Daft invest in Boards.ie

Vexorg

Daft.ie invests in Boards.ie...

Guys just to give you a heads up, I know the news will get out pretty fast today.

The are business sensitive issues that we will not discuss of course.

This is the formal press release..

Guys

Would like to let you guys know that the daft guys (Daft.ie) have invested and taken a minority shareholding in boards.ie.

What we do has not been decided, but we will find a good use for it to improve boards.ie.



Following is the press release:


Dublin, 15th August 2008 (Embargo 7am)


Daft Media, owner of leading property website Daft.ie, today announced the acquisition of a minority stake in Boards.ie for an undisclosed sum.


Boards.ie is Ireland’s largest community website and attracts an audience of approximately one million monthly unique visitors. The investment will help strengthen the position of Boards.ie as a top Irish brand and online destination. There will be continued investment in the Boards.ie in order to maintain growth and seek out new audiences. Over the longer term, both companies have committed to continue to provide an independent and neutral platform for Irish consumers to voice their opinions.


“We are very happy to welcome Daft on board as partners in Boards.ie“, said Gerry Shanahan, Managing Director, Boards.ie. “This investment will give us the ability to invest further in infrastructure, to add more features to the website and ultimately provide an improved service to our community of users.”


Commenting on the investment, Eamonn Fallon, CEO at Daft Media “We strongly believe the future of media is online and Boards.ie is well positioned to be a leading player in Irish online media. Our combined audience is over 2.1 million unique viewers every month which is larger than most TV stations in Ireland. We are very happy to be working with the Boards.ie guys and look forward to helping them grow their business”.


Ends


Notes to the Editor


About Daft Media
Daft Media is one of Ireland's largest online media groups. Its flagship title, Daft.ie, is Ireland's largest property website. In 2007, over €60 billion worth of Irish property was listed on the site. The latest audited report from ABCe (April 2008) shows traffic of 75 million page impressions and 974,595 unique users. Daft Media acquired Property.ie in March 2008.


About Boards.ie Boards.ie is Ireland’s largest community website that connects hundreds of thousands of Irish people of similar interests and gives them a platform to talk to each other. It hosts online communities interested in a huge range of topics from GAA to fashion, from movies to DIY. In July 2008, Boards.ie delivered 17 million page impressions to over 950,000 unique users.

Vexorg

Looks like I was beaten to it:)

Link to first online news here.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055356383

Bob the Builder

Thats pretty cool.
Hope it all goes well


~NevF

parasite

Fight the system, use myhome.ie

Gary ITR

Well done guys. Congratulations

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Boards.ie selling out? I never thought I'd see the day

Saruman

Well done lads. Just think how much money you guys put into this years ago and now maybe there will be a proper return.
Fair play.

mike65

Boycot daft.ie!

WTF? Boards hitches its wagon to a leech of the declining property market?

Ah well, I guess it could have been eircom (or Northern Rock)!


Mike.

Dragan

Sounds good to me. Once the direction the Higher Ups have in mind never needs to be compromised then investment can only be a good thing and help with the growth of boards as an entity.

Good news imo!

6th

I dont think the Admins have ever had anything but the interests of the community in mind so they have my 100% trust.

Overheal

as long as it remains to be community > commodity you'll continue receiving my vote!

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Does this mean CuLT's getting a pay raise?


(OK CuLT I said it, please un-ban my family)

biggus

Well done, stick to your core values, brilliant that the investors are indigenous Irish. Great future ahead,I can see the old print Media going the way of the record companies.

Great if the doomsayers in the Media get outed by fresher, real alternatives.

javaboy

6th wrote: »

I dont think the Admins have ever had anything but the interests of the community in mind so they have my 100% trust.

Didn't they make you mod already?

biko

I assume this will mostly reflect in ads.
Cloud for prez in the new world domination venture :pac:

godtabh

So what happens when people start giving daft.ie a hard time over in accomidation or what ever be it related to the investment or not? Will see charter changes that daft.ie is off limits?

I'm not saying its gona happen but you know it gnerally does!

