• by Shankar Gupta , March 28, 2006

Former Intermix CEO and MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt, who has built a reputation in the industry as a turnaround expert, has been appointed Chairman of the Board at search marketing firm iCrossing. The company also tapped Don Scales, recently resigned CEO of Agency.com, as chief operations officer.

During Rosenblatt's tenure with Intermix, the company's market capitalization grew from roughly $70 million to nearly $600 million in 18 months, and was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $580 million.

Despite Rosenblatt's reputation as a turnaround expert, however, he said that iCrossing is not looking to be sold. "I appreciate that reputation, but sometimes reputations--you can't change," he said. "I wouldn't take this as a sign that this company is looking to be sold. I think this company should go public in the future."

Rosenblatt said he was attracted to iCrossing because of its leadership in the field of natural search. "I've been spending a lot of time with Intermix and MySpace, thinking about how visitors are going to get to certain Web sites," he said. "People are going to get to Web sites through direct navigation or natural search. ICrossing is building their tools, building their infrastructure--and is out there talking to their customers about natural search, and that puts them in the lead. After looking throughout the market, it seemed like iCrossing was the right company to lead that market."

iCrossing CEO Jeff Herzog said that natural search would indeed be central to the company's efforts. "Natural search is at the core," he said. "It's more to how to people naturally use the Web, where do they click, and what is the benefit to the company that makes that connection. Those are the things that we're focused on."

With Scales' appointment as COO, Rod Lenniger, who previously held that position, will become executive vice president for technology, marketing and administration.