BTLookSmart, the joint venture between BT
and LookSmart,
Friday signed with
free Italian ISP Infinito for search
and directory services.
Currently serving over 200,000 subscribers, despite being launched as
recently as three months ago, Infinito will incorporate a BTLookSmart
branded search box on its site.
In addition, BTLookSmart will provide Infinito with a directory of over
35,000 leading Italian web sites, plus access to the huge LookSmart
international directory with its 1.5 million URLs in 100,000 categories.
“The rapid growth of Infinito demonstrates the enormous opportunity
the European market represents for us,” said Tim Pethick, vice president
of International for LookSmart.
Paul Minihan, general manager of Infinito, said users would appreciate
the high quality of the information, and the fact that the sites have
been reviewed by a team of experts.
In the United States, LookSmart reaches over 45 million users every month.
Its joint venture with BT will give it preferential access to 34.9 million
wireless accounts in Europe and Asia when they become enabled for the
Internet.
To date, LookSmart has built directories for 17 countries, and has web
sites in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore,
Malaysia and New Zealand. Over 370 ISPs and 0.6 million web sites use
a LookSmart search solution.
BTLookSmart says its objective is to become the leader in online navigation
throughout Europe and Asia.