If you haven’t heard of San Francisco-based PopSugar yet, prepare yourself. You are going to start hearing about them a lot in the mainstream press. They are a blog network, and more recently a social network, targeting young, hip women (as well as a few guys that want to hang out with young, hip women).
PopSugar was founded by husband-and-wife team Lisa and Brian Sugar. Lisa began blogging PopSugar for fun last fall. By February page views were growing so rapidly that they abandoned Wordpress and set up a custom Drupal infrastructure, and in April they officially launched the network. The company is self-funded to date.
Today PopSugar is actually four distinct network sites. PopSugar itself, the largest site, is a blog about celebrity news and gossip. DearSugar is an “advice site dedicated to helping readers solve issues revolving around guys, job, money, sex, friends, and family”. FabSugar is a blog discussing “all must-have-now fashion and beauty products”. TeamSugar is what ties everything together – it’s a Myspace-type social network where readers can join, add their profile and interact with eachother. There are a lot more sites in the works – Brian told me about twelve of them that are in the planning stage when we spoke earlier this week.
The group of sites is serving over 13 million monthly page views and 1.5 million unique visitors. To get an idea of how rabid PopSugar readers are, check out this page that shows new comments being submitted in real time. This is an incredibly active community.
Networks like PopSugar, which grow rapidly from a core base of loyal readers and begin to offer related services, are very difficult to compete with. Content is produced at far lower costs and far more quickly than old-style media companies can muster (and by old-style, I’m talking about the pioneers of the early Internet days like CNET, Wired, etc.). In the old days, starting a media company was hard. There was no way to compete with the big guys. Today, it’s the big guys that are left scratching their heads.
The Popsugar team is below.
This sounds like TechCrunch network for girl stuff. No wonder you like it.
The realtime comments are unbelievebable. Can TechCrunch probably comes close to it.
Very fresh clean site. The demographic
they appear to be targeting, however,
is already well-served by the Myspace
website… In fact, I would suggest this
is their core demographic.
Anyway, I cannot really see girls, who
are not already a member of Myspace,
joining this site (over Myspace) and if
Popsugar are intending to poach some
of Myspace’s existing ‘clientele’ then I
think they will have problems…
I know the owners of this site have a
‘background’ in this area but to me this
looks a lot like Jo Blow setting up an
auction site and wanting some of eBay’s
business.
The real-time comments feature is made to look more active than it actually is. On the first load it looks like it’s streaming live comments when it’s actually putting up the last 10-20 comments slowly. Look at the time stamps. Once it gets caught up they start updating closer to real-time.
Once the web 2.0 and social network fuzz settle down players will need to find very specific niches, and looks like these guys are in a good position.
LOL.
“Networks like PopSugar, which grow rapidly from a core base of loyal readers and begin to offer related services, are very difficult to compete with.”
Is this some sort of a defense for the TC branch out?
just forwarded it to my super trendy 25 year old NYC friend. Her response after about 20 seconds of viewing . . . “oooh, I like. I like a lot.” This should be something to watch.
“Lisa began blogging PopSugar for fun last fall. By February page views were growing so rapidly that they abandoned Wordpress and set up a custom Drupal infrastructure”.
Why do people feel they have to do this?.. We are all adults here, so why not just come clean and say you started it originally to make money. Instead of trying to suggest you were somehow forced in to starting a company (and making money) because of its popularity?
MySpace is for kids. PopSugar is more for the 21-40 female bracket. Seems like a great niche to me.
“MySpace is for kids. PopSugar is more for the 21-40 female bracket. Seems like a great niche to me”.
Hi Anon,
If this is your website please accept my apologies. I don’t mean to ‘cast a shadow’ over what you are doing, but this site is a good example of people coming along (and wanting to jump on a bandwagon) when there is really no need for their site to exist – at all.
Competition is great, and so are defined ‘niches’, but there are already plenty of sites offering this service and Myspace caters to this audience specifically. I would much rather see a site that is developed on a NEW idea, or premise, rather than copying (and hoping that Rupert Murdoch buys them out…).
