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Is FiLife Running On Borrowed Time?

Less than two months after talking up the turnaround at Dow Jones-IAC (NSDQ: IACI) personal finance JV FiLife, paidContent has learned the site’s continued existence is no certainty. It survived the multiple trimmings as Barry Diller cut back on IAC’s portfolio of emerging businesses, but the company is now exploring options that range from leaving it open to a sale or a full shut down. When Ezra Kucharz, president and GM for just over a year, left for CBS (NYSE: CBS) in January, both IAC and DJ credited him publicly with turning around the site and building it to the #4 personal finance site with 4.4 million unique visitors in December. Now both companies are declining comment about the site’s future.

One possibility for IAC could be selling its stake to Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS), which recently bought out SmartMoney partner Hearst. But that’s a well-established brand with an 800,000-circ magazine. Whether DJ would even want to own FiLife outright is unclear—as is whether a deal actually would involve much money. What FiLife does have—more traffic than SmartMoney.com, where personal finance is just one category, and a digital mentality. Is there a way to combine the two?

FiLife has had a bit of a tortured life from its beginning: taking more than a year to move from an idea to a blog, then taking so long to emerge from that status the plans appeared to be dormant. Dave Kansas, brought in from the Wall Street Journal to launch the site, was replaced by online vet Kucharz in late 2008. Adam Wiener, executive editor and VP-content was promoted to GM when Kucharz left, but not given the title of president.

It’s made strides on the editorial side. Just last month FastCompany picked it as the most innovative company in the finance area for using “a Q&A format with a host of social and game-like features to get Americans talking about money. More as warranted—and please feel free to e-mail me if you have details.

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Mar 19, 2010 11:15 PM ET

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Posted In: Features, Exclusive, Media & Publishing, Online News, Companies, IAC, News Corp., Dow Jones

  • Good points in the comments about network support (recent white paper from Cisco talked about the impact on the network) but the industry also has to address the handset processing power required for editing video in the phone. This is not trivial and is not feasible with today's embedded mobile processors. Movidia is working to provide cellphone OEMs with mobile video processors that are capabile of video editing in the phone and within the available power budgets. The opportunity exists for Apple and other cellphone OEMs to bring high quality user generated video editing capabilities to the "YouTube" generation.

  • This would be a very cool gadget for the company.  Many people will be waiting for the launching of these new Apple innovation.  Well, despite of so many competitors out there, hope they can still make it.

  • DT

    Apple camcorder… hmmm… as usual they would be last since every major handset manufacturer has video recording capability - Nokia with VGA resolution at 25 fps and in 2010 HD. Same for samsung. Share as an MMS would be nice - even for stills. Again - something every other handset has. So IF Apple has video recording on the horizon let's try to contain the enthusiams. The UI will be brilliant I'm sure but get a grip. And the previous post about ATT's bandwidth is on the money. But as for video calling - that has never picked up anywhere on the planet. We humans have 100 years or so of speaking voice only etched into our dna. A video call means you need to be engaged, polite, present, and not type emails on your keyboard, wave to office colleagues, make faces, pick your nose, roll your eyes… you get it.

  • WVP

    "BusinessWeek suggests the silence is telling." With all due respect, what a crock. Apple is ALWAYS silent about its upcoming releases…those who say they know - are full of it…

  • Cube

    My jailbroken iPhone has been recording video for a while. Look for Cycorder by the way it records great videos.

  • Flip Video was recently purchased by Cisco, a massive internet infrastructure company.  Stands to reason that they're thinking along the lines of marrying cutting edge network infrastructure with ubiquitous video recording.  Apple may have to play catch-up.

  • I like the idea of Apple launching a device, any device, on Verizon.  Verizon's EVDO network is the best match right now for any high speed data product.

    WiMax might be the next.

  • Sally

    The question isn't if Apple is working on anything.  Everything is being considered and prioritized—video is not a high priority.  ATT needs some time to figure out its network load issues and Apple will need to find an elegant solution to the current network limitations. 

    10M+ iPhones with robust video capabilities will take ATT down.  It's already happening at concerts and sporting events - - and that's bursty data—no video.  During MLB games local cellsites are jammed.  Coachella, out.  SXSW, out.  This didn't happen before the iPhone.

    If Apple wants to grow its market-share at the current clip it has to find another spectrum owner.

  • Device Detective

    Could the iPhone Camcorder be quad-band, dual-mode both CDMA and GSM like the Samsung Saga and Renown?  And will it be unlocked with Best Buy doing the launch like its record-setting results for the Samsung Instinct on Sprint?  It could be the ultimate shelf test for summer shopping in mobile electronics - the Palm Pre on Sprint versus an Apple iPhone Camcorder on the customer's choice of AT&T, Verizon or Sprint.  Could Synchronoss be the self-activation software to a mobile operator?  And will the activation be through iTunes to ensure that Best Buy does not use its recent acquisition of Napster?  And will Apple expand the relationship with Best Buy to open its Best Buy Europe electronics store in the UK to expand from the 50% ownership of Carphone Warehouse?

  • James

    iPhone sync with iLife would bring heigtened visual and sensual capabilities to movie making using the mobile phone

  • John

    Could be very cool. A competitor for Flip Video. The video quality wouldn't have to be fantastic. The benefit would be instant accessibility. You always have your iPhone with you. If some event occurs you pop out the iPhone, take a video, trim it a bit then post it to YouTube or Me.com or email it to someone or send it by MMS.

Unhealthily Obsessed With Mobile Content | mocoNews Newsletter

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