Peggy Noonan, Lesley Stahl and Friends Raise More Money: Wowowow.com Gets Another $1.5 Million
by Peter Kafka
Posted on December 7, 2008 at 4:40 PM PT
The purse strings haven’t completely closed for start-ups looking to raise money–even niche Web sites that hope to stay afloat by selling advertising.
Wowowow.com, a site launched earlier this year, which targets women over 40, has raised a $1.5 million round led by Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group and the Rhime Group.
No word on valuation, but I’d guesstimate Wowowow.com’s investors peg its value in the high seven-figure range. The company has now raised $3.1 million in less than a year.
The five founders–former publisher Joni Evans, “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec Mary Wells; and Wall Street Journal political columnist Peggy Noonan–contributed $200,000 each in an initial round. Some of the company’s high-profile pals, like Whoopi Goldberg and Candice Bergen, later kicked in another $600,000.
Is that money well spent? We’ll see. Publishing is a tough business, even for lean Web operations, and advertisers generally steer clear of small sites. The company launched with a series of high profile sponsors; from what I can tell, at least some of them–like Citigroup (C) and Sony (SNE)–are still there.
And Pittman, the former MTV and AOL executive, has garnered new respect as a Web investor (Full disclosure: Pittman’s company invested in Silicon Alley Media, my former employer), so presumably he sees something there.
One plus: Wowowow.com is boasting rapid growth. The site, which launched in March, says it attracted 600,000 unique visitors last month. That number is much higher than outside estimates from outfits like Compete and Quantcast, but that kind of discrepancy is par for the course for any Web publisher.
In any case, if Wowowow.com wants to make a go of it, it’s going to need to attract at least one million uniques a month, a goal the company says it will achieve “early next year.”
BoomTown’s Kara Swisher dropped by the company’s New York offices earlier this year; here’s a video that documents her visit.
Follow Peter on Twitter | Follow AllThingsD on Twitter
Comments
Climbing the unique user wall to satiate advertisers will no longer work, particularly with any degree of sustenance. Surely, the value proposition has more substance than just a focus on 40+ women. Since they are flush with celebrity cash, they should consider buying a less childish domain.
Posted by Jonathan Marcus at December 7th, 2008 at 7:00 pmThis looks like a recipe for failure to me unless the founders are able to leverage their celebrity into a *huge amount* of free traffic. Otherwise it seems to me the demographic, name, lateness to the table, and even the general concept simply don’t add up to much profit potential in what is becoming a cheap and difficult online ad environment.
Posted by Joseph Hunkins at December 7th, 2008 at 11:09 pmI’m not the target market so my take may be absolute rubbish. But it’s possible to have an excellent website that no one visits.
This effort seems to have high aspirations but is difficult to define in a couple of sentences. I’m not sure if it will become a destination site. I clicked over to the site to check it out. While I’m sure a lot of time was spent on its design, I didn’t get a feel of a central message or mission. It seems a bit all over the place.
Posted by Ken Okel at December 8th, 2008 at 5:20 amYes Virginia There is a Santa Claus. I love these women and finally there’s validation for a website that speaks to me. I’m sure I’m not alone and just in case, I’ve become an ambassador for wowOwow. Thanks Joni, Lesley, Whoopy, Peggy……
Posted by Amy Millman at December 8th, 2008 at 9:32 amThis site needs to add a few ‘average’ gals. Yep, some well-known bloggers who can bring THEIR following along, when they post. We all love the celebs, but blogging isn’t about celebrity. It’s about connecting and engaging.
I know the readers of wowOwow are very engaged…my friend Toby Bloomberg has a great post on Diva Marketing about them, but if this site wants to play with the big boys…and generate millions of page views…they need to add more regular folks. Voices I can relate to. People like me.
I offer my services, and if I am not what they want, I can recommend a few others. Women are dominating the web now and to succeed, the writers of a group blog need diversity. All celeb writers may speak for many women, but they miss the point for many other women.
BTW, we’re all watching.
Posted by Yvonne DiVita at December 9th, 2008 at 5:09 am