Glam Media
Glam Media Inc. is an American Internet company headquartered in Brisbane near San Francisco. It is dedicated to typical women's issues such as fashion, health and lifestyle. With the Glam Media GmbH has a German branch, the middle of 2008 as a joint venture with Burda subsidiary Burda Cross Media was founded.
The website Glam.com ( in Germany de.glam.com ) is the flagship of Glam Media, and consists of numerous partner sites that are editorially and merged into a front -end to a platform with a uniform appearance.
The end of 2008 had the Glam network in the U.S. with 52 million visitors reached number 9 of the web deals, world had 110 million visitors. In the German Internet Glam was at this time front-runner in the target group of women. Also with respect to Germany came Glam in November 2009 to 8.7 million visitors and was from January to November 2009, according to Facebook's fastest growing website
History and business concept
The beginnings of Glam Media go back to the years 2002 and 2003. Key figure in the company from the beginning is a native of New Delhi Internet entrepreneur Samir Arora. The first Apple computers until 1993 with the development of interactive media dealt Samir Arora later had the company Rae Technology and NetObjects founded, which brought in 1996 with NetObjects Fusion is one of the first web design programs on the market.
A group of already at Apple Computer and NetObjects with Arora cooperating IT veterans was supplemented by people like Carl portals, the former editor of Elle and Harper 's Bazaar, and Susan Kare, a screen designer, who also worked already for Apple and NetObjects.
The founding and web presence today underlying idea is to mimic the look and feel of printed magazines, in order to attract the large user group of women. Had been determined by market analysis, that there was a lack of specifically directed at women online offerings, while women would have three -quarters of the purchasing power in Germany.
Another pillar of the concept is the bundling of numerous self-responsible sites and blogs of partners that are integrated into the site Glam.com, advertises more than this. Conversely Ads by Glam centrally acquired and transferred with a uniform appearance "down" in the partner sites. The Vice charge of the Germany - business president Ralf Hirt designated Glam in July 2008 as a so-called " web hub".
Theoretical background of this business model are marketing studies on the so-called "mid tail" or " long tail ", which identify a considerable potential in the Internet in myriad niches here: medium and small sites and blogs " runs ". Glam Media locates itself in this model in the "mid- tail", according to other sources even in the " long tail ".
In addition to the " suppliers " is its own editorial content, in Germany at the start of the German programming is however still less numerous.
Glam USA
In December 2008, Glam had room 9 reached in United States with 61 million "unique users" in the coverage statistics of Internet services in May 2008 Glam lay in USA with a reach of 41 million "unique users" at number 14 of the most successful Internet offers. In January 2008, they had yet occupied rank 28.
After founder Samir Arora had seen with his own investment company " Information Capital LLC " for start-up funding, washed several financing rounds, which the relevant investment banks such as Bank of America and Allen & Company organized, plenty of money in the coffers. The final round provided in addition to previously already invested 30 million again 85 million U.S. dollars. This resulted in February 2008, an assessment of 500 million U.S. dollars.
Sales figures and reliable figures on profit or loss have been even known only through rumors, loss of confidential documents or forecasts of the company.
In the years 2007 and 2008 Glam Media recruited from several profiled top people from other digital and print media, including John Trimble of the Fox Broadcasting Company and Joe lagani from House & Garden magazine Conde Nast group. In July 2008, could be poached by Google with Michael Adait even a senior financial manager.
The international expansion started in 2008 with Britain and Germany.
The business model of Glam Media in the USA led to considerable debate, not least because Glam had the competition offers such as iVillage and AOL Living rapidly obsolete. In particular, it is debatable whether the traffic should be evaluated on the partner sites as glam own traffic as it makes ComScore.
The discussion proceeds under the keywords " Distributed Media " (from the FAZ "distributed media network " translated ) and " Vertical Content Network ", both terms that use the representatives of glam, on the one hand, or an ad network ( "ad network " ) similar to Google AdSense, how it is seen by critics on the other side.
The media researcher Jeff Jarvis sees " in not even perfect" Glam Network the prototype of a new media model: " a large audience is reached quickly and at low cost ."
The advertising industry seems anyway to be indifferent to the non - marketing professionals inscrutable discussion, and analyst Greg Sterling commented, according to CNN Money: " Glam range. So I can see the sense of the discussion, whether they are your own destination or a network, not quite see. "
Glam Germany
The Glam Media GmbH was presented at the Berlin Fashion Week in July 2008 as a joint venture with Burda Cross Media. Burda subsidiary for digital media had gone early 2008 as an investor in Glam Media, USA, with a stake in the " single-digit percentage " and had the responsibility for cross-media Burda Board Christiane zu Salm ( non-voting ) seat in glam Supervisory brought. In March 2009 it was reported that Burda ramps up its share of the Glam Media GmbH to 49% and for " a low single-digit millions " investing. This also explains the interest in the U.S. parent company increases.
To the CEO of Glam Media GmbH Ralf Hirt was appointed Vice President of the American parent company and responsible for the international expansion. Born in Stuttgart Ralf Hirt worked before his glam commitment to DoubleClick. To start Glam Media acquired the Munich agency Codex Media GmbH, whose founder was Katja Dalhöfer made to sales manager in Germany.
Among the partners, who won Glam for the beginning in Germany, include fashion websites like luxusbabe.de, burdastyle.com, deluxe label.de, stylinrooms.de, several gossip sites, but also cultural events such as five - filmfreunde.de, the photo site danielawagner.com as well as cooking, food and organic offerings such GuteKueche.de and Naturkost.de.
In February 2009, reported the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper, Glam have with the target group " women " in the German Internet is already the largest reach. The same report glam partners came to speak, who reported " technical teething problems " but also of advertising revenue, the "very high" were
Revenues for Germany was reported by Burda in March 2009 " is in the millions ."