Personaly I think it’s a good. I know a few of the lads from daft so its nice to see them do well as well

mike65

Mike.

seamus

kearnsr wrote: »

So what happens when people start giving daft.ie a hard time over in accomidation or what ever be it related to the investment or not? Will see charter changes that daft.ie is off limits?

I'm not saying its gona happen but you know it gnerally does!

Daft.ie will not be given preferential treatment.

If the Daft guys want to comment on-thread, they can. But this isn't going to be the start of censoring people for badmouthing daft or for mentioning myhome.ie and the other inferior sites

mike65

Is the current deal subject to a clause regarding a maximum stake?

Mike.

Bob the Builder

seamus wrote: »

Daft.ie will not be given preferential treatment.

If the Daft guys want to comment on-thread, they can. But this isn't going to be the start of censoring people for badmouthing daft or for mentioning myhome.ie and the other inferior sites

By the way seamus, vexorg must have forgot to mention it. Part of the agreement was that you were going to be fired...

No. srsly. :pac:

javaboy

seamus wrote: »

Daft.ie will not be given preferential treatment.

If the Daft guys want to comment on-thread, they can. But this isn't going to be the start of censoring people for badmouthing daft or for mentioning myhome.ie and the other inferior sites

Nice.

311

seamus wrote: »

Daft.ie will not be given preferential treatment.

If the Daft guys want to comment on-thread, they can. But this isn't going to be the start of censoring people for badmouthing daft or for mentioning myhome.ie and the other inferior sites

I presume they'll have there own spot on Daft.ie that will link with boards.ie.
Boards will probably see more traffic now ,from property roamers ?

brianthebard

You can buy shares in boards.ie?Cool.Well done admins.

seamus

nevf wrote: »

By the way seamus, vexorg must have forgot to mention it. Part of the agreement was that you were going to be fired...

No. srsly. :pac:

That's fine, I'll just issue an invoice for 7 years of unpaid overtime.

mike65

Much click through traffic I wonder?

Mike.

seamus

mike65 wrote: »

Is the current deal subject to a clause regarding a maximum stake?

Mike.

I doubt you'll get an answer to that one Mike. None of your business tbh.

Gone West

brianthebard wrote: »

You can buy shares in boards.ie?Cool.Well done admins.

No you can't in general.
People have been offering on the boards (and more seriously in private, I assume) for years now.
But the admins reckon that the daft guys have come up with the first offer that they can consider properly, as their work ethic and vision for the future of blah blah social etc is about the same.

Mena

From Silicon.ie
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/11213/new-media/daft-owner-makes-a-shrewd-investment-in-boards-ie
Daft owner makes a shrewd investment in Boards.ie

15.08.2008
The owner of property website Daft.ie, Daft Media, has acquired a minority stake in Ireland’s largest community websites, Boards.ie, for an undisclosed sum.

Established by John Breslin 10 years ago as a community notice board for Quake gamers – with the expectant words “The first of many messages, I hope” – Boards.ie has evolved into a major Irish brand and online destination with a monthly audience of one million unique visitors.
Now members post on everything from personal problems to cars, property, music and movies.

“This investment will give us the ability to invest further in infrastructure, to add more features to the website and ultimately provide an improved service to our community of users,” explained Gerry Shanahan, managing director of Boards.ie

The shrewd move by Daft.ie will create an online powerhouse with a combined audience of over 2.1 million unique viewers, exceeding that of even established TV channels.

The new management team said its immediate focus is to maintain growth of its respective sites but also seek out new audiences.

“We strongly believe the future of media is online and Boards.ie is well positioned to be a leading player in Irish online media,” said Eamon Fallon, chief executive of Daft.ie, a major Irish destination for property buyers, sellers, landlords and tenants. In 2007, at the peak of the Irish property boom over €60m worth of Irish property was listed on the site, which boasts 974,595 unique users.

“Our combined audience is over 2.1 million unique viewers every month, which is larger than most TV stations in Ireland. We are very happy to be working with the Boards.ie guys and look forward to helping them grow their business,” Fallon added.

