Hi-Media: Fotolog Passes 15 Million Members

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hi-Media Group announced today that Fotolog, the world’s 13th most-trafficked website (Alexa), has added 5 million members six months after the announcement of its acquisition by Hi-Media to pass the 15 million member mark. Fotolog’s rapidly-growing community is highly-engaged, is generating one of the largest, most-global inventories of user-generated content and has achieved the following milestones:

“Fotolog is growing our global audience exponentially”

16.6 million unique visitors (Comscore, December 2007) and 4.2 billion page views per month (Google Analytics, January 2008)
10 new photos uploaded every second (Fotolog database)
Nearly 850,000 new uploads per day on Fotolog

“Fotolog is growing our global audience exponentially,” said Hi-Media Group Chairman and CEO, Cyril Zimmermann, “and we are very excited that our community has become one of the largest social networks. On Valentine’s Day, our members posted a one-day record of 970,000 photo uploads, a record that we expect to surpass very soon. As Fotolog members are limited to posting one picture per day, this means that roughly one million users logged onto Fotolog on that day to post a picture, not taking into account the rest of the users who visited the website without posting a photo!”

Fotolog’s explosive growth confirms Hi-Media investment strategy

Fotolog was acquired in November 2007 by Hi-Media Group, one of the top 100 largest Internet properties in the world (Comscore, December 2007) and one of Europe’s largest diversified, publicly-traded pure play Internet companies. By bringing together Hi-Media’s global advertising, and micro-payment services with Fotolog’s rapidly-growing and highly-engaged audience, Hi-Media Group has created significant monetization opportunities.

“Fotolog’s spectacular growth over the past six months has confirmed our investment strategy,” said Mr. Zimmermann. “As the only publicly-traded social network, Fotolog is at the heart of our drive as an integrated online media company to monetize this massive platform by leveraging our global advertising and micro-payments services.”

About Fotolog, Inc.

Fotolog, