Staking a claim in the content delivery business, AmericanGreetings.com acquired eAgents, provider of an online news
product that delivers consolidated information and entertainment from a
variety of Web media brands in a single, daily e-mail.
AmericanGreetings.com is a subsidiary of American Greetings Corp.
Financial terms were not disclosed, but as part of the agreement, Charles
Fink, founder, president and chief executive officer of eAgents.com, will
become president of AmericanGreetings.com, reporting to chief executive
officer Josef Mandelbaum.
“Our plan is to take eAgents, a new company with a great idea and a
world-class
management team, and turn it into the market leader, demonstrating the power
of the platform we’ve built,” said Mandelbaum.
Fink said he sees great potential in the new partnership. “eAgents is the
personalized daily newspaper the Internet always promised but never
delivered,” he said. “By joining forces with AmericanGreetings.com, we expect
to drive the adoption of this must-have product at a rapid pace.”
Clearly the acquisition enhances the revenue model for AmericanGreetings.com,
creating a beefed up audience for advertisers.
AmericanGreetings.com said its traffic would help to lower eAgents’ cost of
subscriber
acquisition and allows the combined company to leverage
AmericanGreetings.com’s hardware and bandwidth at its point of lowest
utilization (midnight to 9 a.m.), driving down the cost of e-mail compilation
and delivery.
Prior to founding eAgents, Fink was senior vice president and chief creative
officer at AOL Studios Greenhouse Networks, where he created and launched
content brands including Love@AOL and Electra (later sold to Oxygen Media).
eAgents’ free personalized daily online newspaper contains content from
more than 50 sources including MSNBC, The New York Times, CBS Marketwatch, CBS
Sportsline, ZDNet, TVGuide, RollingStone.com, Hollywood.com, Women.com,
Food.com, LotteryUSA, Accuweather, Astronet, Fox News, Fox Sports,
CelebStreet, the Knot, the Motley Fool and The Industry Standard.
AmericanGreetings.com claimed 13.6 million unique visitors in July. The site
currently offers more than 15,000 greetings, licensed characters,
invitations, games and Hi- Brow Comix.