Firefly to sell music site
The personalization software maker will announce the sale of its Bignote music site, and it is looking to do the same with its movie site, Film Finder.
The new owner will add its own music news, interviews, reviews, a database of original artist profiles, sound samples, and album reviews spanning musical genres from country to metal, and relaunch the site as myLaunch. Firefly's music site has about 500,000 members and 14 million artist and album ratings.
Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but Firefly will not receive a continuing stream of revenue from the site. Launch also will license Firefly's personalization software.
Firefly also indicated that its movie site, Film Finder, is up for sale as the company seeks to focus on its software business.
"Our core business is software," said Saul Klein, Firefly's vice president of strategy and brand. "We are still operating Film Finder, and we have seen a significant amount of interest for transitioning it to a third party."
Firefly's personalization software lets users compare their own preferences with other like-minded people. It also lets advertisers target their advertising to users based on their stated preferences.
Firefly launched Bignote in January 1996 to showcase its relationship management and advanced personalization software, and its movie site likewise was designed as a demonstration site.
Firefly has taken a leadership position in online privacy and has persuaded its licensees to do the same, assuring that Firefly Passport Holders have their privacy protected. The company announced the 3.0 version of its software last week.
Other sites using Firefly?s software include bookstore BarnesandNoble.com, MyYahoo, and ZD Net.