Editor’s Update: Glam actually acquired Codex Media back in July. What it is doing now is integrating Codex into Glam Deutschland.
Glam Media, the content network that mostly targets females, may have acquired a large German content network aimed at females, called Codex Media.
A tipster who has a connection to Codex Media first told TechCrunch about the possible acquisition this morning after receiving a letter from Codex saying “Codex Goes Glam.” On the company’s website, the same statement is used at the top of the page [Google Translation Warning].
Codex Media offers a similar service to that of Glam Media. The site offers a slew of premium female content to German women across a wide array of markets, including fashion and celebrity gossip. More importantly, many of its properties are highly sought after in the space: it owns Cosmopolitan Germany and Elle Germany, to name a few.
Neither company has made an announcement at this time about the acquisition, but considering Codex Media is now saying it has “gone Glam,” there’s little doubt that there are some major changes afoot.
And considering the rumors persist that Glam will lay off a part of its workforce or try to appeal to men to increase readership, it only makes sense for the company to try to put the $85 million it raised earlier this year to good use.
this is interesting news after their “brash”(male targetted sub-network) announcement.
Glam’s certainly an intersting company led by an interesting personality.
Does anyone know what CPMs they sell out at?
Wow, with such great websites as
http://hairstyl...beauty-tips.com
it is no wonder they are doing such a great job….
Am i the only one who wants to see Glam fail?
I guess by replying i dont need to include @Bruscher but NO you are not alone. Glam and Federated Media are such total shams it makes my head spin.
That’s a helluva statement there. I love to bash idiotic companies, but they are just a sales force for publishers, no? Do you wanna schmoose and sell ads and close deals? I don’t.
not at all
Look at http://www.starlounge.com and Germany. Gossip with power.Now with 10 miljon unic wisiter per month
As a publisher, it sounds much easier than it looks- so it has become fair game to bash Glam. What is tough you may ask- ask any publisher– to make money on the web is very hard!!! Google Adsense only pays domain or search business– so if you are an author or video person– forget it. Selling ads now requires so much work– who is audience, placing ads in context, getting agencies to understand your site, doing sponsorships, or even full page take overs. I see one on Glam called Sex In The City when I clicked on GlamTV on their home page– lot of work to sell and do.
The reason you see so many Glam Publishers come to TechCrunch to defend them is that Glam is the only game in town for most women’s sites today. While there are many travel or sports networks, the people advertisers want is very hard to find, very hard to run campaigns, and very hard to grow as a business.
I also think TechCrunch position on companies like Hulu (”ClownCo”) and Glam (”Traffic own vs Network”) has softened– this is good to see as most Blogs are not humble enough to say they feel differently about things usually on web. Kudos to Michael for this!
Lastly, not to forget history but Google became a monster by focusing on providing ads for AdSense partners starting 2001– at the start of the nasty downturn. When things slow down, big, known media companies fare better as advertisers go to solutions they know. Nothing sexy about the AdSense business– just selling ads and placing ads, but makes Google #1 in media- huh? If FM and Glam are a sham, then is AdSense also a sham? No. Advertisers want to reach people online, can’t talk to many publishers.
What is interesting is Google started to convince many publishers to adopt AdSense- and Glam is following the same route– not just small publishers but major media companies are trusting Glam with their Display Ads like Lifetime, MayoClinic, LifeScript, CBS E!, Apartment Therapy, and I just read on PaidContent also Fox and Sony Music. If this trend continues to grow, Glam will become the Google for Display– not just for small publishers.
Glam should manage its business tightly, ignore the rants of people not on their network, expand with deals that build more revenue and reach, and make its business go to new areas like international and new channels. More coverage means they will take new revenue from new areas–even if small, it means they will grow in a slow down.
Anytime I see a company with fans and people that say good things because of business reasons means they are essential for them– for money and emotionally. That is the mark of a making a great company or at least a company that people want to survive and thrive.
