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Is FiLife Running On Borrowed Time?

Less than two months after talking up the turnaround at Dow Jones-IAC (NSDQ: IACI) personal finance JV FiLife, paidContent has learned the site’s continued existence is no certainty. It survived the multiple trimmings as Barry Diller cut back on IAC’s portfolio of emerging businesses, but the company is now exploring options that range from leaving it open to a sale or a full shut down. When Ezra Kucharz, president and GM for just over a year, left for CBS (NYSE: CBS) in January, both IAC and DJ credited him publicly with turning around the site and building it to the #4 personal finance site with 4.4 million unique visitors in December. Now both companies are declining comment about the site’s future.

One possibility for IAC could be selling its stake to Dow Jones (NYSE: NWS), which recently bought out SmartMoney partner Hearst. But that’s a well-established brand with an 800,000-circ magazine. Whether DJ would even want to own FiLife outright is unclear—as is whether a deal actually would involve much money. What FiLife does have—more traffic than SmartMoney.com, where personal finance is just one category, and a digital mentality. Is there a way to combine the two?

FiLife has had a bit of a tortured life from its beginning: taking more than a year to move from an idea to a blog, then taking so long to emerge from that status the plans appeared to be dormant. Dave Kansas, brought in from the Wall Street Journal to launch the site, was replaced by online vet Kucharz in late 2008. Adam Wiener, executive editor and VP-content was promoted to GM when Kucharz left, but not given the title of president.

It’s made strides on the editorial side. Just last month FastCompany picked it as the most innovative company in the finance area for using “a Q&A format with a host of social and game-like features to get Americans talking about money. More as warranted—and please feel free to e-mail me if you have details.

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Mar 19, 2010 11:15 PM ET

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Posted In: Features, Exclusive, Media & Publishing, Online News, Companies, IAC, News Corp., Dow Jones

  • Sarin is part of a $3 Million Extravagant Spending by UC President Yudof for UC Berkeley Chancellor Birgeneau to Hire Consultants - When Work Can Be Done Internally & Impartially
    These days, every dollar counts. Contact Senate (Ms. Romero 916.651.4105) & Assembly (Ms. Brownley 916.319.2044) Chairperson’s Education Committees or your representatives. 
    Do the work internally at no additional costs with UCB Academic Senate Leadership (C. Kutz/F. Doyle), the world – class UCB faculty/ staff, & the UCB Chancellor’s bloated staff (G. Breslauer, N. Brostrom, F. Yeary, P. Hoffman, C. Holmes etc) & President Yudof.
    President Yudof’s UCB Chancellor should do the high paid work he is paid for instead of hiring expensive East Coast consults to do the work of his job. ‘World class’ smart executives like Chancellor Birgeneau need to do the hard work analysis, and make the tough-minded difficult, decisions to identify inefficiencies.
    Where do the $3,000,000 consultants get their recommendations?
    From interviewing the UCB senior management that hired them and approves their monthly consultant fees and expense reports. Remember the nationally known auditing firm who said the right things and submitted recommendations that senior management wanted to hear and fooled the public, state, federal agencies?
    $3 million impartial consultants never bite the hands (Birgeneau/Yeary) that feed them!
    Mr. Birgeneau’s accountabilities include “inspiring innovation, leading change.”  This involves “defining outcomes, energizing others at all levels and ensuring continuing commitment.”  Instead of deploying his leadership and setting a good example by doing the work of his Chancellor’s job, Mr. Birgeneau outsourced his work to the $3,000,000 consultants.  Doesn’t he engage UC and UC Berkeley people at all levels to examine inefficiencies and recommend $150 million of trims?  Hasn’t he talked to Cornell and the University of North Carolina - which also hired the consultants—about best practices and recommendations that will eliminate inefficiencies?
    No wonder the faculty, staff, students, Senate & Assembly are angry and suspicious.
    In today’s economy three million dollars is a irresponsible price to pay when a knowledgeable ‘world-class’ UCB Chancellor and his bloated staff do not do the work of their jobs.
    Together, we will make a difference.

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