Hitwise on the block – $350 million opening bid

The Telegraph (UK) is reporting that website monitoring firm Hitwise is up for sale. The asking price: $350 million. The Telegraph lists United Business Media and Experian as possible purchasers of Hitwise.  I could see many types of firms interested in Hitwise, including Google. Clearly this data is very valuable and worth a lot of money in future potential. I have used the tool for a couple of years and found it to be a better monitoring tool than say, Alexa. Is it perfect? Nope. Though using Hitwise will cost you a pretty penny.

The company, founded in 1997 by Australian internet entrepreneurs Andrew Barlow and Adrian Giles, has investment from Allen & Buckeridge and Insight Venture Partners. It has since moved its headquarters to U.S., to New York City.

Li from SearchMarketingGurus says:

This should be an interesting item to keep an eye on. With Hitwise's recent strides into the market space once dominated by comScore and Neilsen, they have certainly made a name for themselves as the place to go to get "true traffic" number and "competitive traffic data" for your own market space.

I will see if I can find out more at the Search Engine Strategies conference this upcoming week and will report back with any findings.