Posts Tagged ‘Multiply’

Multiply, the social network for families, has completely relaunched its website this week. And at the center of the relaunch is a new take on the news feed, which was already a key component in Multiply’s feature set.

Reformatted to function much like your desktop email client (i.e. Outlook), the news feed is your central point of information-sharing within your Multiply network. There are folders on the left-hand side, which act as filters for the type of information displayed in your news feed. Custom filters are also a new option for your Multiply news feed, in order to ensure you’re receiving the content you want to see.
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ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation has purchased $5 million in stock in the social networking company Multiply ABS-CBN News. The purchase gives the social networking company a $100 million valuation, a far cry from the $15 billion valuation that Facebook obtained earlier this year when Microsoft invested in the company.
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While the debate over how to generate landslide revenues from social networks continues, Multiply.com believe that they’ve figured out a good solution for making money: charging its users for premium accounts. Caroline McCarthy explains the service, “Called a ‘digital scrapbook,’ this premium feature will cost $19.95 annually.” The digital scrapbook offers storage for high resolution images and 20 minute videos.

This new service appears to compete directly with Flickr. So how does Multiply compare itself to Facebook? Executives at the company like to avoid the “F-word” but in comments to Caroline McCarthy at News.com, Vice President Michael Gersh said “It’s much more organized and meaningful than some explosive megasite.” It sounds more to me like he is comparing the site to MySpace rather than Facebook.

The site appears to be experiencing sustained growth and its user base is extremely active, uploading millions of photos, videos and blog posts every day. Whether or not the site is as big as Facebook or MySpace, charging members for premium services makes a lot of sense. Would you pay to be a member of a social network? How about pay for premium services?