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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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Staci D. Kramer
@sdkstl 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

  • Joe

    So.. it's fine for the operators and CP's to double-dip but god forbid the ODM's get their fingers any further into customers pockets? Taking a position like that - w/o blushing - would be even more funny if not so sad.. bury these 1.0 dino's already!

  • anonymous too

    Ryan's statements seem like a desperate attempt at signaling to competitors in a game-theoretical construct, telling them that Motricity won't make it cheap if they don't make it cheap.  Why would he do that?  Sometimes it's done to help everybody make more money.  I think in this case he thinks it's the only way he'll ever turn a profit, just long enough to try that mythical, ephemeral IPO, for which long, long ago the said they "selected" Goldman "and "Morgan Stanley" to "run".  Laughable.  Aren't there a lot of IPO bankers looking for something to do, even with turkeys?  And they still won't touch this dog?  Maybe they should select someone else…

  • anonymous

    If Motricity is doing so well, why are they looking for new Sales people for all of their accounts (one their website)?  If the sales people are doing so well, then why would they want to leave?

  • none

    Yeah, I want an answer to "Wuerchless'" question on how the doors are still open.  Can SOMEBODY who knows something give us the real inside scoop on what the margins are on this dog?  Has it EVER made a single dollar?  Have revenues EVER exceeded costs?  When are the investors getting any money back?

  • dorkon

    That guy looks like an arrogant dork.

    Firstly, he should get clear the difference between the web and the internet. the internet is something that supports a lot of apps like e-mail, VOIP, and the web.

    Teach us some bad habits??? Look how unsuccessful and bad for everyone this www thing has been. I hope we don't repeat that on mobile.

  • Wuerchless

    How is it possible the doors of this place are still open? This has got to be the slowest sinking ship ever…. Wuerch must be stuffing the holes of his sinking boat with the leftover cappucino cups,  crystal glasses and domed silver food lids from the "good ol' days" in Durham.
    Losers…

  • Prabjhot

    Motricity is irrelevant. 

  • Scott

    For a moment I thought I was reading an interview from 2002; this type of singular model thinking is what has the carriers in this precarious position today.  They can't ship or market apps/content well and blocked almost anyone else who wanted to try…sorry the opportunity evaporated long ago.  Oh and by the way, there is only one Internet Jim.

  • Anonymous Two

    Jim Ryan used to work for AT&T (VP Data Marketing) I would not expect him to say anything to the contrary…. Go figure

  • Anonymous

    If Jim Ryan has his way, he would demand a cut from all the business done over the voice calls either landline or mobile…

  • Carriers Are Dead

    As long as there are companies out there telling the carriers what they want to hear, then the carriers will continue their self-delusion about their importance in the value chain.  They provide a network.  Not much else.  The value of their distribution is rapidly diminishing.  And they haven't yet figured out what additional value they offer, which would justify their getting a slice of everyone's revenue.

  • Schaden Freude

    Is it me or has most of the chatter from Motricity come from Jim Ryan?  Are they marginalizing Wuerch out of the organization?

    There's no way Wuerch would allow that to happen so I have to think the Board finally tired of his antics.

  • Allan

    Way too late.  The mobile internet missed its chance.  Expect the internet to simply become more mobile-aware.

Unhealthily Obsessed With Mobile Content | mocoNews Newsletter

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