Profile: Vertro, Inc. (VTRO.O)

Vertro, Inc., formerly MIVA, Inc., is an Internet company that owns and operates the ALOT product portfolio. The Company operated its range of products and services through two divisions: MIVA Direct and MIVA Media as of December 31, 2008. MIVA Direct offers home page, desktop application and Internet browser toolbar products under the ALOT brand. The ALOT Home Page, ALOT Desktop and ALOT Toolbar are designed to make the Internet easy for consumers by providing direct access to affinity content and search results. The products generate approximately two million Internet searches per day. MIVA Media connected buyers and sellers online by displaying advertisements in response to consumer search or browsing activity on select Internet properties. Prior to the MIVA Media Sale, MIVA Media was an auction based pay-per-click advertising network that was operated across North America and in Europe. On March 12, 2009, Adknowledge, Inc. acquired MIVA Media, the media division of the Company.

MIVA Direct

The ALOT products offer consumers direct links to a range of content and provide search functionality, utilizing search results and ad listings primarily from third-party providers. The ALOT Home Page Website at http://home.alot.com is offered to consumers as a default destination for their Internet browser and the ALOT Desktop and ALOT Toolbar products are made available as a free download.

MIVA Direct competes with IAC, MSN, Google, Yahoo! and Conduit.com.

MIVA Media—Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Publishing Network

Prior to the MIVA Media Sale, MIVA Media operated an online auction based Pay-Per-Click Advertising network within North America and in Europe. Advertisers and advertising agencies used the MIVA Media network to create, manage, and execute targeted pay-per-click advertising campaigns to reach the customers. MIVA Media then syndicated its advertising listings to online publishers who use the MIVA Media network to generate recurring revenue from their online properties.

The MIVA Media pay-per-click network primarily operated in the United States, United Kingdom and France. The Company offered advertisers a bid for position auction model where the advertiser specified the amount they were willing to pay for their desired placement in the listings. The Company offered a number of targeting options to advertisers depending on their specific campaign objectives. These options included run of network, where advertisers got distribution of their ads; keyword targeting, where advertisers specified keywords that triggered their ads to appear on the MIVA Network; and precision or custom targeting where ads were displayed only on a customer selected set of publishers based on the advertiser's objectives. The benefits for MIVA Media advertisers included pay for results, range of targeting options, custom campaign management and customer service.

The MIVA Media publisher network was comprised of third party and MIVA-owned online properties, including portals, vertical and category specific content Websites, commerce Websites, community Websites, search engines and directories.

MIVA Media competes with Google, MSN, Yahoo!, IAC/InteractiveCorp (Ask.com), InfoSpace, LookSmart, Marchex and 7Search.