SeekSpots.com (Age 14 - 2001)
I was brought on to create a PPC search engine for The Spots Networks that would be called SeekSpots. The Spots Network was a group of sites (shoppingspots.com, datingspots.com, lovespots.com, and others) that made money from referral programs.
SeekSpots - Technical Side:
Web Services - Using XML feeds of search results as back-fill... XML was all the rage.
Merchant Services - Setting up background processing of credit card transactions.
More Ops - I got to setup and maintain lots of Microsoft technology.
More Ops - I got to setup and maintain lots of Microsoft technology.
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This is where SeekSpots.com was being hosted. My parents basement. |
SeekSpots - Business Side:
Connections
When searching for a back-fill provider, I found a search engine called SearchHippo.com which offered results via a free XML feed that I could use.
I thought it was quite cool and I e-mailed the creator to let him know that I planned to use SearchHippo to back-fill our own results. This person turned out to be Kevin Marcus who co-founded InfoSpace.com and became a bit of a mentor and helped me connect to others. We still keep in touch.
