It definitely appears to be the long-awaited sale of InfoSpace, albeit by piecemeal. The sale to Idearc Media definitely makes sense and gives them a very strong place in the global online people and business search market. Whenever I have the need to look up a U.S. phone number (as I’m Canadian, it’s not often), I turn to Switchboard.com, especially since InfoSpace gave it a very elegant, pop-up and pop-under free web design. I don’t even think of “yellowpages.com”, which is owned by R.H. Donnelley if I’m not mistaken.

One thing that puzzles me, too, is why aren’t the metacrawlers going with Switchboard.com? I’ve always been more fond of InfoSpace’s metacrawlers even they’re slower growing and less profitable than mobile. However, mobile is volatile. What was once InfoSpace’s cash cow is now their albatross necklace, forcing them to swallow losses for the first time in years.

I still think the metacrawlers have strong value, if nothing else than for sale to a domain aggregator and monetizer like Internet REIT or Marchex. However, if the price were right, I could definitely see IAC/InterActiveCorp picking these up for another couple hundred million. If mobile gets a couple hundred million too, coupled with cash on hand, they could then buy up all the outstanding shares and wind down the business from a legal sense.

A little bit messier as opposed to a clean buyout, but it works. Shareholders should still be pleased.

Cheers,
Doug