Delight.com is a kind of boutique shop you may find on Montana Avenue in Santa Monica.
It lures shoppers with cashmere robes, beaded clutch and handcrafted jewelry. It has a niche clientele stylish bargain shoppers and only about 100 product offerings, with plans to expand up to 500.
Founder Lynda Keeler, former Silicon Valley venture capitalist and chief of Sony Picture Entertainment’s digital division, knows that small is not always good online. She is aware that her Web store’s
selective appeal may work for a storefront in a trendy neighborhood, but not on the Internet where advertisers only back highly trafficked destinations.
That’s why she’s leveraging Delight.com’s brand as an e-commerce site and trying to build a little empire of Delight Web off-shoots. There’s DelightfulBlogs.com, a listing of 3,200 blogs she believes her customers would enjoy reading. AlsoDelightful.com, a media site for women, and DelightTV.com, a video site, are in the works.
For now, the year-old Delight.com has only six employees and is looking for its first round of venture funding. It’s a media favorite, though, recently featured on “Rachael Ray Show” and iVillage.com.
Unlike many e-commerce sites that team up with vendors to sell items online, Delight.com, headquartered in Los Angeles, owns its inventory and keeps it in a Denver warehouse.
Keeler was president of LA.com, the Web site for MediaNews Group, from 2002 through 2004. Then she created HipsterCards.com, an online greeting-card company, and sold it to L.A.-based Buzztone, a marketing agency, in 2006.
Sports Time
Last year, when Jacked Inc. first came up with the idea of developing “Webtops,” which allow users to receive customized, real-time information on their computer screens synchronized with programming on TV, some analysts called the concept a nerdy way to watch sports.
Now, its product will be integrated with TV network coverage of certain college football and basketball games. The company recently sealed a deal with Raycom Sports, producer of Atlantic Coast Conference and Southeastern Conference football and basketball games.
The company’s Web top synchronizes advertisement and other content with what’s happening on television at the time. Now, its platform will be integrated to the broadcast itself, with visual overlays on TV.
“For advertisers, this means that ads can be integrated both into broadcast and Web, allowing for a cross-platform media buy,” said Bryan Biniak, the company’s founder.
Jacked also works with NBC Sports and the National Hockey League’s NHL.com. Since receiving $6.5 million in funding earlier this year, the company has hired a new chief technology officer, Tony Schaller, previously senior vice president of strategic technology at Yahoo.
Jacked expects to hire six more employees, boosting staff at its Santa Monica headquarters to 25.
Big Break
L.A.-based social networking site JuicyCampus.com hasn’t even come out of its testing phase and Katie Couric is talking about it.
The eight-month-old site has been featured on “CBS Evening News” and Business Week along with a slew of other media outlets. The site wasn’t prepared for all the publicity and when CNN.com ran a story on it this month, JuicyCampus.com crashed.
In an age where thousands of sites are getting on the MySpace and Facebook bandwagon, it’s curious that a new social networking site for universities would garner so much attention.
But there’s a crucial difference anonymity.
Users don’t have to create profiles. They don’t even have to register. It’s a virtual rumor mill where anyone can post anything about anyone.
“It allows students to speak freely, without worrying about repercussions from officials,” said 26-year-old founder Matt Ivester.
But some postings are disconcerting, and raise privacy and libel issues. On a University of Pennsylvania page, one posting was titled with a student’s full name and a caption that read “Rapist or what?”
“If it’s true, it’s a big deal,” Ivester said. “If it’s false, then everyone has the ability to reply.”
The site is pretty rudimentary in terms of technology. It functions like an old-fashioned bulletin board. Each university 63 campuses so far gets one. The company plans to feature several hundred campuses by fall.
JuicyCampus.com has 10 employees and is headquartered near El Segundo.
Living Strength
Santa Monica-based Demand Media’s highest-profile property just went live last week.
LiveStrong.com, a health site with more than 10,000 articles on topics ranging from neck pain to abdominal exercises, is cycling champ Lance Armstrong’s latest project.
Armstrong, a shareholder in Demand, and a Tour de France champion and cancer survivor, has long championed health issues through the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Demand, which raised $350 million in 18 months, runs LiveStrong.com. The company’s proprietary technology reads content on the Web site and picks up relevant blog content for display on the site. LiveStrong.com also includes Demand’s Answerbag.com widgets for question and answer functions.
The site now features 600,000 articles, postings and other information.
Staff reporter Booyeon Lee can be reached at
[email protected]
or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 230.
