Glam Media

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Glam Media, Inc.
Type Privately held
Founded Flag of the United States2003
Founder Samir Arora, Ernie Cicogna, Dianna Mullins, Raj Narayan, Fernando Ruarte
Headquarters 8000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 130, Brisbane, California, Flag of the United StatesU.S.
Key people Samir Arora, Founder, Chairman and CEO
Fernando Ruarte, Co-Founder, CTO, and VP Engineering
Raj Narayan, Co-Founder and Architect
Ernie Cicogna, Co-Founder and CFO
Dianna Mullins, Co-Founder and VP Product Operations
Scott Schiller, Chief Revenue Officer
Bernard Desarnauts, VP Products and Marketing
John Trimble, VP Sales
Scott Swanson, VP & GM Publisher Network
Joe Lagani, VP & GM Glam Living
Jennifer Salant, VP Business Development
Industry Internet, Media, Fashion
Products Glam.com, media network
Employees 90 (2007)
Website Glam Media

Glam Media, Inc. is a privately held company that runs a network of more than 400 lifestyle websites and blogs, providing an advertisement platform for fashion-oriented brands. Glam Media is best known for Glam.com, a style website targeted at women and having high visitor numbers.

Contents

[edit] History

Glam Media was founded in 2003 by former NetObjects CEO Samir Arora together with a group of veteran software engineers who already worked together at NetObjects, Inc., amongst them Raj Narayan and Fernando Ruarte.

The business plan was to develop a website focusing on fashion in order to bring brand advertisers to the Web. In the view of the Glam founders, women and their interests were underserved online and so the website was envisaged to attract female customers for advertisers by recreating the look and feel of printed fashion magazines.

The company evolved with an approach similar to the network-TV model. Glam owns and operates a dozen women's fashion sites and provides a showcase and ad platform for a few hundred small publishers (the affiliates).[1][2]

Initial financing was provided by Samir Arora's Information Capital LLC and $10 million in series B financing led by Accel. In December 2005, the Glam Publisher Network was launched, and in December 2006 a funding of $18.5 million in series C financing was closed. In summer 2007, Glam reported a multi-year ad deal with Google [3] and is reported to be raising more funds with a campaign under the guidance of the Bank of America and Allen & Company.[4][5][6][7][8][9]

In late 2007, Glam hired executives including senior sales executive John Trimble from Fox Entertainment Group to head up new market sales[10][11] and publisher Joe Lagani from House & Garden (Condé Nast Publications)[12] to lead the new living channel.[13]

In November 2007, Glam Media teamed up with cable network Lifetime Television to develop co-branded and shared content. As a result of the cooperation, Lifetime has relaunched their website myLifetime.com. Glam Media "will initially leverage their aggregated blogs and articles to power a “Beauty & Style” channel on the Lifetime website; conversely, Lifetime will lend broadband video, interactive media, and future original content to enhance Glam’s offerings".[14][15] Glam announced the partnership as a "new vertical media network" which the company sees itself pioneering[16] giving media companies "networks with all the glory and none of the headaches of building their own."[17]

In February 2008, Glam and Hubert Burda Media, one of the biggest German media companies, announced a cooperation which opened the American market fur Burda. Burda was also introduced as one of the investors in series D financial funding summing up this round to $84.6 million.[18] "Once convertibles are factored in, the post-money valuation of the company is a robust $500 million. Just 17 months ago, the company was valued at mere $150 million", wrote Venture Beat's Matt Marshall[19]. Burda's executive Christiane zu Salm joined the Glam board as an observer[20].

At the same time the cooperation with Germany's Burda started, Glam announced it will start operating in United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan in 2008.[21]

Further pronouncing parallels to the print world, Glam in January, 2008, introduced a "primetime placement technology" based its display ad platform "Glam Evolution" to ensure desired placements on the Glam website for brand advertisers.[19][22] Yahoo engineer Kiumarse Zamanian was hired to lead the Glam Evolution as Vice President.[23]

[edit] Competition and Performance

In March 2008, Glam Media had more than 34 million unique visitors a month in the U.S., reaching #17 on comScore 100 list[24], up from #28 in January 2008[25] and #23 in October 2007.[26]

As of 2007, Glam had overtaken other women-oriented fashion sites like iVillage or AOL Living.[5][27]

As a private held company, Glam Media does not publish financial reports. Nonetheless a company presentation published for investors in August 2007 speaks of an expected revenue around $20 million in 2007 and reaching EBITDA positive in late 2007.[8] Other sources indicated a projection of $25 million for 2007[28] Numbers that leaked in June, 2007, were only showing a revenue of $1.34 million in the first quarter of 2007 and projecting a total of $11 million in 2007.[29]

[edit] Ad network or distributed media company?

Glam.com on October 26, 2007
Glam.com on October 26, 2007

Business observers dispute whether Glam Media can be counted in the same category as some of the competition since Glam is an "amalgam of blogs and publishers that simply link in to the Glam network, which sells ads for its collection of sites."[4] Referencing the slowness in growth of big content sites and portals, naming AOL, New York Times Blogger Saul Hansell called Glam a "fashion oriented vertical blog ad network"[17].Opposed to Hansell, BuzzMachine blogger Jeff Jarvis sees Glam as both a content and an ad network and adds "in the end Glam is really a platform"[30][31].

