Concrete Media, New York, has purchased Filmfinder.com, a Web site for “intelligent” recommendations of movies, from the Cambridge, Mass.-based Firefly Network. Concrete will maintain a stand-alone Filmfinder, but will also fold the service into its Girls on Film site (www.girlsonfilm.com), with plans to build an entire network for women, also using Firefly’s software.
Firefly first launched its Filmfinder.com service in March, 1996. The site was Firefly’s second to showcase its well-publicized personalization and community-building software. The first, a music site called Firefly.com (later renamed Bignote.com) launched in January, 1996, and was bought last fall by 2 Way Media, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based music publisher. 2 Way Media later teamed its CD-ROM Launch with Firefly’s site to create a music destination called MyLaunch (www.mylaunch.com).
With the close of the Concrete Media deal, said to involve money in the low six-figures, Firefly has shed all its content properties and will now focus on licensing. Yahoo, BarnesandNoble.com, ZDNet and Virtual Emporium are some of the companies that already license the company’s software, Firefly Passport and Firefly Catalog Navigator.
“The roots of the company are in software,” said Nick Grouf, CEO of Firefly Network. “The founders come out of MIT.” Advertising, Grouf said, “is a different business model. Because of our expertise, we thought the best use was to focus on software licensing.”
In the future, Concrete plans to launch the GO (Girls On) Network to expand beyond culture to other topics, possibly including food, travel or money.
IQ News: Firefly Burns Out On Web Programming
