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glam.com
Glam Scam
Glam acquires U.K. ad network, at cost of female demographic
Can Glam Media keep up the pretense of being a way for advertisers to reach a mostly female audience much longer? The ad network has used some of its latest $85 million in debt and equity funding to acquire London-based Monetise. Monetise is an ad network that buys inventory low, aggregates it, and then sells it a bit higher — just like Glam! Except that Monetise's clients are outfits like Flixster, TVGuide.co.uk, and ArtistDirect — none of which sound like they serve overwhelmingly female audiences. The move does allow Glam to grow its raw numbers of represented sites at such a pace that clueless investors may continue funding it at ridiculously high valuations, giving Glam more cash to continue the process — until someday, somebody buys the whole thing and the founders walk away. More »
online advertising
The $1.3 billion Glam scam
Did anyone actually offer to buy Glam Media for $1.3 billion? We asked sources familiar with the company and its publishing partners. The one-word answer: No. The two-word answer: No way. The non-verbal answer: giggles. So who's the source of the rumor? Probably Glam CEO Samir Arora himself. Says an indury source: "Everybody tells me that they think Samir's saying it to puff himself up." For the record, this is our theory of choice, too. But someone close to the company, offered a fascinating but less plausible theory. More »
5:00 PM on Thu May 29 2008
By Nicholas Carlson
2,362 views,
10 comments
Latest by n/a: @adsallday: where do you get your news. you are wrong, like all others on here, on many others. i know rocca and he was with glam for over a year and was not fired from gorilla. lets educate everyone. more »
rumormonger
Ad network Glam Media turns down $1.3 billion buyout
A source close to Glam Media — the ad network that rounds up websites for women and then resells their ad inventory at higher prices to advertisers targeting the demographic — told VentureBeat the company has turned down a $1.3 billion acquisition offer. Glam turned down the offer because it expects a "bigger opportunity" down the road — perhaps an IPO. One of Glam's own partners tells us it'd be "crazy of them if they did." And likewise, we've never taken much stock in Glam's business model. (Disclosure: Our parent company, Gawker Media, owns Jezebel, which competes with some sites in Glam's network.) More »
rumormonger
Tipster: Glam Media acquires StyleMob
A tipster tells us Glam Media has purchased San Francisco-based fashion blog StyleMob — owned and operated by MobLogic, Inc. — "for chump change and stock (a.k.a more chump change." The StyleMob founders aren't happy about it, the tipster adds. More »
online advertising
Glam Media raises $84 million, far short of its $200 million goal
Glam Media, the women-focused ad network, has raised $84.6 million, leaving the company valued at a rich $500 million. That still falls short of founder Samir Arora's hopes: According to a private-placement document circulating last year, he was seeking $200 million. Why'd he fall short? More »
glam.com
Why Tim Draper's latest virus isn't catching
Glam Media is the "fastest growing company on the face of the earth," according to its backer, the always hyperbolic Tim Draper. In an interview with AlwaysOn's Tony Perkins, Draper compares Glam, an online ad network, to past investments like Hotmail and Skype. But aside from enjoying his backing, there's little resemblance. A better comparison? Enron, another company with metastasizing revenues. More »
exits
Yahoo exodus continues apace
Would the last Yahoo to leave Sunnyvale please turn off the lights? Glam Media has hired Kiumarse Zamanian, an engineer with several patents to his name, to run its ad platform. Chris Szeto, a key developer of Yahoo Messenger has joined Meebo, the instant-messaging startup. Their new employers would have you think that they left for "exciting new challenges." But the truth is their departures say far more about Yahoo.
exclusive
Glam Media raising a round -- but far less than it hoped for
Samir Arora, the Valley's most talented flim-flam artist, has convinced investors to put in a fresh round of financing into Glam Media, his online-ad network. The deal could be announced as soon as tomorrow. The amount raised: Between $30 million and $100 million, we hear, valuing the company at as much as $400 million. A lofty figure, given Glam's scant sales — but Arora had sought a $200 million round, and a valuation in the range of $800 million to $1 billion. The premise of that valuation: The 25 million monthly visitors to sites in Glam's network, many of them female. But investors likely figured out that Glam doesn't own most of the sites those people visited. More »
online advertising
Glam's flim-flam campaign draws NBC to compete
Give Samir Arora this much credit: The founder of Glam Media is an excellent salesman. Especially when pitching a gullible press corps. Folio is the latest to take the bait. The magazine swallows Arora's line that as an ad network, Glam deserves comparison to wholly-owned media properties. (Such as, I should mention, Jezebel.com, the women's site published by Gawker Media, the owner of Valleywag.) It's nonsense, of course. But when Deborah Fine, CEO of NBC Universal's iVillage, points this out, she's portrayed as a disgruntled rival, not a voice of reason. Too bad Folio didn't listen to her, or talk to stock analysts, or do anything, really, besides transcribe what Arora told the magazine. Brokering ads on thin margins is a rough business, and one in which Glam competes with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. And now, NBC. More »
Glam Media, the online-ad network spuriously posing as a women's destination site in an effort to raise $200 million in private financing, is hiring new sales staff and executives. [Silicon Alley Insider]
online advertising
Glam Media not looking so beautiful
When raising money, it's best to keep investors guessing. The less they understand your business, the more likely they are to substitute optimism for analysis. At least, that seems to be Glam Media's hope. By touting itself as the best way to reach women on the Web, the online-advertising concern is hoping to rake in big bucks. A private-placement document (PDF) circulated by Bank of America and investment bank Allen & Co. says that the company aims to raise $200 million, and claims that Glam, with 19 million unique visitors a month, is growing faster than MySpace did before News Corp. acquired it. And VentureBeat reports that Glam is on the verge of signing a multiyear, $1 billion ad-sales deal. There are a few small problems with those displays of optimism, however. More »
marissa mayer
Marissa found on Newsweek
Breaking News! During a deep investigation, we found Google's most media-saturating executive hiding in plain sight on the cover of Newsweek that's been out for days. Marissa Mayer's anti-biometric face-morphing technique ensured that millions of web programmers would stream right past her in the checkout line. God she's advanced. More »
marissa mayer