The crucial issue of the discussion is whether traffic of the ad partners of Glam should be counted to Glam's traffic[32] . CEO Samir Arora describes Glam Media as an example of a distributed media company[4] opposed to a portal or ad networks. Along with its own programming, a distributed online media site curates or brints together content from other sites in its network. A mere ad network would rely on distributing online advertisements in various ways without focusing on distributing its own or third-party content as well. Glam’s ad serving and technology platform called "Glam Evolution" was established to let sites easily upload their stories into Glam.[1][30]

In a FOLIO story, Arora further pointed out the role of Glam in the publishing process: “Our editors are both editors and curators. We start by making sure a site is targeted to women, then we look at editorial quality, then how we can package brand advertising with this publisher in a way that will make the ads desirable."[28]

Analyst Greg Sterling of CNN Money commented: “Glam has the reach. So I don’t see the issue of whether they are a destination or a network as being worthy of that much debate.”[4]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Claire Cain Miller. Pretty in Pink. Forbes.com. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  2. ^ Glam Media. About Glam. Our Story.. Glam Media. Retrieved on October 24, 2007.
  3. ^ Mike Shields. Glam Strikes Deal With Google. 2007 Nielsen Business Media. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  4. ^ a b c d Paul R. La Monica. The Glam-orous Life. CNNMoney.com. Retrieved on October 17, 2007.
  5. ^ a b Matt Marshall. Women’s fashion network Glam raises $18.5 million at whopping valuation. VentureBeat. Retrieved on October 24, 2007.
  6. ^ Andrew Meyer. Glam Media Gets $18.5 Million And A CNET Chairman. TechCrunch. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  7. ^ Matt Marshall. Glam Media raising $200M, to announce Google deal. VentureBeat. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  8. ^ a b Glam Media 200,000,000 Private Placement. Bank of America. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  9. ^ Matt Marshall. Glam still raising up to $200 million in cash and debt, announcement coming soon. VentureBeat. Retrieved on February 19, 2008.
  10. ^ Senior Fox Interactive Executive John Trimble Joins Glam Media As Sales Evp. Glam Media. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  11. ^ Mike Shields. Glam Nabs Fox's Trimble. Nielsen Business Media. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  12. ^ Gavin O'Malley. Glam Media Hires Conde Nast Exec To Lead Living Channel. MediaPost Communications. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.
  13. ^ House & Garden magazine subsequently was closed after losing it's publisher. Megan K. Scott. Say goodbye to House & Garden magazine. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved on November 9, 2007.
  14. ^ Andy Angelos. Lifetime to use Glam's Managed Vertical Network. Mashable!. Retrieved on November 18, 2007.
  15. ^ Alex Woodson. Lifetime Goes Glam With Site Relaunch. Nielsen Business Media, Inc.. Retrieved on November 18, 2007.
  16. ^ Glam Media (2007-11-12). "Lifetime Networks partners with Glam Media To Develop New Vertical Media Network". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-11-14.
  17. ^ a b The New York Times Company (2007-12-13). "Glam Lets Rivals Copy Its Ad Network Plan, and Takes a Cut". Press release. Retrieved on 2007-11-14.
  18. ^ Kevin J. Delaney and Emily Steel. Online Ad Networks Raise Big Money In Latest Efforts. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved on February 25, 2008.
  19. ^ a b Matt Marshall. Woman’s network Glam raises $84.6 million at half a billion valuation, Adconion raises $80M. VentureBeat. Retrieved on February 25, 2008.
  20. ^ Glam Media raises $85 million in private strategic financing. Glam Media. Retrieved on February 25, 2008.
  21. ^ Glam Media (2008-02-25). "Glam Media, ranked as number one in women online, launches global expansion and UK operations". Press release. Retrieved on 2008-02-25.
  22. ^ Glam Media (2008-01-24). "Glam Media introduces the first Internet Premium Ads-primetime Placement". Press release. Retrieved on 2008-02-29.
  23. ^ Michael Learmonth. Glam Media Hires Yahoo Engineer. Silicon Alley Insider, Inc.. Retrieved on February 19, 2008.
  24. ^ comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Ranking for March. comScore, Inc.. Retrieved on April 27, 2008.
  25. ^ comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Ranking for January. comScore, Inc.. Retrieved on April 27, 2008.
  26. ^ comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Ranking for October. comScore, Inc.. Retrieved on December 13, 2007.
  27. ^ Matt Marshall. Women’s online network, Glam, fastest growing on the Web. VentureBeat. Retrieved on October 24, 2007.
  28. ^ a b Bill Mickey Miller. Glamorizing Brands. Red 7 Media, LLC. Retrieved on February 25, 2008.
  29. ^ Nick Denton. Glam's leaked sales numbers. Valleywag.com. Retrieved on February 19, 2008.
  30. ^ a b Jeff Jarvis. Glam: The success of the network. Retrieved on November 18, 2007.
  31. ^ Jeff Jarvis. DLD: The network model. Retrieved on February 19, 2008.
  32. ^ Matt Marshall. Glam to sign $1 billion ad deal — and draws critics. VentureBeat. Retrieved on November 2, 2007.

[edit] External links