BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : SEPTEMBER 27, 1999 ISSUE
COVER STORY -- E.BIZ -- THE E.BIZ 25 Kevin J. O'Connor KEVIN J. O'CONNOR DOUBLECLICK Position: Co-founder and CEO Contribution: Created the first Internet advertising network. Ambition: To achieve the Holy Grail of advertising: delivering the right ad to the right consumer at the right time. Four years ago, Kevin J. O'Connor helped revolutionize an industry he knew very little about when he started DoubleClick Inc., the first Internet advertising network. To his way of thinking, ignorance was an advantage. Being a tech guy who had already launched a communications software startup, he wasn't stuck in traditional ad-think. Instead, he and co-founder Dwight A. Merriman were able to spot something that the Web--unlike TV, radio, and print--was uniquely suited to do: instantly deliver ads to the right customers at just the right time. O'Connor's creativity didn't stop there--and that's why he stands out as the leading architect for the burgeoning Web advertising business. Instead of starting a company that simply created ads or bought banner ad space for a handful of clients, the 38-year-old entrepreneur focused on bigger game: building a brand new kind of advertising company tailored to the Web. Today, DoubleClick represents a network of 490 Web sites, including AltaVista, and serves as a middleman between them and 3,100 advertising clients, such as General Motors Corp. and Visa International. On top of that, it provides powerful technology used within the network and by other sites to measure ad performance. O'Connor's new ambition is to achieve the Holy Grail of advertising--true one-to-one marketing. He plans to match up the company's huge collection of consumer shopping data with the latest ad-targeting techniques. If O'Connor accomplishes that, advertising might finally live up to its promised potential on the Web. By Heather Green _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS The e.biz 25: Masters of the Web Universe COVER IMAGE: The e.biz 25 Commentary: The Great Equalizer? Not by a Long Shot TABLE: Who's Lagging in the Net Age [empire builders] Jeffrey P. Bezos AMAZON.COM INC. Stephen M. Case AMERICA ONLINE INC. Timothy A. Koogle YAHOO! INC. [the innovators] Louis H. Borders WEBVAN GROUP INC. Jay S. Walker PRICELINE.COM Margaret C. Whitman EBAY INC. Glen Meakem FREE MARKETS ONLINE INC. James H. Clark MYCFO INC. Christos M. Cotsakos E*TRADE GROUP INC. [bankrollers] Masayoshi Son SOFTBANK CORP., JAPAN Robert C. Kagle BENCHMARK CAPITAL Lawton W. Fitt GOLDMAN SACHS & CO. L. John Doerr KLEINER PERKINS CAUFIELD & BYERS   Bernard Arnault LVMH MOET HENNESSY LOUIS VUITTON   [the visionaries] Mary G. Meeker MORGAN STANLEY DEAN WITTER John Hagel III MCKINSEY & CO. William Joy SUN MICROSYSTEMS [the architects] Louis V. Gerstner Jr. IBM CORP. Pehong Chen BROADVISION INC. David C. Peterschmidt INKTOMI INC. Kevin J. O'Connor DOUBLECLICK Ellen M. Hancock EXODUS COMMUNICATIONS [the pace setters] David S. Pottruck CHARLES SCHWAB CORP. John T. Chambers CISCO SYSTEMS Michael S. Dell DELL COMPUTER INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

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