iVillage’s Retooling, Again; Glam’s $200 Million Hopes
By Rafat Ali - Sun 12 Aug 2007 10:34 PM PST
iVillage’s retooling is almost complete, and NBCU (NYSE: GE) sincerely believes it will work this time, from the failed but now redone and soon-to-relaunch TV show iVillage Live, to the new integrated sales team for the site. NYTimes has a detailed story on the efforts, with acknowledgment that things were and still are tough for iVillage. Among the half-hearted efforts like trying to promote iVillage on the big “Today” show on NBC didn’t help, but now new ways of doing it are finally happening. Also, the planned move of iVillage to New Jersey has been postponed, the story says.With loss of Hearst with the iVillage sale, NBCU has secured new partners to replace Hearst, including TheKnot.com, and Sugar Publishing, a site/company it invested in recently. As a side note, the story says NBCU is looking to buy Oxygen, the women-focused cable network, not that the network is burning the charts with ratings.
Meanwhile, competition from the likes of Glam.com and others smaller sites hasn’t helped. Speaking of Glam, TechCrunch reports that Glam is raising a big $200 million round, and takes the site/network to task for portraying itself as a destination network, when it is in fact an ad network focused on the woman’s sector. The company has also been controversial about claiming they’re the biggest woman’s focused destination online, surpassing iVillage, when it is adding up the traffic numbers for the sites is is selling ads on.
The company has raised about $30 million in three rounds, so this huge raise is a bit of a stretch. From the document leaked in the story (also leaked to VentureBeat), Glam revenues for 2007 will be $21 million, and it is projecting a big jump to $150 million next year. Losses this year are expected to be around $3.7 million, but next year it expects a profit of $39.1 million.
Posted in: Companies, NBC Universal, IVIL, VC+M&A
