Teen Music Fans Driving Explosive Growth at Buzznet

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Buzznet.com is definitely creating a buzz in the increasingly crowded world of online social networking.


Eight million visitors are flocking to what the Hollywood-based company is calling a “social media networking” Web site. Six months ago, the site saw 2 million visitors.


In the world of social networking the number of people carving out their virtual real estate on MySpace.com exceeds 70 million nearly double the population of California making 8 million seems like a conservative number.


But the site is showing promise. In July, Buzznet.com was the third-fastest growing site on the Web within the entertainment-multimedia category behind YouTube and MySpace, according to the Web traffic tracker Hitwise.


Another online ranking service, ComScore, put Buzznet.com among the top 10 fastest growing sites on the Web for the month of June with a 34 percent swell in traffic. This places the site right up there with Job.com and the Coca-Cola Co.


So what’s behind the buzz?

Buzznet.com is built around popular music acts such as My Chemical Romance, whose page one day last week had more than 138,000 photos, 9,580 videos and 8,000 blog entries all uploaded by users around the world. The information is updated every three to six minutes.


“The Internet users today are sophisticated. They know Yahoo Music is vanilla and want something more authentic,” said Tyler Goldman, Buzznet’s new chief executive.


For example, while a biography of an artist may remain static on Wikipedia.org or Yahoo Music for months, content on artists on Buzznet.com is updated by the minute. Band members join as members and put up their own photos from backstage, which makes teen fans go wild, Goldman said. The average age of the site users is 16.


The company’s ad sales force sells banner and text ads directly to advertisers who want to target passionate, young music fans. When Honda sponsored a tour for the band Fall Out Boy last month, the company went to Buzznet and branded a page for the band instead of creating its own site for the concerts. The page saw about 1 million unique visitors.


Buzznet, on an aggressive growth trajectory, is counting on the ad revenue. The company, which launched with a handful of executives in 2005, hired 24 people this year and moved its offices from MacArthur Park to Hollywood. In May, Redpoint Ventures of Menlo Park, which funded MySpace, and Anthem Venture Partners of Santa Monica recently injected $6 million into the company.


This week, the company appointed John Glascott, a former sales executive at Hearst and iVillage, as executive vice president of sales, and Elizabeth Osder, previously an executive with New York Times Digital, as senior vice president of audience.



U.S. Renewables Buoyed

Santa Monica-based U.S. Renewables Group LLC, which owns and operates landfill methane, biomass, wind and solar power projects, closed on a $475 million second private equity fund.


The commitment far exceeds the fund’s original target of $250 million. The money will be used mostly for renewable power generation, including biomass, geothermal and solar plants and clean fuels, including ethanol and biodiesel projects.


Founded in 2003, the U.S. Renewables Group manages about $575 million in private equity and hedge funds devoted to green technology.



New Exec at Soliant

Marc Cortez is the new vice president of sales and marketing at Pasadena-based Soliant Energy Inc., a company that develops solar panels for commercial use.


Cortez was previously director of marketing at Sharp Solar Energy Solutions Group.


Soliant Energy is venture backed by Trinity Ventures, Nth Power, Rockport Capital and Rincon Venture Partners. The firm was formerly called Practical Instruments.



OSI’s Credit Line Hiked

OSI Systems Inc., an electronics provider to the security and health care sectors, recently received a new $90 million credit line.


The new financing includes a $45 million term loan and $45 million revolving line of credit, with the ability to increase the overall credit line to $100 million. The new financing arranged by Wachovia Bank replaces the company’s previous credit line of $67 million.



Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230.

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