IAC’s RushmoreDrive.com: Is it Over?

June 9, 2009

The 38% of you who voted that Rushmore Drive would be the first to enter the deadpool may have hit the nail on the head. It seems as if Rushmore Drive, the search engine for the black community, may shut down as early as Friday of this week. Sources close to RushmoreDrive tell us that most of their employees, were handed their pink slips yesterday. This news comes just moments after the announced departure of CEO Johnny Taylor. The site, which was just over a year old, recently went through a major redesign that changed the focus of it’s homepage from content to search.

Black Web Enterprises, the parent company of RushmoreDrive, was officially announced by IAC in April of 2007 and subsequently launched their first product, Rushmore Drive, with a star-studded event at IAC’s Chelsea, NY headquarters. Amidst rave reviews by the media, Rushmore Drive was slated to revolutionize the search industry for the black community and identity search.

In July of 2008 RushmoreDrive tried their hand in the editorial space with the hiring of Nsenga Burton to serve as the Editorial Director to lead their two content offerings Detour and Daily Drive. Detour was last update yesterday morning around 11:00am (via the site’s RSS feed) and Daily Drive was last updated on June 5th.

In December of 2008, RushmoreDrive then focused their efforts on the email business with the launch of the RushmoreDrive.com’s email service. According to sources close to the company, email was a move to add value for the site’s existing users, others thought it was a ploy to stay in the news while the company further drifted away from their core search business.

In 2009 RushmoreDrive, announced strategic partnerships with a number of websites including; a content distribution deal with Global Grind, and Identity search technology for Vibe Media group properties. The company then turned their focus back onto their core search business with a major redesign of the front page, in May of this year.

IAC Corporate Communications have yet to confirm the pending demise of the site reported in this post.

Update via PaidContent:RushmoreDrive.com will be closing Friday, according to an IAC (NSDQ: IACI) spokeswoman who said the move is “part of our continued effort to rationalize the IAC emerging businesses.” The closure affects 17 employees; some people will be staying as the site’s business winds down and IAC said it will help others find new positions. As for the potential sale CEO Johnny Taylor mentioned in his resignation letter to staff, no comment but she did say the company had exhausted possibilities. According to April comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) numbers, the site had 439,000 uniques; internal tracking is higher (as is usually the case), around 600,000.

Category: News, Startups, web 2.0 | Tags: barry diller, IAC, johnny taylor, rushmore drive, RushmoreDrive

businessman

Honestly, I have been using the BlackWebPortal.com search engine for years. There site is a real portal and I believe the owner works the site in a part time mode.

Piepiepie

creative spam?

rob

Next on the list....GG?

facebook-25506863

I never really got this. Certain things that are black I get. Black Enterprise, I get. Black Web 2.0 I get. (I get it even more because tech crunch and Venture beat have yet to report this) But I never really got rushmoredrive. I am the last one to berate a firm, but looking at their multiple efforts to change their brand model just shows you that the "black search engine" was a great marketing play. I dont think that the people funding them had much faith in it. Microsoft has the #2 most visited website in the world and they still have not figured out the search game yet., with all of their money.

Constant rebranding of their constant business model shows me a few things.

1. New VC's didnt buy the original concept and force them to retool and bring in an editorial director to drive traffic to the site for other reasons than search. Then apparantly that didnt work because they were forced to partner up with Global Grind a Ad Network that only has original content that is pertaining to the Simmons Family.

Honestly I would have rather seen them go down as a decent search company that couldnt either receive enough traffic or funding. Not a company trying to find their identity as time was running out.

Too bad this could have been a powerful ad platform if they played their cards right. I wish the best to all of the employees who worked hard to keep their site up and running. Good luck

Frits Abell

You cannot sell what has little to no value. Boston based firm Progress Partners have been trying to peddle this property off for months. That is when you know you have reached the deadpool.