Some very big bets are being placed on finding the next online media conglomerates. One thing these companies have in common: they don’t spend too much money on content, but have models designed to aggregate large audiences on the Web.

Glam Media, which claims to have the largest reach of any Website aimed at women, is understood to be looking to raise $250m from private investors. Glam likes to think of itself as a US-style TV network for the Web. It creates a small amount of content, a brand and advertising: other websites with relevant content that want to sign on to the network have to commit to an exclusive relationship, making them the equivalent of the "owned and operated" stations of the TV networks (though Glam doesn’t go actually buy them outright.) This aggregated audience has now reached 25m unique visitors.

Glam took its latest step this week with a distributed media platform that lets it place widgets containing its search box and ads on partner sites. The company won’t comment on the capital raising plans, but it is understood to be shooting for revenues of more than $100m next year.

Meanwhile, Demand Media has just raised another $100m, reportedly valuing it at $1bn. As we reported back in April, this is another content-lite media company. Former MySpace chairman Richard Rosenblatt has built broad internet reach by buying up a portfolio of domain names: many of those sites do nothing except carry ads from Google. Turning this into a "real" media business, with the brands and content that create real user "stickiness" without breaking the bank, will be Rosenblatt’s next challenge.

Both of these companies have decided to stay in the private markets for their next leg of growth. If all goes to plan, expect them to make waves in the public stock market by the second half of next year.

September 27th, 2007 in Media | Permalink