In a move that has set off the water-cooler debates in our office, Overture continues its aggressive moves into the European market with the opening of offices in the Netherlands yesterday. The new outlet is the fifth European branch office opened in the last two years, joining offices in the UK, France, Germany and Italy. Overture plans further expansions into Spain, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia, Belgium and Ireland by the middle of 2004.

Based in Pasadena California, Overture pioneered the business of bid-per-click/position listings and is one of the few successful businesses fostered by start-up incubator, Idealabs. While advertisers bid for prominent positions and are charged by the click-through, the search firm makes the bulk of its revenues through the distribution of search results MSN and Yahoo. With over 60% of its income stemming from two major players, Overture may be building on a foundation that sits atop a pile of quick-sand. MSN is likely going to drop Overture results in the near future as it ramps out its own search engine and Yahoo is about to acquire Overture and all its properties and assets. With the loss of MSN as a partner and a likely revaluing of Yahoo's financial input, Overture's future growth may not be 99.999% solid. Nevertheless, revenues from 2002 were great and projections for 2003 are even greater, following the general trend of rapid growth in the search sector.

The vast majority of Overture's business continues to come from the US with $635.11 million of a total reported $667.73 million in revenues generated by US advertisers in 2002. Overture's projected 2003 targets are much higher at an estimated $1 billion in global revenues, $150 million of which will come from its European outlets.

Moving aggressively into Europe is a remarkable gamble for Overture but the company's history tells us that what appears to be a gamble, tends to pay off in the end. In the beginning, most industry watchers said that search engine advertisers would never go for a bid-for-placement scheme. The industry gurus were wrong and Overture revolutionized the search industry. The rest, as they say, is evolving history.