Samat Mutra had written a five-part series on Web 3.0 & Gannett.
Gannett (GCI) publishes 85 daily newspapers, nearly 1,000 non-daily publications and 23 television stations in the US. In the UK, Gannett publishes 17 daily newspapers and around 300 non-daily publications. Gannett’s popular newspaper USA TODAY with a circulation of 7.3 million is the US’s largest-selling newspaper. USA WEEKEND is a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 2.3 million. The company’s 23 television channels cover approximately 18% of the US and have a market reach of 20.1 million households. Gannett also operates a number of web sites.
Part 4 mentions online dating industry acquisiton targets. Samat thinks that Gannett should acquire OkCupid, Engage, eHarmony, or Meetic.
Personally I don’t think any of those options are a great fit for Gannett.
OkCupid is in it for the long haul. I can’t see Sam Yagan and his people in Manhattan wanting to be controlled run into the ground by a global publisher. Doesn’t make sense.
Suneet Wadhwa’s Engage.com model, while quite novel addictive, like OkCupid, is too focused for a broad media play. There are other organizations that might be interested in the members-as-matchmakers business model, which is slowly gaining traction.
Remember when SpringStreet powered many of the largest media portal dating sites? Where are they now? Buried in FriendFinder.
Eharmony: There is no way they can sell now. They have made themselves a business dug themselves a hole and they have to focus on execution for the time being. Something tells me that eHarmony is going to be quite a different service in 18 months given the current online dating environment.
Meetic founder Marc Simoncini is in the middle of a battle with Match for dominance in the EU. Would they sell and risk taking their eye off the prize? I don’t think so.
I’m surprised that True.com and Plentyoffish weren’t mentioned. Speaking of True, while I haven’t heard more rumors about the alleged non-payment of advertising, other vendors are getting paid on schedule.
