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U.S. business-to-business search engine Accoona has been acquired by Denmark-based business-to-business search engine Masterseek. Accoona launched in 2004 and has seen much of its success in China.

“We have worked intensely for the last two weeks in order to get all of the legalities and finances in place for the takeover and there is still a great deal of work in front of us to integrate and re-launch the search service,” states Rasmus Refer, founder of the Masterseek Corp.

Accoona will be re-launched (again) with integrated Masterseek data in the U.S. and China. Then it will be launched in Europe. The target date for the European release is January 2009.

As soon as Yahoo and MSN started accepting gambling ads, it was only a short time for Google to join them - as their announcement this week has shown. Obviously Google did not want their competitors grabbing the lucrative advertising revenue.

Like Yahoo UK, Google requires a license to be able to advertise - but they do allow companies licensed in their respective European countries to advertise which Yahoo has yet to introduce. MSN at this stage does not require licensing.

The push to allow online gambling in the US is moving forward with former NY senator Alfonse D’Mato part of the lobby for poker sites.

Seems legendary investor George Soros, who supposedly made a billion dollars trading on the foreign currency exchange, will have some competition from Google as they are now hedging against fluctuating currency exchange rates by investments in the forex market.

Cnet reports that Google has invested over $80 million dollars in forex trading hedges to offset the strengthening dollar against the global currencies many of their advertisers are paying them in.

Given that 51% of Google’s revenue comes from outside the United States, many large advertisers are given credit in their own currency which could be worth less at the time they actually pay Google.

The value of the US dollar against the euro, Canadian dollar and the British pound has increased substantially in recent weeks, thus Google gets less US dollars when someone pays them. The actual value of the clicks is done in US dollars at the base of the calculations, so Google advertisers get to pay less than what they would if there was just one currency used in the actual bidding.

Maybe the brothers Google want to emulate Soros who was part of the Google Author series that had CEO Eric Schmidt as part of the presentation.

His Wikipedia entry about his currency speculation profits may be alluring to the Google founders who have shown a penchant for aggressive investments into a number of markets.

“On Black Wednesday (September 16, 1992), Soros became immediately famous when he sold short more than $10 billion worth of pounds, profiting from the Bank of England’s reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency.

Finally, the Bank of England was forced to withdraw the currency out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and to devalue the pound sterling, and Soros earned an estimated US$ 1.1 billion in the process. He was dubbed “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

Be careful guys, it is a highly volatile market and we wouldn’t want you to lose money.

Microsoft has reached an agreement to acquire Greenfield Online, the owner of Ciao, a European price comparison and shopping site. This seems to be in line with Microsoft’s strategy of focusing on building up focused areas of search.

Ciao also includes consumer reviews and ratings with its search results. They boast a multimillion-user-strong online community and see more than 26.5 million unique visitors per month across seven countries. So far, more than 5 million product reviews have been generated.

Ciao joins Farecast, FAST, and Powerset in Microsoft’s portfolio of search-related acquisitions for 2008.

“Ciao’s success has been led by a team of talented people who took a unique combination of intuitive technology and the insight that comes out of their passionate consumer community to become one of Europe’s leading shopping comparison sites,” said John Mangelaars, vice president, Consumer and Online, Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa. “This makes the company a fantastic asset to the future of our search offer. Integrating Ciao’s capabilities into Live Search will provide a strong launchpad for our commercial search offer in Europe and enhance our e-commerce offering on MSN.”

Tel Aviv-based search engine marketing platform provider, Kenshoo, has announced plans to open an office in the United States. The office will be located in San Francisco. Kenshoo has a European subsidiary in London as well.

Kenshoo provides a third generation SEM platform called KENSHOO SEARCH.

“We see North America as a key market and are very happy to hit the ground running. Following our plan, we have decided to take the needed step and establish a local company. This move will help us expand our already solid base of U.S. customers while improving our service.” said Yoav Izhar-Prato, CEO of Kenshoo.

