Google Slayer: Meet Meltwater, The Company That Conquered Google Alerts

The Mogul of Mentions: Starting with $15,000, Jorn Lyseggen built a version of Google Alerts before Google Alerts. And despite the big-foot competition, Meltwater has found the talent to forge a $300 million company.

A decade ago, with Google and Yahoo lumbering onto its turf, Jorn Lyseggen’s fledgling media-intelligence company, Meltwater, faced an existential challenge. Getting clients to pay Meltwater to track press mentions suddenly became a lot harder when Google Alerts was offering the...