21
Jan
A new German startup company is undertaking the ambitious (if not impossible) task of taking on the search giant Google. The company is called Proximic and was founded in 2001 in Munich by a mathematician named Thomas Nitsche, and an internet entrepreneur by the name of Phillip Pieper.
In a deal announced on the 16th of January, Proximic will supply its search technology to Yahoo! Shopping and eBay’s Shopping.com websites. Proximic claims their patent-pending pattern matching technology can deliver contextual advertising that is far superior in accuracy than Google’s solution.
Proximic says it can not only handle more ads but also do a better job than Google at matching online buyers and sellers. That’s a big claim for a company with just 14 employees. After all, in the first three quarters of 2007, AdSense generated around $3.5 billion for its partners. And, unlike Proximic, it has built up relationships with hundreds of thousands of publishers over a period of years. Google also provides tools to advertisers that give them control over targeting and placement.
