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ServiceMagic, Match.com boost IAC earnings

According to its Q410 earnings release, IAC revenue grew 27 percent year over year, with significant growth in ServiceMagic members and personals users.  Its search division realized promising numbers as well.

ServiceMagic grew its service provider network 22 percent, for a current total of  more than 82,000 service providers.  Web design and Internet marketing firm Market Hardware product sales went from 300 to 11,000 in just one year.  Match.com increased its revenue 19 percent and personals site People Media jumped 17 percent YOY.

Read the complete earnings release on the IAC site.

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IAC grows revenue, still realizes loss

Search (Ask.com, CitySearch, toolbars) and ServiceMagic were the primary revenue heroes at IAC, according to its Q110 earnings call and release. Revenue growth year over year was 16 percent. The company reported a net loss of $300,000 before amortization, though this was a 91 percent improvement from Q109′s $3 million loss.

In the U.S., ServiceMagic realized 40 percent additional service requests and 256 percent more service providers year over year. Match.com revenue grew 8 percent YOY, while subscribers increased 2 percent. CityGrid added more than 150 new publishers since January 29, when its developer center launched. During the same time Dex One became the latest of 10 CityGrid reseller partners.

In response to an earnings call question about IAC mobile strategy, IAC executives told us that:

* Dictionary.com has launched its IPad app, with 100,000 downloads so far

* Urbanspoon, Citysearch and others have IPhone apps

“Anybody who does not invest the appropriate amount of money and really innovate for the various form factors out there would be a fool,” said CEO and chair Barry Diller. “We all know how much this is moving towards smaller devices. I haven’t found a single person who has an IPad and doesn’t absolutely smile when they turn it on. It’s a delightful experience that changes everything. Our products are going to, in many ways, lead in making apps that lead the way in an area that has many opportunites in front of it.”

The IAC toolbar move to mobile will be slower than other IAC mobile implementations, we heard. 

Here’s the complete earnings release [PDF.]

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Yahoo personals powered by Match.com, other IAC earnings news

Interactive Corp. reported an 18 percent second quarter 2009 year over year income gain on today’s earnings call, to $1.6 billion. However, IAC search and media (including Ask.com) accounted for half that increase, which IAC had not owned this time last year. HSC Germany sales declined 17 percent in the quarter.

Personals revenue grew 28 percent. Match.com increased paid members by 15 percent year over year at the end of June. Internationally, Match.com has entered an agreement with Yahoo! to power the Yahoo!’s personal service in the U.K. and Germany over a multi-year period. 

TicketMaster’s strong momentum continued in Q2, selling more than 30 million tickets for the third consecutive quarter, and achieving all-time 14 percent gain in revenue, profits, and online penetration. Its sports ticket exchange increased sales by 86 percent. 

“Ticketing has been an outstanding performer,” said President and COO Doug Lebda, on the earnings call. “What is really amazing is how this 30-year old business with its solid market position just continues to innovate, expand, and consistently renew and add clients…Just last week, TicketMaster announced its entry into Spain, one of the top-five ticketing markets in Europe, with the acquisition of “Tic Tac Ticket”, which works with more than 400 event organizers across the Spanish market.”

Not surprisingly, real estate products such as Lending Tree and RealEstate.com saw heavy declines. ” In real estate, we believe that our new e-brokerage business can give us a distinct advantage in penetrating this massive market opportunity,” said Lebda. “With more than 130 agents on board in Portland, Denver, Seattle, and Salt Lake City, and over 270 real estate contracts signed with consumers over the past few months, we have real traction. We are also in the process of overhauling realestate.com, which is intended to accelerate the site’s evolution from primarily a lead generator to one that is consumer friendly, listing-centric, and feature rich.” RealEstate.com now has 1.9 million listings, up from last year’s 1.3 million. This represents three fourths of the listings in the top 75 U.S. markets.

