I ended up spending the Memorial Day holiday weekend in Las Vegas, a city in which I do not set foot particularly often. When I wasn't partaking in my preferred activity of lounging by the hotel pool with a good book and a pina colada (yes, that's right, I don't gamble), I decided to test-drive a new iPhone app. Namely, it's the free app from lifestyle e-newsletter UrbanDaddy, which hit the iTunes App Store earlier this week.
UrbanDaddy--which operates city-specific newsletters for New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and Los Angeles, as well as a "national" edition and a weekly travel guide--targets the young, louche, and well-moneyed, or at least those who want to be. Its newsletters frequently cover high-end restaurant and bar openings, as well as exotic vacation destinations. For its iPhone app, the company opted to build an automated "concierge" that will suggest activities for you if you fill in what you're looking for.
The interface and concept are very, very cool. It's like playing a Mad-Libs game to find out what you can do that day or night: the app will fill in your time and location, and then you specify what you're looking for (dinner, drinks, dancing, etc.) and who you're with (parents, friends, boss, ex) and then a few options for the situation. When I was looking for a Sunday brunch in Vegas, for example, the options included "and we want great bacon," "and we want champagne," or "and we're hung over." Like I said, very cool setup.
The results, however, were lacking. UrbanDaddy CEO Lance Broumand told me that the directory has been curated to only include establishments that fit the tastes of the newsletter's discerning target audience, which meant that my "and we want great bacon" brunch selection would not be bringing up the local Denny's. That said, the app only brings up very basic contact information for the restaurant or bar it's chosen for you--no hints at prices, no reviews from users, no tips like "the drink menu is really girly," "crowd is full of d-bags on Friday nights," or "vegetarians need not apply."
I realize that both the serendipity factor and the "money's not an issue" overtones are part of UrbanDaddy's carefully constructed image (complete with a Lexus sponsorship), but it certainly puts a damper on how helpful it can be when you're in an unfamiliar city.
These things, obviously, can come in version 2.0. But for now--especially in Vegas, where things can be alternately rock-bottom-cheap or unexpectedly expensive--it was too much of a gamble (ha, ha) for my tastes. After an unsuccessful quest to find great bacon, I went right back to the lounge chair by the pool.
This post was updated at 3:50 p.m. PT to correct the list of cities for which UrbanDaddy publishes newsletters.
One thing's for sure: Glam Media isn't letting that $85 million funding round sit around and ferment.
The latest of many announcements from the don't-call-it-an-ad-network media firm is that it has launched a "Wellness" division, opening up its ad services to sites in the health, fitness, and "green" niches.
With hippie food brand SoyJoy as a sponsor, Glam's Wellness channel has already ushered in about 20 sites that deal with "mind-body-spirit, empowerment, and a healthy planet," according to a release Monday. Among them are BeThree, Conscious Living TV, Ecofabulous, Low Impact Living, and Spaparazzi; two others, Natural Solutions magazine and Earth Pledge, will also contribute content to the Glam.com hub that the company runs.
Glam has been on a roll recently, with high-profile hires, acquisitions both domestic and international, and new advertising strategies that have left some thinking that it's the future of the ad industry and others wondering if it's just a big pink package of Valley hype.
But launching a health-and-living vertical, besides being the trendy thing to do, is part of Glam's planned expansion beyond strictly targeting women, something CEO Samir Arora alluded to in a talk at the EconAds conference earlier this summer.
Crunchy, Prius-driving yoga types are a fairly different demographic than the one most of Glam's current sections target: fans of celebrity news, fashion, beauty, and the like.
Next stop: Glam for dudes?
The easiest way to describe Spire, a new community site that made its debut Monday, is as a more grown-up, cultured Yelp: the latter offers expert advice on the best dive bars in Brooklyn, whereas the former focuses on four-star restaurants and hotels across the river in Manhattan. Calling itself a "social resource," it's devoted to advice and recommendations on topics like luxury vacations and dining, high-end shopping, and spa getaways.
When you're signing up for Spire, you're asked to fill out a profile. The lowest option for the "age" field is "under 35," and for the "income" field it's "under $100K." That should fill you in on their target audience.
