Facebook and Twitter may be the names everyone knows, but Mindspark Interactive Networks Inc. of White Plains says it can co-exist with them and with other social media players.
Many of the talking animals, SmileyGrams and other electronic knickknacks that people post on their Facebook pages, not to mention designs for those pages, come from Mindspark”™s personalized graphics toolbar, Webfetti. And Webfetti can also be used to re-do the layout of your MySpace page.
“Our products exist on top of Facebook and Twitter,” Mindspark CEO Joey Levin said. “What Facebook and Twitter and others provide is a tremendous distribution opportunity, just like Google. We really are confident that the growth of all those platforms has been, and continues to be, a fantastic opportunity for us to service them.”
Webfetti is one of Mindspark”™s many sites specializing in customized graphics. Others are emoticon maker Smiley Central and design-it-yourself sister site Smiley Creator; personalized avatar site MyWebFace; and CursorMania and PopularScreensavers.
The rest of the Mindspark family includes:
- Play sites ”“ IWON.com, a survivor of the dot-com ”™90s, when it began as an Irvington startup; sister site Retrogamer.com, a showcase for ”™80s video games launched last year; and astrology site Kazulah.
- Social sites ”“ Teen-oriented Zwinky; its tween sister site Zwinky Cuties, and fashion-focused GirlSense.
- Electronic greeting card sites MyFunCards and Cardboiled.
- Internet portal Excite.com.
Users can access the sites by downloading a toolbar called MyWebFace that claims more than 20 million active users monthly. The toolbar provides sponsored listings like Google and Yahoo, and displays advertising on select Web pages.
Mindspark is a wholly-owned business within Barry Diller’s publicly-traded IAC/InterActive Corp. of New York. IAC’s web holdings range from dating sites like Match.com, to search engine Ask.com, to local search/directory site Citysearch; video sharing site Vimeo, event planning service Evite, home contractor marketplace ServiceMagic, and Tina Brown”™s Internet magazine The Daily Beast.
IAC does not break out financial information for Mindspark, instead folding the company into its “search” cluster of properties that includes search engine pioneer Ask.com and local search/directory site Citysearch. During the first quarter, the search cluster”™s net income zoomed to $31.1 million from $1.2 million in the first three months of 2009, while revenue rose 20 percent during the period, to $199 million in Q1 ”™10. IAC said the revenue gain reflected improvement in the economy, growth in queries, and a rising number of toolbars distributed.
For all of 2009, the Search cluster recorded a $990 million operating loss ”“ but that includes a nearly billion-dollar write-down in the fourth quarter. IAC said it took a $991.0 million after-tax impairment charge related to goodwill and intangible assets of the Search cluster excluding Citysearch, and wrote down another $12.2 million after taxes on a derivative asset created when it sold the Home Shopping Europe or HSE24 TV channel in 2007 to German retail giant Arcandor AG.
Mindspark has enjoyed steady growth in membership for its two member sites. Zwinky has gone from 20 million members in May ”™09 to 23.3 million in February, while GirlSense grew from 14.8 million to 16.5 million members.
But for most of its other sites, the only metrics Mindspark makes public are unique monthly visitors, which fluctuate with holidays and other factors. IWON, for example, went from 4.6M unique monthly visitors in May ”™09, to 6.9 million last December, before declining to 5.9 million in February. Holding steadier is MyFunCards, which blipped up during that stretch from 9.4 million unique monthly visitors, inching up to 9.5 million, and dipping back to 9.4 million.
“There absolutely is a move to offer users more to do on the sites, to improve the products on all the sites, and to engage users more deeply, whether that means registration, whether that means subscriptions, whether that means virtual good micro-transactions, I think we are very much organized right now to enable that,” said Levin. “And that absolutely is a focus and will continue to be a focus going forward.”
Editor”™s note: This is the second part to the Mindspark profile, which began in last week”™s paper.
