paidContent - Layoffs and Reorg at IAC-Owned Evite
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
Evite, the invitation service owned by IAC (NSDQ: IACI), is done a reorg and laid off 9 employees out of 38 total, we have learned and confirmed from the company. Among the execs who have been laid off include Rosanna McCollough, who was the GM of Evite since early last year, and Lariayn Payne, VP of Marketing for Evite.
This is part of the reorg of the service, as John Foley, who used to run Evite a while back (from 2002-2005) but now runs sister IAC-company Pronto, is taking Evite under his wings, though they will continue to be separate businesses. Hans Woolley, a co-founder of Pronto, has been named President of Evite and will report to Foley. An IAC PR rep told me they have some new ideas about Evite as a product and will be implementing those going ahead. This follows a similar reorg earlier this year where Gifts.com was brought under Pronto’s management, and Gifts.com CEO Jason Rapp left the company. .
IAC doesn’t break out Evite as separate category in its earnings—it is part of the Media & Advertising group—but Diller said in the Q109 eanrings call that display advertising on Evite, its main source of revenue, has been hurt due to the downturn. A lot of more social-media friendly events sites have also come up in the last few years, including MyPunchbowl, Socializr, Zvents, Eventful, and a new contender Cocodot (which we wrote about here), and of course, biggies in social networking Facebook and MySpace.
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By Rafat Ali