Do They Make A Card That Says, "Look, We're Making Money Now"?

from the click-here-to-read dept

One of the most visible signs of the dot-com bubble was the $780 million buyout of e-card site Blue Mountain Arts by Excite@home in 1999. Just why anybody would pay nearly $1 billion for an e-cards site with no real business plan wasn't clear, and as part of its spectacular implosion, Excite dumped the property less than two years later for $35 million. But The New York Times reports that the online card industry is going through a resurgence, generating profits either through advertising or from subscription models. AmericanGreetings.com -- formed from the purchase of Blue Mountain Arts -- says it has 2.4 million subscribers at $14 per year, while a five-person company from the UK says it's got 527,000 paying about $8 yearly. Those are decent revenues, generating healthly profits, the companies say -- but certainly won't ever justify the dot-com-era prices.
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  1. identicon
    Sohrab, 30 Jan 2006 @ 2:27pm

    No Subject Given

    $780 Million? Holy shit. I used to love excites VP client when I was a kid but they scrapped that when there were alot of people on that yet would pay that much for E-Cards? they could have spent 1/5 that and just made their own from scratch. Not like there were profits behind that company at the time to justify the buy.

    wow and double wow for that

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    mandy, 30 Jan 2006 @ 3:08pm

    Re: No Subject Given

    i love you too

    link to this | view in thread ]


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