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Ex-Googler Kate Burns has been tapped by social networking site Bebo to head up their European operations, according to the Guardian. Burns previously was Google’s managing director for the UK. She also helped launch DoubleClick and AltaVista in the UK.

Bebo was recently acquired by AOL for $850 million. The site boasts 40 million members worldwide. AOL’s Platform-A recently announced a guaranteed CPM for Bebo developers. Platform-A was the largest ad network in March.

Also in March, Microsoft announced a data portability with 5 social networks, including Bebo. However, AOL joined Google’s OpenSocial initiative in May.

Google owns a 5% stake in AOL, and was recently given permission to unload the stock, though it has yet to do so.

Meanwhile, rumor of a possible Yahoo-AOL merger have reared its (ugly?) head again, but today reports are suggesting any deal would not be completed in July. Yahoo’s shareholder meeting is August 1.

Ever since the Yahoo! acquisition deal fell through, many have wondered what Microsoft will do to make headway in the search market. Shortly after, they launched Cashback, which seemed to indicate a dedication to build search internally. Then Bill Gates said that one of his post-retirement projects would be seach. Today, Microsoft is showing its commitment to developing Live Search with an announcement to build a Search Technology Center in Europe.

“Today Microsoft has 68 percent reach to Internet users throughout Europe through our online assets and strengths in display advertising; however, we’re not yet where we’d like to be in search in this critical geography,” said Kevin Johnson, president of the Platforms and Services Division at Microsoft. “Success in search in Europe is paramount, and we see the investment in this new Search Technology Center as an important step in doubling down on our long-term investments.”

Though no city was named, Microsoft said the European center will be modeled after their Search Technology Center in Beijing. Additionally, engineers may work from multiple locations to contribute to the search technology efforts conducted at the European hub.

“Searchers have different expectations and experiences in every geography in the world, so we believe it is critical to make deep investments in physical locations in multiple markets to ensure that we’re applying the best local expertise to our research and development efforts,” said Satya Nadella, senior vice president of the Search, Portal and Advertising Group at Microsoft. “We’re already doing some great work in Europe in the enterprise search space through our January 2008 acquisition of Fast Search & Transfer SA, and we’re looking forward to opening the European Search Technology Center to further our investments.”

What do you think about Microsoft’s announcement? Do you think they have what it takes to develop a more robust search product? Leave a comment and let us know.

Last week Disney World, this week Google Earth has expanded its 3D program to select countries in Europe. And with gas prices (and jet fuel!) higher than ever, many Google Earth users may use the apps to virtually wander the streets of their dream vacation destinations.

The European program is open to local governments in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and The Netherlands. Google hopes that those governments will upload local data in the hopes of displaying 3D visuals of their cities.

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AOL has announced the expansion of its online advertising solution, Platform-A, to Europe. The move is a natural one when considering AOL’s recent acquisition of UK-based social network Bebo and the European ties existing partners already have:

• Advertising.com has sales offices in nine countries in Europe
• ADTECH is based in Frankfurt, Germany
• buy.at is a leading affiliate network based in the U.K.

“By bringing Platform-A to Europe, we can offer advertisers the best marketing tools and technologies available to help them effectively and efficiently deliver their messages to online audiences across Europe,” said Randy Falco, AOL Chairman and CEO. “This builds on AOL’s strong presence in Europe, and positions AOL for growth in three key areas – publishing, people networks, and our advertising network.”

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Cambridge, Massachussets-based JumpTap has announced the expansion of their European mobile search and advertising network. The company is adding offices in Madrid, Spain and Stockholm, Sweden as part of the expansion. JumpTap pointed to recent projections from eMarketer, which see European spending tripling over the next three years, as part of the reason for the expansion.

“We are experiencing stellar renewal rates from our advertisers in Europe which is attributed to highly successful campaign results,” commented Dan Olschwang, president and CEO of JumpTap. “We have established our superior leadership working with the mobile advertising medium across global markets, and our clients are gaining a competitive advantage derived from our expertise and lessons learned.”

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