IAC Acquires GirlSense.com, Fashion Social Network/Virtual World

IAC announced today that it had acquired GirlSense.com, "an ingenious fashion community for tween and teen girls that blends social networking with an artistic, inspired, virtual fashion world." It's not quite a traditional virtual world--it doesn't look like there's a sense of movement or place, though there is a strong emphasis on avatars, customization, and social networking--but the release highlights GirlSense.com as expanding the same portfolio as IAC's main virtual world, Zwinky. We've followed up with IAC for more details of the acquisition and plans for GirlSense.

“Part of our growth strategy includes acquisition of products and companies that complement our core competencies,” said John Park, president and CEO of IAC Consumer Applications & Portals, Inc. “Adding Girlsense.com to our existing teen targeted product portfolio provides us with broader teen mindshare, and access to the coveted tween demographic.”

GirlSense currently boasts 13 million registered users, compared to Zwinky's 6 million unique users, though it, fairly obviously, will slant much more heavily towards tween and teen girls. Both are now under the IAC Consumer Applications & Portals division.

Users can design their own fashions, sell them in virtual boutiques that they maintain and market, and  socialize. It seems like IAC is making a play at tackling Stardoll's marketshare with young women interested in virtual fashion. I wouldn't be surprised to see the site expanded to include more Zwinktopia-like features, especially as IAC has committed elsewhere to using virtual worlds to approach new demographics. For example, the upcoming Green.com will feature an eco-virtual world aimed at tweens and teens.

“ We are excited to join IAC CAP, a leader in Internet products and services, and to mutually benefit from the synergies of being a part of their consumer platform” said Cathy Glazer, CEO and Founder of GirlSense. “We believe that the experience, scale and market share IAC brings will help expand and enrich the GirlSense community.” 

Comments

[Fred]

"According to the company, which is based in Israel, GirlSense has nearly 13 million registered users."

Wow... a lot of registered users for a site that shows a monthly traffic under 200,000 (and falling) on both Compete and Quantcast.

When are you going to stop publishing nonsense under the sorry excuse of the "according to..." form? Where is your basic ability to cross-check such statements?

Thirteen million registered users - and nobody has ever heard of this site!!!

The "good" news is that people who just lied to us about their registered user base made some good money - on the back of IAC's shareholders. Nothing new, in fact...

[simon]

interesting... i see the strategic acquisition, but why this site in particular? there are many girls fashion social network thingies.

and 12 million members is obviously made up. club penguin does not even have that many members. if you look at girlsense's traffic metrics on alexa/compete/comscore and compare them all, they tell you girlsense has 2 million visitors per month max. they couldn't have that many members active at the traffic level they're at.

in terms of other sites they could have looked at, there is stardoll and habbo with many times the size, cartoondollemporium with at least twice the traffic and the exact niche IAC was looking at, and if they wanted to expand to kids sites in general there is webkinz which is the most popular kids site period.

[Eddie]

Good article and interesting news. I think this is a smart move for IAC. Whilst not as well known as properties such as Stardoll or Habbo, they have done will to build an active community of tween and early teens.

Their Fashion Design Studio is quite well implemented allowing for a lot of customisation, no doubt contributing to the success. FYI, I go into this in more detail at the industry blog: http://vrfashion.blogspot.com /2008/05/custom-avatar -fashion-and-girlsense .html

[flower girl dress]

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[hugo boss perfumes]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention - I’ve reviewed it myself now. A very enjoyable read. and yes flower girl really a great collection for kids i just love them , gonna buy couple of them for my sweety too .

[chelsea]

omg ive benn on girl sense for a long time and my screen name is sroxykitty but latley when i try to get on and go to the studio a box pops up and said internet explore can not diplay the girl sense /studio and the i hit ok and it goes to a blank page i cant make new fashions anymore it wont let me i need help!!!