Discovery Invests in Sassa's Web Publishing Firm Uber.com; UMG Other Investor
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Last we knew, Scott Sassa, the former CEO of Frindster, had left his EIR position at Kleiner Perkins and taken over as the CEO of an obscure social network Uber.com. That was late 2006. Since then, not much has been heard about the Los Angeles-based company, and now it has retooled itself from a "social hangout for the uber-cool" to a social media publishing platform for individuals. Also, it has now received funding from Discovery Communications (NSDQ: DISCA), according to this LAT story. Previous investors in this second round include Universal Music Group and Sterling Stamos Co-Investors Fund, according to an SEC filing...the amount of the second round was up to $7.6 million. As for Discovery's interest, it plans to use Uber to power an online forum so that fans of its TLC cable channel tattoo shows, "Miami Ink" and "LA Ink," can connect.
Uber now is has vertical blog network with topics such as photography, music and style. It has a group of bloggers and a recently added index, which regularly compiles new posts and commentary of contributors on the site. It still has a tiny audience: Nielsen says it has 500,000 users a month; *Comscore* says it had 443,000 unique visitors in April. And of course there are tons of bigger sites and companies providing services similar to Uber. Oh, it does have some celebrities blogging, no doubt Sassa's connections, including Rob Lowe, Lisa Ling, MIA, Rev Run and others.
By Rafat Ali