Barry Diller, IAC Chair and CEO,  spoke of what’s ahead for HSN (Home Shopping Network.) “It is early days. I think we have two experiments going in what you would call interactive TV,” he said. “ I think that is probably the next..step before you get really rich archival retrieval and appointment viewing and things like that. Inevitably, of course, it is going to happen, as the data possibilities grow, there is no question but the video is going to be easily retrievable and you will be able to get exactly what you want when you want it from a whole array of things, all with video and instructions and all the stuff that home shopping has been known for historically.

“In ITV…which is with Cablevision, the idea is that you essentially, on a big screen, just like you are watching today, you like a product, you point and click and it is delivered to you within the next day or so. You do not have to phone order, you do not have to do anything. It is I think the most natural evolution.

 While there were profit ups and downs in the various categories of IAC products, the message was hopeful. “Whatever comes of this economy and its hopes and risks, our mix of businesses, our steady progress, and our strong balance sheet ought to see us better than through,” said Diller.

The call transcript for this report was provided by SeekingAlpha.

 

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International expansion planned by Angie’s List, Servicemagic

SANTA CLARA, Calif. (at the BIA Kelsey Interactive Local Media conference): Look for expansion into Canada and the U.K. next year by Angie’s List, a subscription-based site that focuses on home improvement providers. Competitor Servicemagic, a free competitor, has moved into France and is targeting Germany as its next international expansion country.

Angie’s List founder Angie Hicks today said that the company will use some of its $18 million in new funding (announced this week) to open two offices in Canada and probably one in the U.K. next year. She didn’t say where they would be.

Angie’s List has a very unusual Webby business model, because it charges for access to its listings. It also publishes a print magazine in each of the 120 U.S. markets where it operates, and it sells advertising to contractors and home-service providers that are rated highly by consumers.

Despite the economy, Hicks said Angie’s List is having its best year in advertising revenue, and October was its best month — because contractors who were highly rated used to be very busy, but are now finding that they need to increase their marketing to stay busy.

Rodney Rice, cochairman of Servicemagic, said his expansion plans were boosted by the international merger-and-acquisitions arm of IAC/InterActiveCorp, its parent company, which helped identify an acquisition target in France and complete the purchase.

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IAC CitySearch launches first major redesign in 10 years

IAC’s local online guide CitySearch has launched its first major redesign in nearly a decade. The move is aimed at competing with more aggressive newcomers like Yelp. The revised site tried to strike a balance between user-generated reviews and its own editorial reviews.

CitySearch is now in beta (see http://beta.citysearch.com/ – the old site automatically redirects here) and has added new social features such as classifying reviews by members, as well as more detailed search functionality (there are 140 local city guides covering some 75,000 cities and neighborhoods).

Perhaps most interesting, CitySearch now is integrated with Facebook so that you can import your Facebook friends and automatically post stories you write in CitySearch to your Facebook wall which can be shared with your Facebook friends.

Recognizing the power of the iPhone, CitySearch also has a new mobile version – see http://m.citysearch.com/.

Local service provider reviews are taken from InsiderPages which CitySearch bought last year. InsiderPage will live on as a separate brand.

IAC in its Q2 08 earnings call said that CitySearch was to do over $100 million revenue in 2009. With the economy in the dumps, the company may not make those numbers, but we’ll certainly be watching.

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Angie’s List raises $18 million

Who says you can’t raise money these days. Lighthouse Capital Partners has put $18 million into home improvement and contractor online listings and review service Angie’s List. That’s after $35 million that Battery Ventures put I earlier this year in April. All told, the company has raised $65 million in the 13 years since it launched.

Angie’s List says it will use the funds to add new categories and to go international. The site added health care providers in March.

The site chargers users a membership fee to access listings. We wrote about Angie’s List previously here. Competition includes two IAC sites: Service Magic and Insider Pages.

Angie’s List has 750,000 members in 124 major cities across the United States.

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