I think they have a pretty good niche… it’s almost like slashdot for celebrity gossips
Brad’s right about the raw sugar feed pre-loading older comments. Load the page and count off the first ten comments. After that, it’s actually live. Still a lot of activity, but not as it first appears.
Wow, another cookie cutter site…
Original logo, looks like the Odeo logo.
So, I just noticed that their “live comments” appear to be totally bogus. If you go to the page, note the first comment you see. Then refresh the page.. same first comment…
“I would much rather see a site that is developed on a NEW idea”
I’ve spent a while looking for fashion blogs for my girlfriend, and I have found very little out there, especially not on MySpace. We both find “The Shoe Blogger” unreadable, and “Go Fug Yourself” is awesome but not exactly good for advice.
FabSugar looks pretty good so far. If, as you say, there are plenty of sites out there like this, I’d love to know what they are.
you remember a site called chickclick.com – 2 sisters made it ..had like 50 different chick sites. then it went bust.
i like popsugar. it keeps things fun. and i’m a guy.
I can’t figure out what keeps motivating people to invest so much time into these “me too” websites. I guess it’s an easy way to make a buck, but what value will bring to society that Myspace hasn’t? In 5 years will people say, “Wow, I’m sure glad popsugar did exactly what the other 20 social networking sites did, but did it for woman ages 21-40.” I highly doubt it.
There’s not even any real improvement within the social networking arena. Facebook won’t be jumping into gear to copy the innovations that Popsugar has made.
I realize that most websites are started for money (I myself do), but I would hope that they would at least try to bring some new idea or improvement to the market.
To comment No 8 & 10 – § § §
What is wrong with making money ? Is that not why people go to school and get jobs ?
What is wrong with jumping on a bandwagon if you have something different to show ?
If you look around you most new products & services are improvements of existing ones .
Since you know so much why dont you show us what you have done . Lets see what NEW idea you have . If you have not done anything better you are not in a position to make any such comments . Even big companies like Microsoft and AOL are jumping on the “bandwagon”
Looks like they have 5X more eye-candy on their team than the average Silicon Valley company. What does a guy need to do to get a job in this place?
Bisi: There’s nothing at all wrong with making money. However, suggesting you originally started doing a site for fun (so people think there is some kind of noble and selfless act going on) is not.
As for what I have done, I don’t care to comment. But then again I don’t need to, i’m not the one sitting in the ‘big chair’ looking for publicity (and money) to shine on me…
The internet is a creative wilderness; instead of copying, and hoping people don’t notice we are doing that, lets all try to do something interesting, wonderful and worthwhile… something that really is newsworthy.
Thanks for your comment.
I think the site is simply great. It has a good stable crowed (and a crowed that tends to spend a lot of money… no offense girls
), great design and most importantly – active community.
It’s true that there are too many social network sites out there right now, but those who will be able to float for another year or two will get to the big money. Creative advertising budgets are on the rise and Internet world penetration is just at 16% (http://www.nech..._internet_.html) right now.
MySpace cannot be everything.Certain folks dont wont there becaue it is MySpace. I looked at this website from a design perspective and I think it has fresh look.Interesting to know this is self-fundended but I dont see any compromise in the quality.
I looked at the comments section, and I dont see any duplicates as somebody mentioned here.It may be the same topic but diferrent comments.
Kinda like MySpace, only a lot more arrogant.
What;s with all the hater….I only got one thing to say to all of y’all:
“DON’T HATE…PARTICIPATE!!
Yes..it’s a soial networking site…but unliek Myspace…they carved out a niche…and stop hating because u didn’t think of it first…
This is the kind of niche-market social network (online community) that I want to see more of. Two years ago I set up a similar Drupal-powered site for a spanking new snowboarding magazine. I’m now working on a simialr site for a client who is launching a peace activist social network wrapped around a mainstream brand.
Self funded, past tense mind you. Another me too company looking for somebody elses money to blow. It’s amazing how some investors can still be suckered into deals with those pretty faces. That’s so pre-dot.com crash.
tobby – thefashionspot.com; style.com; splendora.com shesheme.com; celebritystyleguide.com; fashionweekdaily.com are all pretty good sites for fashion.
As far as PopSugar, I a convenient site as they’ve gathered current info from other sites/blogs (gossip; fashion; advice; social networking) and combined it all into one site.