To give an insight into the potential direction of the evolving franchise, last year Boards.ie acquired the Boards Group, an international chain of domains, from founder John Breslin.

The Boards Group comprises several domains: boards.us, a site for discussing all things related to the US; boards.jp, a Japanese animation fan site; and smaller discussion sites for New Zealand and China.
The acquisition also included Journals.ie and Planet Journals, a popular blog hosting and aggregation service that Breslin started three years ago.
By John Kennedy

Pictured: screenshot of Boards.ie website

Overheal

boards.us needs a new injection of traffic though: it seems very very vacant the vast majority of the time - I famously challenged it dead in the feedback froum there. No offense to buffy bot, but the traffic there has whittled down to about 5-10 people, who visit infrequently.

javaboy

Mena wrote: »

From Silicon.ie
http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/article/11213/new-media/daft-owner-makes-a-shrewd-investment-in-boards-ie
Daft owner makes a shrewd investment in Boards.ie
........
Pictured: screenshot of Boards.ie website

I'm waiting for the inevitable "horrible skin" comment we get every time someone posts a screenshot with the normal skin.

Overheal

i like the skin tbh.

godtabh

seamus wrote: »

Daft.ie will not be given preferential treatment.

If the Daft guys want to comment on-thread, they can. But this isn't going to be the start of censoring people for badmouthing daft or for mentioning myhome.ie and the other inferior sites

I was just wondering if there was a conflict of interest how would it be handled?

I think I might put a poll up to see who sucks more between myhome and daft and see how long it lasts as a test*


* Wont actually be done

faceman

Congratulations to boards owners and to powers that be in daft.

Free gaffs for all woohoo!!

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

godtabh

The Scientist wrote: »

Awesome! Payrises all round for Mods!

Why did you blank out all the porn subscriptions?

Jumpy

Heh. This might get me in trouble, but wouldnt they be better off using the money to actually run a decent website? :P

Toto Wolfcastle

The Scientist wrote: »

Awesome! Payrises all round for Mods!

Bahahahaha I know where you shop now!

/readies stalker kit

Heisenberg.

This post has been deleted.

Spear

kearnsr wrote: »

Why did you blank out all the porn subscriptions?

I'm more curious about what app he felt the need to hide on the quick start bar...

Best of luck with it.

minxie

well done lads

R0ot

Yay a pay raise, whats 0x10% again? :pac:

Overheal

Jumpy wrote: »

Heh. This might get me in trouble, but wouldnt they be better off using the money to actually run a decent website? :P

They just bought Cult. They're set for life.

Kur4mA

Congratulations lads. I hope it goes well for yis.

Steve

Congratulations guys - new hamsters all round...:D

the_syco

Mena wrote: »

To give an insight into the potential direction of the evolving franchise, last year Boards.ie acquired the Boards Group, an international chain of domains, from founder John Breslin.

I found this interesting. Who controls the Boards Group? DeVore? Bubbles?

Sully

the_syco wrote: »

I found this interesting. Who controls the Boards Group? DeVore? Bubbles?

It was/is controlled by Cloud afaik.

DeVore

Its now owned by Boards Ltd. The company bought a huge number of domains from Cloud for the price Cloud paid for them initially (which is only fair).

DeV.

Terry

The admins were grilled on this, one of the Daft.ie people also commented and all is well.

DeVore

As for criticism of Daft, we'll apply the same rules to them as everyone else.

Think about this: We've had long term advertisers here and any Mod who can step forward and detail a time when I deleted something or told them to delete something or interefered with their modding or over ruled them to favour an advertiser, step up and call me a liar.

It wont be any different now. Firstly, the Daft guys are cool and copped on, they wouldnt do that. Secondly they'll get told a curt "I'm sorry, we dont do that". Its simply a non issue, but I'm publically telling you (and indirectly I guess Daft), that you arent to vary any decisions pro- or anti- Daft as a result of this announcement. Its just a non-issue anyway.

DeV.

AARRRGH

As someone who runs a couple of websites himself, it's great seeing community focussed websites doing well.

Nice one!