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POPULARITY OF ALTAVISTA'S MULTIMEDIA SEARCH SOARS
AltaVista Experiences More Than a 150% Increase in the Past Year in Daily Searches of its Image, Audio and Video Index - the World's Largest Multimedia Database on the Web
PALO ALTO, Calif., September 22, 2003 - AltaVista, a business of Overture Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: OVER) and a leading provider of search services and technology, announced an increase of over 150% in the past year in searches to its image, audio and video index - the largest multimedia database on the Web with over 580 million searchable files.
AltaVista (www.altavista.com) indicated that the popularity of multimedia search across its global network has dramatically increased over the past two years, by 300%. Further analysis reveals that as more and more consumers rely on multimedia content as part of their daily Web usage, traffic to AltaVista search spikes during breaking news cycles and popular events with mass appeal. Consistently, top ranking female celebrity searches include Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears, Carmen Electra, Christina Aguilera, Beyonce and Anna Kournikova. Leading male celebrity searches include Justin Timberlake, Orlando Bloom, David Beckham and Michael Jordan.
"This is an amazing phenomenon and indicative of the increasing popularity of multimedia on the Web," said Jim Barnett, President of Overture's Web Search Division including AltaVista. "There is an obvious need to provide consumers with the most up to date image and audio/video files, and AltaVista delivers leading search capability with the largest multimedia index available anywhere."
AltaVista's expanded multimedia index catalogs 570 million comprehensive, high-quality image files and over 13 million video and audio files, including popular formats such as MP3 and Windows Media and Real streaming formats. Included in the index are hundreds of millions of files published in countries around the world, enhancing the user experience across AltaVista's U.S. and international Web sites. Additionally, AltaVista helps people find exactly what they’re looking for by offering refinement features in its image search that enables consumers to customize searches by dimension - color, source, size and duration.
"We’re meeting the increased user demand for image, audio and video searches by providing the largest - and most comprehensive - multimedia index of any search engine," said Fred Bullock, AltaVista’s Senior Vice President of Marketing. "With an increase of 300% in the past two years, we are the clear leader in multimedia search features and functionality."
About AltaVista
AltaVista, a business of Overture Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: OVER), is a leading provider of search services and technology. AltaVista continues to advance Internet search with new technologies and features designed to improve the search experience for consumers. Based in Palo Alto, Calif., AltaVista has a rich history of innovation embodied in 61 search-related patents. On July 14, 2003, Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) signed a definitive agreement for Yahoo! to acquire Overture Services, Inc. subject to certain conditions. For more information on AltaVista, see www.av.com.
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