Diller Retools IAC to Compete With Web Ad Players

A decent story about Diller’s plans on moving IAC from just being e-commerce plays to online advertising driven businesses, including Ask.com and others. But as the story says, Diller has missed hitting any long balls on the Web. IAC didn’t see the early opportunity in social-networking sites. Its early acquisitions of travel-related sites like Expedia and Hotels.com initially looked smart but later ran into trouble as competition intensified. (IAC spun off Expedia last year).
Meantime, IAC’s acquisition-driven growth strategy makes it tricky for investors and analysts to measure the true performance of the company.
However, others are more hopeful: “Like a good baseball hitter, Diller is going to swing and miss but he’s going to have a good average over time,” says Peter Supino, an analyst with mutual-fund firm Wallace R. Weitz & Co., commenting from a stock investment perspective.

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