Age market: teens – 40+
I posted this article on my blog at TeamSugar, here’s a funny comment:
Maybe we should start a dating site between us and the TC crowd…CrunchSugar ; )
Hoping to meet the Sugar team tomorrow night at the TC event, since we’re in such similar spaces
You don’t have to be the biggest site on the block to make money, in fact having a smaller niche audience is often better than having the biggest general audience.
These gals (and guys) don’t need to sell for $2 billion dollars to be successful. A bunch of you need to shake the start-up instant billionaire mentality I think.
Popsugar is kind if like crack for celebrity gossip. I love it. But its been around for quite a while… seeing as how most of the girls I know (and we are normal people, not tech geeks) love this site and women are some of the biggest consumers out there, I’d put my money on this site. Plus, I’ll admit, I’m totally addicted. And yes, I have a myspace account too.
It’s a cool idea. I liked the premise when I wrote about Glam.com and I think that the way BlogHer is doing it is also smart.
The fact is that mini-networks are going to pop up. Everyone hates the comparison to MSM, but just like there are various verticals there, we’ll see the same online. We have now GigaOm, TechCrunch, Weblogs Inc, Gawker Media, B5, Glam, BlogHer (some are more networked than others), and I am probably forgetting some…
“and we are normal people, not tech geeks” – what the hell is that supposed to mean?
Well Michael, looks like you have runoff from the very site you are reviewing!
Maybe we can expect something like “SugarTech” or “SugarCrunch!”
“Networks like PopSugar, which grow rapidly from a core base of loyal readers and begin to offer related services, are very difficult to compete with”. Can we please hear some facts to back up this comment?
Brian: Are you able to share with us your plan for making money out of your network of sites? i.e. Do you anticipate making a profit at some point, or is the idea to get ‘bought’ by a larger firm?
Brian,
Your readers can’t handle my readers. Dating site wouldn’t work.
Mike
Michael – I’m on both sites.
Brian,
Your readers can’t handle my readers. Dating site wouldn’t work.
Mike
And you call us at Popsugar arrogant? yeah ok
Brian: Are you able to share with us your plan for making money out of your network of sites? i.e. Do you anticipate making a profit at some point, or is the idea to get ‘bought’ by a larger firm?
^bump! good question!!
People need to take this site for what it is- a community where people can catch up on celebrity gossip, check out some new trends and talk to each other to solve problems and gain insight and advice.
Fun site, great people. Isn’t that all that matters in the end?
Geez! What percent of the commentors on this post WORK FOR popsugar???
You nay-sayers are bonkers. I am apart of the demographic that should be more interested in MySpace, but find the Sugar network to be much more appealing.
Part of the thing that turns me off most about MySpace is how many people join it just to post half-naked pictures of themselves.
TeamSugar is much more about acting as a community than posing naked and trying to get strangers to check out your pecs.
The group of people over at the Sugar network are mostly down-to-earth and the best part is it seems everyone truly just wants to get along. Sounds cheesy, I know, but it’s really the only site I check regularly. Plus, everyone on the site seems to have pretty similar tastes which means it is meeting the right demographic: mostly female, interested in fashion and pop culture. This makes it much easier for everyone to agree (or agree to disagree) in a much more civilized way.
Just felt people were responding pretty harshly. Everyone over here could tell you how much they love it. No complaints! (Especially about something as juvenile as up-to-the-nanosecond real time postings! The horror of a 10-minute-old post being considered NEW! Damn.)
none …
“Bonkers” would make a good boat name.
Brian, many of Popsugar ‘posters’ on this thread are very loyal to you, and Babybeluga makes some great comments.
When you come to sell Popsugar will ‘the team’ be getting a share in the proceeds, or will it just be you and Lisa?
^I like how Brian is not answering. Seems to be evading the issue.
no, he’s not evading it. it’s just a really dumb question.
Yes, the “team” is fully expecting a cut in the profits. You know, just like football fans get a cut when a team sells to a different owner.
As for the Sugar Rush/live comment streaming, it depends on the time of day and – obviously – the number of users. At heavy traffic times, its difficult to keep up with. Other times, it barely moves.