We’ve received word that Monster has decided to lay off the 30-35 employees that work for subsidiary Tickle, a company that it acquired for about $94M in May 2004. Tickle includes not only a tests and quizzes site that shares the same name but also Ringo, a photo and video-sharing site, and LoveHappens, an online dating site. As part of the decision, Ringo and LoveHappens will be completely shut down while Tickle will be absorbed into Affinity Labs, a content verticals company recently acquired by Monster. The Tickle site will change focus once absorbed by Affinity Labs, although just how is yet to be seen. All layoffs will be complete by the end of June; employees were told of the decision at an internal meeting yesterday. Ringo and LoveHappens are now in the DeadPool. CrunchBase Information Monster Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Us bloggers/journalists/hacks often get free swag from companies at events and 90 percent of the time it’s all crap. No, really, it’s usually the crappiest crap you could ever see and you’d never want it to begin with. I go for the booze and shitty fabulous food. However, I can say without a doubt that the best thing I’ve ever received from any company at an event comes from Monster and it’s a power strip. I’m currently half way through my romp of the West Coast (the best coast) and this little doodad has come in handy multiple times. The media room at Moscone was a joke and there wasn’t an open outlet to be found so I walked on out to the hallway and plugged her in. Matt and I were up running while the rest of the herd ran around scrambling for juice. It was especially handy at the Vegas airport since there’s, like, two outlets for every three gates. I’ve had to use it just about every day for one reason or another. It’s small, easily transportable and it’s only $15. That’s hot. So hot that Matt tried stealing it from me, but he failed since I kicked him in the nuts. You never know when a hot geeky girl will come your way looking for some good old fashioned AC power and you’re the guy who can accommodate her. Product Page → Read More
Product Name: Monster Beats Headphones Description: Monster proves that as long as you put their company name on it, you can charge as much as you want. They teamed up with Dr. Dre and Interscope records to create a shockingly expensive set of headphones with a “unique and avant-garde look,” according to the release. (Judge for yourself above….) In typically overblown fashion, Monster claims “their sonic performance is unequalled in any other headphone.” These full-size cans have a glossy extra-wide headband and a mute button, which is actually pretty handy. They come with a hot-looking case, an anti-microbial cleaning cloth, quarter-inch adapter, iPhone mic adapter (the Monster iSonitalk), and of course, special Monster cables. Price: $399.95 In-store date: Spring 2008 Site: www.monstercable.com Why it’s cool: If Dr. Dre loves them, they must be cool. The mute button is neat, but I wouldn’t throw away your high-end AKG, Sennheiser, or Grado headphones just yet. → Read More
Job listings site Monster announced today that it has paid $61M for a young startup called Affinity Labs, which runs a set of websites for niche audiences such as police officers and nurses. These sites, while only a few months old and attracting a total of only 800,000 unique visitors per month, are attractive to Monster because it can use them to target professionals who are in high demand by employers. The sites are essentially cookie-cutter information portals with social networking features that seek to attract members of particular demographics. Monster has already established a presence on each of the sites by deploying career search badges, like the one below, on their homepages. A couple things are peculiar about this deal. First, Monster has paid a handsome sum of money for a company that offers neither a large user base nor coveted technological capabilities (as far as I can tell, these are simple CRUD websites built on Ruby on Rails). Second, Monster is retreading very familiar ground by purchasing several informational portals from the same guy, Christopher Michel, who sold them Military.com, an information portal for servicemen, in 2004 for $40M. In fact, we’ve heard that this was not a coincidence but rather a repeat performance of sorts that has been planned all along. Affinity Labs was reportedly started in 2006 as a way for Michel to replicate and enhance his success with Military.com by selling a handful of similar sites to Monster within a relatively short period of time (an exit of one to two years). Monster even planned to invest in Affinity Labs before CEO Andrew J. McKelvey stepped down from his post during the company’s options backdating scandal in late 2006. Once McKelvey was gone, Monster shied away from investing and Affinity Labs raised its Series A with Mayfield instead. However, Affinity Labs continued to collaborate with the Military.com team within Monster to develop its handful of portals. With today’s announcement, Michel’s plan of building a company with a specific Monster exit in mind has come to fruition. Whether Michel stays with the company will probably determine whether or not Monster has paid too much for the sprouting company, as he will be instrumental to their blossoming into established sites that can drive quality traffic to Monster. The announcement highlights the fact you don’t need to build a revolutionary product if you have a well-defined buyer in → Read More
I’ll accept that “cables make a difference” in certain situations. Cable length, interference, and corrosion can effect cables, especially analog signals, and I’ve seen some improvements in using higher-end cables on higher-end gear. This, however, is unacceptable. Gizmo Republic visited a big box store where they found some red hot Monster HDMI cables for sale and demo showing the clear Monster Cable difference: Monster on the left, inferior competitor on the right. Why was the competitor inferior? Because the big box sales folks connected composite cables to one TV and a Monster Cable HDMI cable to another. They then ran the same signal to both TVs over different resolution cables. It would be like adding racing stripes to a Formula 1 car and racing a Ford Focus, saying that the racing stripes improved the speed. This is so egregious that it makes me wonder how they’re getting away with it but, as we all know, suckers gestate in sixty second intervals. Monster brand has been running this scam for years. The big box retailers have found outrageously priced accessories to be a good way to recoup profits from the pencil thin profit margins on big ticket consumer electronics like HDTVs. Everyone deserves their buck, but this makes me sick. Be careful out there, kids. Monster HDMI Cable Scam [GizmoRepublic] → Read More
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