelligent search engine that makes it possible for smaller companies to place bids on keywords. The Surf+ application will be integrated into the SearchHound.com site over the next two weeks.