Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Classmates.com Going For IPO

Classmates.com was the “first” social network is any real sense: launched in 1995, it came 2 years before SixDegrees, 4 years before Epinions’ Circle of Trust and a full 7 years before Friendster defined the model we know today. When asked, I say that Classmates.com was the first. No doubt others will disagree.

This aging social network isn’t dead yet. Today, Classmates.com filed with the SEC for a $125 million IPO. The company, which was acquired by United Online in 2004 for $100 million, is being spun off as Classmates Media, consisting of Classmates.com and the Mypoints.com online loyalty scheme. Its class A shares will appear on the NASDAQ with the ticker “CLAS”. At the end of June, the site had 50 million registered users and 2.7 million paid accounts.

But all is not well. ZDnet reports that the company had a net loss of $250,000 on revenue of $42.4 million for the period ending March 31 2007. Meanwhile, there’s one huge competitor that has already eaten their lunch: Facebook. Not to mention that MySpace, Bebo, Piczo, hi5, Multiply and many others offer better services for free.
more at:http://www.classmates.com/
Via-Mash

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