On Jun 28, 2009, at 11:38 AM, ss wrote:
On Thursday 25 Jun 2009 12:31:02 pm Tom Rielly wrote:
Rielly may be best known as founder and former CEO of PlanetOut, the
leading gay and lesbian Internet company which accomplished three
firsts: first venture investment in, first corporate financing of,
and
first IPO of a company serving the gay market.
What does a gay and lesbian internet company do? Does it cater to
specific
content?
shiv
Shiv, that's a great question. Our company was founded to serve the
gay and lesbian communities. It offered news, entertainment, travel,
dating, and many other kinds of content and services. It achieved some
important milestones: First organization to serve more that 100,000
GLBT customers (eventually 5,000,000), first company serving the gay
community to receive venture capital, corporate investment and one of
the first to attract international brands to advertise. However, I'm
most proud of the services we provided to people who were in the
closet, questioning their sexuality or just coming out. We helped a
meaningful number of people accept themselves, address issues with
their friends and families if any, and find relationships. It persists
to this day, but was sold to another company and has been hard hit
competing against free personal ads on Craigslist.org and niche dating
sites. I left in 2000.
Cheers,
Tom
Tom Rielly Community Director
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