Tony Pecora Joins Become.com from eBay; Industry Veteran Named Vice President of Business Development, Sales and Internet Marketing

Business Wire, Nov 8, 2005

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Become.com, the only vertical search engine to combine comparison shopping with web-wide research for finding buying guides and product reviews, today announced that it has hired Tony Pecora as vice president of business development, sales and Internet marketing. Pecora has extensive business development and Internet marketing experience with search engine and consumer focused companies including eBay, AltaVista and Compaq.

"Tony is one of the top business development executives in the search engine industry. We are thrilled to have him join an outstanding management team at Become.com to take the company to the next level," said Michael Yang, Founder, president & CEO of Become.com.

Pecora joins Become.com from eBay, Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY), where he oversaw the expansion of marketing channels on the eBay marketplace as senior director of Internet marketing and business development. Over the last three years Pecora managed the growth of eBay's Internet marketing programs both domestically and internationally. He also managed strategic partner relationships with search engine players including Google, Overture, Inktomi, MSN, Yahoo!, Shopping.com, and BizRate. Additionally, he was responsible for the strategy and business development efforts behind helping other major corporations develop sales channels on the eBay marketplace.

"I have had my eye on Become.com since its launch. I remain impressed with how this start-up company has gained the attention of industry experts and influencers and attracted such an extensive list of merchants in such a short time," said Pecora. "Vertical search engines are just beginning to emerge, and as consumers become more savvy, they will increasingly turn to specialized engines like Become."

Prior to eBay, Pecora was responsible for business development in AltaVista's consumer unit and held several business planning and development positions with Compaq Computer Corporation.

Pecora holds an M.B.A. with distinction from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, and he received his undergraduate degree from the United States Military Academy. Before his high tech career began he was an assistant professor of economics at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and spent nine years with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers where he worked in Turkey, Honduras, Korea, Panama, Germany, Italy, France and England.

About Become.com

Become.com is a new search engine and comparison shopping site that helps people find product reviews and buying information on millions of products and shop for those products from brand name retailers from across the web. Founded by Michael Yang and Yeogirl Yun, founders of pioneering online comparison shopping site mySimon, Become.com indexes over 3 billion pages of shopping related information and uses proprietary AIR(TM) (Affinity Index Ranking) technology to deliver targeted and relevant information for shopping searches.