JS_Harris - 7:03 pm on Aug 11, 2009 (gmt 0)

Gomvents, yes classmates is owned by UNTD but the majority of UNTD income is derived from their FTD flower chain. UNTD used to make hordes of money via their free (ad filled) website service but they dropped the ball by remaining dial-up only(imo) when competitors like Verizon went DSL or better. That part of the company is shrinking steadily as you'd expect.

Classmates isn't gaining ground, they're new subscriber numbers for the past quarter are down over 65% from the same period last year and an IPO looks even less likely now that UNTD lowered its projected outlook below what was expected. Facebook offers a free classmate finder so it doesn't make sense to pay classmates for that service really.

Also, UNTD leadership bailed out when photobucket was purchased instead of myphotosite, hopes of a buyout didn't materialize (if they existed) and myphotosite was shutdown right after that.

All that ads up to "bail out now or hold on till we hit rock bottom and hope to rebuild". For now the stockholders are happy with dividend earnings, when the cash runs out to continue paying those I expect to see classmates move.

Twitter might actually be able to infuse life into classmates and the timing won't get better than now.