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Glam Media, Ranked As Number One in Women Online, Launches Global Expansion and U.K. Operations

Posted on: Monday, 25 February 2008, 09:00 CST

BRISBANE, Calif. and NEW YORK, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Glam Media (http://www.glammedia.com/), number one in reach for women online with more than 44 million unique visitors worldwide, announced today the launch of Glam International, which will advance Glam Media's worldwide development. In 2008, the company will create local operating companies in key markets outside of North America, including the United Kingdom, Germany, France and Japan. In a separate announcement today, Glam Media revealed that it has raised $64.6 million in strategic financing with Hubert Burda Media, GLG Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich Ventures, Accel, DFJ, Walden Ventures and Information Capital, and an additional $20 million in debt financing by Hercules.

Glam Media enters the UK market as the category leader for women, according to comScore Media Metrix with more than 4 million unique visitors in the U.K. in January 2008 -- ahead of NBC unit iVillage with 2.8 million uniques and CondeNast's CondeNet at 1.3 million unique visitors. Glam also announced today that Shiny Media, one of the UK's leading Web 2.0 media content companies with titles that include CatwalkQueen.tv, Shoewawa.com and Hippyshopper.com, has joined the Glam Publisher Network. This addition further widens Glam Media's lead as the category leader for women for U.K. brand advertisers and provides a strategic opportunity for Shiny Media both to expand its U.S. network and further monetize its female-focused lifestyle and fashion web sites.

Shakeel Mugal is also joining Glam Media as Commercial Director to lead Glam U.K. advertising sales and operations. Mughal has 15 years of media sales experience in the U.K., including Sales Director for the daily Metro and most recently as head of sales for Handbag.com, the number one destination in the U.K. for women and now part of the Hearst Digital network of media properties. The initial U.K. team also includes Caryn Kavovit, previously a top sales performer at WebMD and iVillage. Glam Media will unveil further details on Glam UK at the iMedia U.K. Agency Summit to be held March 9-11, 2008.

"Glam Media's rapid growth -- fueled by the rise of display advertising -- places the company as a leader in new media network," said Shakeel Mugal for Glam Media. "Glam Media is uniquely positioned to build on its market share in the U.K., and I am proud to help lead the team, as we offer the right model for premium brand advertisers."

"We are thrilled to help Glam Media go global with such distinguished financial partners as Burda and GLG and proven U.K. media executives from leading brands like Hearst Digital and WebMD joining Glam," said Samir Arora, chairman and CEO of Glam Media. "With our international team in place, Glam Media's distributed media network model will be successfully deployed locally in key markets enabling brand advertisers to tap our publishers' worldwide audience."

Bernard Desarnauts, formerly VP Marketing and Products, is assuming the new role of General Manager, Glam International to lead Glam's global expansion. He is joined by an expert and seasoned team including Ralf Hirt VP of International, formerly VP of Operations & Strategy Partnerships for DoubleClick, and Joy Cavanaugh, who also hails from DoubleClick and who will now serve as Glam Media's Director of New Market Development.

Glam Media's expansion into the U.K., with Germany, France, Japan and other markets in 2008 leverages the shift away from the dominance of portals and destination web sites to the distributed media network model that Glam Media pioneered. Glam Media's distributed media network meshes premium traditional media content and quality indie publishers like Shiny Media, traditional media companies such as Lifetime along with style, living, entertainment, wellness and shopping categories to provide advertisers with unique and diverse brand engagement with their target audiences.

Glam Media

CONTACT: Caroline Hacker of Glam Media, +1-650-270-2183,caroline@GlamMedia.com; or Lane Buschel of The Morris + King Company for GlamMedia, +1-212-561-7454, lane.buschel@morris-king.com

Web site: http://www.glam.com/

Source: PRNewswire

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