Searcharazzi: False Starts; iCrossing’s $62M

It was about to be one spicy Friday, as Searcharazzi received a call on Thursday from a recruiter looking to replace a top editor in the search space.

The conversation went something like this:

Recruiter: “Our client is looking to replace the top spot at [name of publication].”
Searcharazzi: “I thought that role was filled a month or so ago by [name of person]?”
Recruiter: “Didn’t last 2 weeks.”
Searcharazzi: “Are you sure?”
Recruiter: “Yes, I got this job req a few weeks back.”

As it turns out, our friend the recruiter had been wrong, very wrong, and frantically called back to clarify, leaving Searcharazzi without a good scoop. (How do these people keep their jobs???)

In any case, a few juicy tidbits have come in. To kick it off, we’re pondering what we would do with iCrossing’s additional $62 million in funding. Redherring covers the story here.

Searcharazzi interprets this cash as a sign of future consolidation. So who will it be? Another SEM? A handful of SEMs? A tech play? Or perhaps a very sizable creative firm? Our lips are sealed, but feel free to take your guess.

Over in the UK, our spies have intelligence that consolidation is occurring at a faster pace. The latest news is that online ad shop TradeDoubler picked up The Search Works and its sister company The Technology Works as part of a its £56 million acquisition of IMW Group. The firm plans to expand its range of services as well.

In the Direct Marketing field, R.H. Donnelley picked up Business.com for a whopping $345 million. The initial auction included IAC, the New York Times, Dow Jones and News Corp. R.H. Donnelley is perhaps best known for its yellow pages. Could it be that the big old yellow book companies have finally gotten it right? The jury is out.