Tom McGovern (CEO of Snap) interviewed on CNBC

Tom McGovern was one of a select few next generation search engine CEOs that was interviewed for a CNBC interview series 'The Search Is On For The Next Google'. Tom had his interview early this morning and it has since been posted on the CNBC site.

CNBC/Dow Jones Business Video
January 11, 2007 Thursday
Snap.com - CEO Interview
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CNBC/DOW JONES BUSINESS VIDEO 7:45 AM EST
Snap.com - CEO Interview

BYLINE: Becky Quick, Joe Kernen
GUESTS: Tom McGovern, Alan Murray
SECTION: BUSINESS
LENGTH: 760 words

BECKY QUICK, CNBC ANCHOR: It is the final installment of our search for the next Google (GOOG) series. And today we are focusing on a company that hopes to capture your attention through pictures when you are trying to search things on the Web. We are tacking about Snap.com. Here now with more is Tom McGovern. He is the CEO of Snap.com, joining us from Burbank this morning.Mr. McGovern, thanks for being with us.

TOM MCGOVERN, CEO, SNAP.COM: Thank you. It is my pleasure.

QUICK: You know, there is a lot that has gone into this new type of search. We played around with your Web site, and I have to admit, it is interesting to see the results come up. I think we have got some video that shows you, as you are typing something in, you can actually scroll down and instead of having to click on the Web pages, your site gives us a preview. Why do you think this is going to bring in more people?

MCGOVERN: Well, first, Snap is the first search engine to offer users the ability to search through images of the Web pages. And that goes far beyond small snippets of text. And so the user`s ability to look at a Web page and discern if that is something that is of interest to them is much, much more advanced than being able to.

(CROSSTALK)MCGOVERN: . and wait and go back and forth from the Web search engine.

QUICK: We were just looking at some of those Snaps. How you do this? Because I thought for sure when I went and played around with this yesterday that it would take longer for you to be able to show me some of these pictures. But it actually happened pretty seamlessly.

MCGOVERN: Right. So when we crawl and index the Web, we also image the Web. So when do you a search at Snap, it is more like channel-surfing using your remote control on the television. So you look at the search result, you use your down arrow key or your mouse, you can scroll through it. And because we image the Web, we go far beyond just text indexing. You are able to very quickly see these pages. And that will actually speed users` ability to find what they are looking for.

QUICK: How many people are using your search engine right now?

MCGOVERN: So we started the company two years ago, launched the service last summer, and over the last six months have garnered quite a bit of traction in the marketplace. In the month of December, we had $1.6 million users of the service. And we have also expanded out from Snap.com and offered this to third-party Web sites. As of now, we have more than 600,000 bloggers and publishers that are using this preview feature — Web preview feature. And in the last month, we delivered more than 100 million previews to users.

ALAN MURRAY, ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITOR, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: As a long run strategy, can you really hope to compete with Google in this area? Or do you hope to sell to Google? I mean, what is the long — what is the endgame here?

MCGOVERN: Yes. Well, we are an independent company. And we want to build a big independent company. And we are the best search engine, if you are more right-brained, if you are more visual, you will find what you are looking for faster at Snap. So we are really focused on serving the users. We have this incredible growth right now. And so we are really not thinking much about the, you know, exit strategies or things like that.

MURRAY: But you must think a little bit, you know, right before you go to bed at night, maybe, let`s think a little bit about where this is leading us?

MCGOVERN: Well, right before I go to bed at night, I am thinking about how are we going to service the users the next day, because we are going through this explosive growth right now. And so my co-founder of the company and partner in the business, Bill Gross, he founded Overture Systems, which is now Yahoo!`s (YHOO) advertising search engine. And Overture was acquired three years ago by Yahoo! for $1.6 billion. And so that would be a nice outcome.

MURRAY: That is OK.

MCGOVERN: And after that transaction closed — yes, that is OK. And so after that transaction closed, he said, let`s get the band back together again and create the next big thing in search. And that is what we have delivered with (INAUDIBLE) — with Snap.com.

QUICK: Tom, we want to thank you for the time today. And we should point out you are taking about.

MCGOVERN: Well, thank you.

QUICK: . Bill Gross of Idealab, not of PIMCO. Good stuff. Tom, thanks for being with us.

MCGOVERN: That is right. Bill Gross the technologist.

QUICK: That is right.

MCGOVERN: That is right. Thank you very much.

JOE KERNEN, CNBC ANCHOR: You are very welcome.