Matt, i would have to say “Glam becoming a Google for display” is idiotic. You obviously have no idea WHY Google’s advertising platform is successful and why Glams will not be. Adsense is not a successful product…it works in some cases, but is not a branding play that has won the market and we all know that.
@Bruscher,
Not sure I understand your comment??? AFS (AdSense For Search) accounts for 95% + Google revenue, so yes, as you say AFC (Adsense For Content) does not work for branding or YouTube Video. In fact, I don’t even think Google uses AdSense for YouTube– that alone says everything about the state it is in.
Why is the potential Glam could become the Google for display idiotic? Clearly Google has no display solution– who else could? Yahoo just announced/renamed APT for display today–all smoke and mirrors. AOL has Platform/A works for remnant ads only. The contenders for “The Google for display” are in the comScore recent list of Top 10 Display Ad Publishers: Fox/MySpace, Yahoo, AOL, MS, Google, Facebook, eBay, Viacom, Comcast and Glam.
MySpace Display is for MySpace not for publishers, and is very low remnant Display (Under $0.10); Yahoo is a contender but in trouble, AOL is for sale with no buyers and has remnant platform only; MS is looking to buy not build–has no publisher solution; Google has none; Facebook has Beacon for Facebook- not for publishers; eBay is an e-commerce site; Viacom has no technology–they use Google now MS since the lawsuit; Comcast only is in the list as people don’t know how to change their home pages in their browser. That leaves Glam.
Glam is a serious contender, but needs to build technology and scale. Contender does not mean they will win, I simply mean they have a shot at it.
Matt S,
With all due respect. You have no idea what you are talking about. Do you have any idea how easy it is to game comScore? $115 million dollars? Content that you dont even own? being mentioned in the same breath as Google, eBay, Viacom? Are you one the VC’s that backed Glam?? 2 years from now you will say everyone says, “well….it seemed like a good idea at the time”
Your new handle should be ’serious contender’
curious!
@Goldie,
Oh how quickly we forget history and become blind to it. In 2002, Overture was the leader in Click based ads, Google, a small competitor to Inktomi– with AOL, MSN and Yahoo considered the leaders. In one move, AOL agreed to use Google AdSense, dropping Overture- AOL was 40% of Overture at the time, and the rest is history.
The AOL deal helped Google go public, Overture ended up first doing a deal with Yahoo, ultimately could not survive the downturn and was bought by Yahoo, and Google used its publisher relations with AOL and small publishers and built the #1 Search Ads business. Google did not own ANY content, but became the world’s #1 company in online Ads. AOL was thought as “smart” to have done a deal with Google.
http://news.cne...023-896152.html
This has happened before, and all my comment says is, it is possible to happen again. When Google announced a Click Ads program, it had a “mere 1,000″ publishers, compared to Overture’s 100,000. How did an unknown company like Google overtake the giants?
http://news.cne...l?tag=mncol;txt
If Glam continues to get deals with publishers like Google did with AOL, it is a serious contender. At 1,000 publishers it will be exactly where Google was in 2002 in Search Ads. Yahoo is exactly where Overture was. Google was private and raised capital to secure publishers, Glam is private and secured publishers. Overture was public and the market went down, Yahoo is public and is in serious trouble. Ask any publisher today if they would want Glam managing their Display Business, they would jump up and say yes. Glam is a contender. A very serious contender.
time will tell. if other companies try to copy Glam like Fem.de in Germany it must be an interesting business. of course it is important to integrate interesting content on glam.com, to get new publisher for reach and PIs and get the big brands for campaigns. We will see – @bruscher: i think you dont understand the power of Glam network and its potential.
Glam is a tower of cards, that will soon fall. Their partner’s content is at very low level, their technology is nothing of the ordinary, the CPM they work with are very low end they are not well connected to the media world to bring new first rate content. From first look it seem they were trying copy iVillage and now are just sitting out there thinking what to do. It seems like their top people are clueless.
Hey Man – do you have any idea of their revenues and of the advertiser growth story?