ITurf Aims to Be Internet Hub for Generation Y
New York, July 6 (Bloomberg) -- ITurf Inc. aims to be the dominant online attraction for so-called Generation Y, an age group that's growing twice as fast as the overall population, its chief executive said.
ITurf, which is 75 percent owned by teen-clothing catalog retailer Delia's Inc., has a network of World Wide Web sites targeting 10- to 24-year-olds with editorial content, chat rooms, personal home pages, e-mail and shopping. Its gurl.com site is already the largest online community focused on girls, Chief Executive Stephen Kahn said.
ITurf targets an age group that's more technologically savvy than most people, he said. About 85 percent of Generation Y is expected to be online by 2002, compared with about 45 percent of U.S. households. More advertisers may look to iTurf as a way to reach these consumers, who are watching less television and are in the early stages of creating allegiances to brands, Kahn said. ''This is the most important demographic for the future of the medium,'' Kahn told the Bloomberg Forum. ''The issue for us is to aggregate those page views, those eyeballs, as quickly as possible''
ITurf's network registered 50 million page views in April, up from 29 million in January. Page views, considered a key measure of an Internet site's success, refer to the number of pages viewed by visitors to the site.
An important competitive advantage for iTurf is its access to Delia's direct-marketing assets, he said. They include a database containing millions of e-mail addresses iTurf can use to send product offerings, and a warehouse in Pennsylvania for shipping.
ITurf plans to build its network of sites and services both on its own and by acquiring companies that specialize in areas such as music, gaming and college, Kahn said.
Share Price
The shares of New York-based iTurf were first sold to the public in April at $22 apiece. They peaked later that month at 62 5/8. Since then, they've declined about 69 percent.
Kahn attributed the decline to a general sell-off of Internet stocks, as well as to a plethora of Internet company public offerings. ''There are so many different offerings coming out that it's difficult to hold the investors' focus on big stories, and we have a big story,'' he said.
ITurf has at least as much opportunity for growth as other ''demographically focused'' online networks such as those run by iVillage Inc., Women.com Networks Inc. and Oxygen Media Inc., Kahn said. Those sites all target women. ''We have a wide open market right now and a significant first-mover advantage over anyone else trying to do the same thing,'' he said.
ITurf's Internet sites include gurl.com, tsisoccer.com, dotdotdash.com and delias.com.
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