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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

  • benk

    Sms messages should be very cheap.
    A lot of users use sms nowadays, especially with the new text2land.com service that allow you to send sms to landline phones, very cool.

  • This isn’t the first time that Verizon has upset millions of people.  Back in 2007, there was its shortfall fee – a $2 monthly charge that was levied to clients who didn’t use their long distance service.  Now, Verizon has come up with another creative approach to revenue creation – charging 3 cents for every text message processed on its network.  Of course, this charge would arrive on the eve of mobile marketing’s explosion in the US.  Verizon has seen an opportunity to capitalize on a rapidly emerging market, but its actions, however, do little to embrace the market’s growing acceptance of mobile as a very serious and relevant marketing channel.

    This new cost, albeit still in “proposal stage” according to Verizon, comes as a shock to everyone in the mobile landscape.  The announcement that the imposed new fee would start on November 1st, has not allowed for any significant discussions or greater consideration for the subsequent impact to the industry, and consumers.  Verizon, by acting in such a short-minded and selfish way, has marred our industry – everyone from messaging aggregators, content partners, mobile marketing providers – and has potentially set mobile marketing in the US back 5-10 years.

    If Verizon’s new messaging charge does go ahead on November 1st as threatened, thousands of providers will also be forced to increase their price structures, including ours. This will completely upset the model upon which our industry has been built.  But then again, a selfish and short-sighted company wouldn’t care about that.  Simply put, this move by Verizon is not conducive to the greater advancement of mobile marketing being considered and conducted by so many companies at a time when they need it more than ever.

  • Gern Blanston

    Put simply and succinctly: Go to hell, Verizon!  The stupidity that would dream up such a pricing model change is beyond me, because if adopted carrier-wide it will kill off the relatively nascent SMS publishing/advertising industry, the very industry that's driving so much text messaging traffic to Verizon and the other carriers.  Perhaps the dunderheads think they should be creating or controlling that content and the advertising infrastructure?  Unbelievable ...

    Gern

  • jbvick

    why kill the goose that laid the Golden Egg? If anyone knows of any vendor action being taken plz post it. This makes WAP an even more attractive channel.

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