But unlike some of its luxury-lifestyle brethren (Asmallworld comes to mind) it's not invite-only and hence loses a bit of the prestige that some members (and advertisers) might crave. Yet Spire has launched with $9 million in venture funding, 60,000 beta users, and the acquisition of Suzanne's Files, a London-based editorial start-up that's perhaps best summed up as a DailyCandy for the jet set. The site clearly takes its "resource" role seriously.
Sites targeting high-income audiences have been talked up quite a bit because of a pretty simple fact: you can charge more for advertising. But Spire has other revenue plans as well: in September, it'll be launching an "Expert Connect" section for referring members to vacation rentals and other niche travel services, taking a commission in the process.
And early in 2009, Spire plans to launch its "Marketplace," a sort of high-end Craigslist, where you can find that sublet in London or yacht rental in St. Tropez without having to sift through all those "FREE COUCH! Only a few stains!" listings.
Publishing giant Hearst Magazines announced on Wednesday plans to acquire Answerology, a New York-based start-up that offers a question-and-answer service for relationship advice. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but PaidContent reported that it was in the seven figures.
Matthew Milner, Answerology's founder, will be brought on board Hearst as vice president of community and social media in the conglomerate's Hearst Magazines Digital Media unit.
Answerology's schtick is that it allows users to ask anonymous questions about family, marriage, dating, and other heated subjects pertaining to relationships, and those questions can be targeted toward select age groups, genders, geographic regions, and personality types (i.e. "thinker" or "intellectual.")
Most of the questions on Answerology, which seems to have an admirably active core community, pertain directly to relationships, like this one: "By 39 years of age, is it a little weird if a man is still single, no solid career path, not close with his family, and only a select few close friends?" (Answer: Yes, but things will get better if you take away his Xbox.)
Other subjects of discussion fall more into a general "lifestyle" niche, for example, "When do you think you'll be able to retire?" (Answer: Never! Ever!)
Hearst hasn't been quite as avid in the Web acquisition space as some of its publishing brethren, but it has made a few notable buys: for one, social-shopping site Kaboodle, which it purchased last year.
Even though question-and-answer sites are a dime a dozen, the lifestyle- and relationship-oriented Answerology seems like a good fit for a magazine publisher--indeed, Hearst plans to work it into the Web properties for its 15 magazine titles.
And it had a funny publishing-industry connection to begin with: founder Milner originally conceived of Answerology as a tie-in for a "romantic-comedy novel" he wrote, Guy Critical.
Blog network Sugar Publishing, which operates a popular array of pastel-hued women's lifestyle and entertainment titles, has agreed to acquire social shopping start-up ShopStyle.com for an undisclosed amount.
ShopStyle, which competes with sites like ThisNext and StyleHive, aims to make it easier to search multiple retail sites at once and lets members create personal "look books" and network with other digital shopaholics.
In addition, the San Francisco-based blog network has officially changed its name from Sugar Publishing to Sugar Inc. "to better reflect its growing reach and expansion over the past year." Presumably, that's a move to indicate that Sugar considers itself more a community than just a blog publishing network.
Sugar was founded in 2005 as a self-funded operation between dot-com veteran Brian Sugar and his wife Lisa (yes, that's their real last name). According to a blurb on the site, "Brian started Sugar Inc. to keep a close eye on his wife, Lisa, and her obsession with Matt Damon."
Originally consisting just of celebrity gossip blog PopSugar, Sugar now includes about a dozen others like fashion blog FabSugar, gadget blog GeekSugar, fitness blog FitSugar and an overarching social network called TeamSugar.
The network now claims to draw in more than 5 million monthly unique visitors and is backed by Valley V.C. powerhouse Sequoia Capital and NBC Universal, which cross-links Sugar content with its iVillage property.
With the acquisition, Sugar is adding ShopStyle's purchasing capabilities to its shopping-focused editorial content.
ShopStyle widgets are already visible on several Sugar blogs. But ShopStyle, which Sugar fashion blog FabSugar describes as "essentially a search engine for clothes," has assured its readers that the original site will remain intact.
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