Excite had an adequate, if not spectacular second quarter putting the internet search engine company back on the rails from which it fell in the first three months of the year. Back then it managed to record only last minute revenues from its deal with America Online Inc whereby the Excite engine is used in AOL’s NetFind service. Second quarter net losses were $7.9m or $0.63 per share, down from $15.4m losses last time, on revenues that rose to $9.5m, from $2.8m previously. First Call had been expecting losses of $0.56 per share. The biggest deal for the Redwood City company in the second quarter was the investment by Intuit Inc and the seven year agreement to distribute Intuit’s Quicken Financial Network as one of Excite’s new channels. Intuit pumped some $40m into Excite for a 19% stake. AOL holds a further 20%. Excite also struck a major advertising deal with online bookseller Amazon.com Inc for the next three years. Last year’s figures also included a $10m payment to Netscape Communications Corp for its Premier Partner program, and this year, under a re- negotiated deal, Excite coughed up $1.6m this quarter, which further emphasized Excite relatively slow progress so far. Meanwhile, Excite announced that it was to offer free e-mail through its web site, which should boost traffic quite a bit. Net losses for the six months were $16.7m, after merger-related charges totaling $2.5m, down from $21.1m last time, on revenues that were up to $17.0m, from $4.2m the previous year.
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