CMGI’s online auctioneer uBid will be promoted across Web portals Excite.com and iWon.com, through a new promotional deal with the Excite Network.
The Irvington, N.Y.-based Excite Network, which was formed in November through the acquisition of the Excite.com portal by rival iWon.com following the collapse of Excite@Home, said it would carry all of uBid’s listings on both of its major sites.
Financial terms were not disclosed.
Under the agreement, which extends a year-old deal with iWon.com, Chicago-based uBid becomes the exclusive provider of online auctions to both Excite and iWon. Co-branded sites will carry uBid listings, and the agreement also calls for the advertising of both uBid and the co-branded sites throughout both Excite.com and iWon. Sponsorship of particular areas of the sites is expected to be a component of the deal.
Additionally, uBid will continue providing computer and consumer electronics equipment to the iWon Rewards Store, which allows users to redeem points that they receive for spending time on and interacting with iWon.com.
The deal broadens uBid’s reach to consumers. Together, iWon.com and Excite.com received about 16.4 million visitors during February, according to Jupiter Media Metix , placing the network among the top-20 Internet properties by visitors. (At about the time of the merger, Excite had been ranked fourteenth, with about twice the traffic of iWon.)
“Excite and iWon can now provide their audience with an exciting, leading-edge auction technology format featuring brand name merchandise,” said Tim Takesue, acting chief executive officer of uBid. “As two of the Web’s leading sites, iWon and Excite will help generate traffic and exposure for the millions of items available on uBid.”
The move continues a string of recent distribution and promotional agreements that uBid, which competes with e-commerce heavyweights like Amazon.com and eBay
, has inked with major Web portals to broaden its reach.
In December, uBid signed a deal with Microsoft’s MSN, making the auctioneer the premier provider of content and products on MSN’s Auctions Channel. That deal also gave uBid a permanent advertising slot in several product categories in MSN’s eShop area, which links to affiliated merchants.
Earlier last year, the site announced similar agreements with Yahoo! and with Primedia’s
About, Inc.
