Excite said Wednesday it paid US$28.2 million to buy closely held Throw, a move that will help Excite offer "community" services on its Internet directories later this year.
Seattle-based Throw is working on software tools that let computer users set up homepages with advanced features like chat. An Excite (XCIT) spokeswoman wouldn't specify how Excite plans to use Throw's technology. She said, however, it is part of Excite's community strategy, to be unveiled later this year.
Communities are collections of personal Web sites. Companies like GeoCities let members set up sites on the Web for free. They then aggregate the sites into categories by interest, like sports, politics, and hobbies.
Internet directories are increasingly looking at communities to draw more viewers to their sites. Lycos (LCOS), an Excite rival, purchased Tripod for $58 million in stock in February.
Under terms of the current transaction, Excite exchanged 320,000 of its shares for Throw, a six-person operation. Based on Excite's Wednesday closing stock price of $88.25, it paid about $28.2 million.
Excite competes with Wired Digital's HotBot Internet directory.
