to get an idea of the depth of this market size and what the website COMMUNICATIONS vehicle will provide for GAAY: here is the competition - like Yahoo had Excite etc. all starting in pennies and with lots of BS; even Ziff Davis ZDTV enterprises has had loads of BS and crap to carry - still they are providing a great service and the stock survives, as did AOL through all the BS it went through when they overextended themselves; they came back Just for illustrative purposes only, nothing else is this post: Jacalyn M. Deaner
Friday August 13, 8:48 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Online Partners Announces:
Gay.com Outperforms Other
Online Community Sites As
Measured By Media Metrix
Gay/Lesbian Marketing Powerhouse Delivers on Its Promise
Leadership Status Attracts Online Advertisers
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 1999-- The Gay.com Network,
launched in April 1999 as the largest gay and lesbian online community, has been ranked first
among online community sites in three major Web site performance categories.
The Media Metrix rating benchmark marks the first time a gay and lesbian site has surpassed
other prominent online communities, including GeoCities (NASDAQ:YHOO - news),
iVillage (NASDAQ: IVIL - news), TalkCity (NASDAQ: TCTY - news), ThirdAge, and
Women.com (NASDAQ:WOMN - news).
The June 1999 Media Metrix Audience Measurement Web Usage Report states Gay.com's
leadership in three key areas: average usage days per visitor, average unique page views per
visitor in a month, and average minutes spent per usage month. According to audited traffic
reports, Gay.com Network reached over 1.5 million unique visitors in June -- over 16% of
the worldwide gay and lesbian online population.
Overall Internet Ranking
In Media Metrix's overall ranking of the top 660 domains and consolidated sites, Gay.com
ranked in the top 30: 17th in average minutes spent per unique page at home (29th in
combined work/home), 27th in average minutes spent per usage month at home (38th
combined work/home) and 21st in average usage days per visitor at home (31st in combined
work/home).
Frequent Visits and Proven Customer Loyalty Attract New Gay.com
Advertisers
The industry-leading benchmarks indicate that Gay.com gay and lesbian users visit the site
more frequently, spend more time on the site, and review more pages than visitors to other
online communities. The metrics imply that advertisers have a much better-than-average
chance of their ads being seen by Gay.com site visitors than by other online community
visitors.
These statistics become even more significant when supported by the fact that gays and
lesbians are avid buyers of products and services, with proven loyalty to products that are
advertised to their community. According to Simmons Research Bureau, 89% of gays and
lesbians will seek out goods and services that target them specifically.
Gay.com's online leadership and eCommunity program has attracted several new advertisers
over the past 60 days, including Air New Zealand, Ameritrade, BigStar.com, ebay,
Healthshop.com, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, NextCard, PlanetRx, TriMark Pictures,
TVLand, and Virgin Megastore.
The eCommunity e-commerce program allows advertisers to use Gay.com's interactive
community-building tools -- such as message boards, polls and chat -- to target, test, refine
and deliver online and offline advertising and promotions by directly engaging in one-to-one
dialogs with their end-users.
``Gay.com's site traffic leadership is based on the two most fundamental principles of Web
marketing: we attract the largest number of our target audience to our site, then we keep
them there,' said Mark Elderkin, co-founder of Gay.com and president of Online Partners,
parent company of Gay.com.
``Our advertisers know that there is no other online or offline media channel that can reach
as many gay and lesbian consumers as Gay.com. This strength will become even more
significant in the coming months as we grow our online presence through strategic
partnerships and extend Gay.com products and services into new Web-complementary and
offline offerings.'
About Online Partners and Gay.com
Online Partners develops and manages targeted online communities with significant
e-commerce potential. Its first global property -- the Gay.com Network -- is the leading
online community serving gays and lesbians, hosting over 3.5 million hours of connection time
each month -- 100 times greater usage than its nearest competitor -- with over 7 million
visits each month. Online Partners is based in San Francisco, with offices in New York and
Los Angeles.
The Gay.com Network includes Gay.com, Gay.net and onQ on AOL. It provides a mix of
online and offline products and services to advertisers and consumers. In support of this, the
Gay.com Network has forged partnerships with Internet leaders such as AOL,
CommTouch, DoubleClick, and Volano, and leading gay content providers, including The
Advocate, Girlfriends magazine, Rainbow Query, GAYBC Radio Network and over 70
influential gay and lesbian newspapers worldwide.
Gay.com and Gay.com Network are trademarks of Online Partners. All other trademarks
belong to their respective companies.
Contact:
Online Partners.com, Inc.
John Finco, Director of Marketing, 415/252-6700 x222
John@onlinepartners.com
or
Spiralgroup Marketing Public Relations
Stuart McFaul, President, 415/227-9747
StuartM@Spiralgroup.com |
