UOL withdraws Classmates IPO

Slightly old news, but for some of my ex-colleagues while I was at United Online (Netzero) who haven't caught it, they have withdrawn the IPO for wholly-owned subsidiary - Classmates.com - which is European equivalent of America's Facebook.

I'm not sure of the reason, but must talk to some of my friends out there, although I'm sure it must be in the best interests of the shareholders given the current market conditions. The company was expecting to incur around $4.5 M to $5.5 M in Q4 2007, in transaction-related costs.

NetZero launches broadband!

Hurray! They join the party at last!

So, they go beyond dial-up and have launched a new Netzero DSL broadband service at $14.95 a month introductory offer. Yes, this was always on the cards, and this is yet another sign that the dial-up business is dying on the vine. For the past several quarters, chief competitors AOL and Earthlink have been reporting declining revenues in subscribers as more people ditch dial-up for faster broadband access.

United Online (the parent company of NetZero, Juno, Classmates.com, Bluelight Internet, and a few other web-based companies), has also reported 15% decline in the revenues from its Internet access business for the third quarter this year, as compared to last year. Earthlink, for example, saw its dial-up subscriptions decline by 81,000 third quarter, but gained 47,000 new subscribers for its broadband business. So, clearly, that's the way to go!

Hmm...It seems that United Online has entered into agreements with Verizon Communications to lease the networking infrastructure. That makes sense - if the capital investment is high, and there's someone doing it better - Buy, Don't Make! However, I feel, since Verizon also offers broadband service on its own, they would have a higher bargaining power in this context, and could charge United whatever they want for leasing the whole infrastructure, just to make sure United continues to charge higher than Verizon. Not sure, how they're working out the contract...

Well, lot's of interesting stuff happening out there, wish I continued to work for NetZero! It was a great company!

The Dialup barrier - Netzero says 'NO MORE!'

Y!Biz uncut

Netzero, the most reknowned and most marketed brand of United Online, announces the launch of Netzero HiSpeed 3G dial-up service, which is going to break the speed barrier between dialup and broadband. This is going to revolutionize the way people surf the web, especially with the Instant On! feature which is an opt-in that allows users to set their computer to dial-in to our servers and prefetch email and other favorite content periodically at any time during the day or night. This facilitates them to access their pre-fetched content whenever they want to without waiting to connect! All these at rates still cheaper than broadband, and other conventionally slower dial-up brands of Internet service.

And most importantly, I worked on this project !

Classmates.com polls its community

YBiz Uncut

With the reunion season impending, Classmates.com recently polled its community of friends and acquaintances from schools, work and military. Results revealed that 80% of those polled are planning to attend their reunion. And 57% are looking forward to seeing their best friends and old crushes at their reunion.

Click here for further Reunion Poll key findings.

Classmates had also recently announced to offer alumini rings from Jostens Lifetime which will include a broad selection of personalized high-school rings and select military rings, to help members show their school pride and affiliation. "Classmates.com and Jostens together have the new technology, service and support to provide a superior online shopping experience", is what the CEOs had to say about the blossoming parterneship.

Shares droop on Jefferies downgrade

United Online shares sinked almost 15% to $11.05 on June 1st afternoon. This happened after Jeffereies & Co. lowered its rating on the company to hold from buy in the wake of SBC Communication's decision to drop its monthly fee for digital subscriber line access to $14.95. As to how we should respond to this, Jefferies expects that we should embed the Web accelerator feature which currently costs $4.95 a month more than the basic package which costs $9.95. Or we should probably think of lowering the basic price as well.

Due to the same SBC effect Earthlink's shares also dropped by around 7.7%

Still waiting for the decision on the reaction...

United Online Q1-2005 results

Reuters Uncut
Motley Uncut

United Online (NASDAQ: UNTD) announced its Q1 results on May 3rd 2005. It said that its quarterly profit fell, but revenues rose 21 percent from non-access business such as online advertising. I'm putting together a few stats on this quarters earning -

• We posed a first-quarter profit of $11.5 million or 18 cents a share, compared with $12.4 million a year earlier.
• Revenues rose 21% to a $130.5 million, thereby beating the Wall Street expectations of a profit of 18 cents a share and revenue of $127.9 million.
• In this quarter, we added 214,000 subscribers, ending up at 6.2 million
• The Board has decided to pay a 20-cent quarterly dividend, to return capital to shareholders, reflecting the confidence in UNTD's strong cash flows.
• UNTD rose 75 cents to $9.6 late Tuesday
• And on midday Wednesday, shares rose 25% to $11.16
• The company has now forecasted an operating income of $31.5 million to $32.5 million for the June quarter

So, overall, I feel we've done considerably well in the first place to have exceeded Wall Street expectations, though the quarter results have been a mix. Over the past year, our paying accounts have risen from 3.1 million to around 5 million, building our cash coffers upto $203 million. Our acquisitions of Classmates and Photosite should continue to keep us popular. Hoping for the best, in the quarters to come!

United Online buys PhotoSite

BIZ.Y Original

United Online acquires PhotoSite, the online digital photo sharing business of Homestead Technologies Inc, for about $10 million, in cash. We also signed a related licensing and support agreement with Homestead tech.

PhotoSite is a photo sharing service that allows amateur and professional photographers to display photos on their personal website. We plan to integrate PhotoSite with our exisiting services including Netzero, Juno and ClassMates Inc.

Classmates Online launches new platform in Sweden

BIZ.Y Original

ClassMates Online Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Online (NasdaqNM: UNTD), recently announced that its Klasstraffen.com service, the no. 1 reconnection service in Sweden, would now function as part of its StayFriends platform and brand. StayFriends.se (http://www.stayfriends.se) launched today and now serves more than 396,000 students and 7000 schools in Sweden.

`We combined the strengths of our companies StayFriends GmbH in Germany (http://www.stayfriends.de/) and Klasstraffen AB in Sweden to create a new StayFriends platform that provides members of both services useful new features to find, connect and stay-in-touch with friends,'' said Classmates CEO and President Michael Smith.