Careerbuilder.com is muscling out Monster on the Careers and Jobs section of the AOL portal in a four-year deal valued at up to $115 million. The deal, which takes effect in December, also provides for promotion with several Time Inc. interactive properties and on CNN.com.
The announcement won''t directly affect Monster''s revenue because the company makes its money from recruiters who place ads on the site. But of the 18.1 million monthly unique visitors to Monster.com, 2.6 million, or 14%, are directed there by AOL, said Jeetil Patel, a senior analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, citing data by Jupiter Media Metrix.
Worries about such a potentially significant decline in site traffic sent shares of parent company Monster Worldwide down $3.59, or 14%, to close at $22.51 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. Monster entered into a four-year, $100 million pact with AOL in 1999. The Washington Post reported earlier this year that the Securities and Exchange Commission was investigating whether the deal became simply a profitless exchange of advertising for which AOL improperly booked revenue.
Still, the prices of most such deals have gone down in recent years, and last month AOL reported a loss of 846,000 subscribers last quarter. Monster appears to have simply bet that the traffic AOL generated for the site wasn''t worth the price.
Careerbuilder in, Monster out on AOL
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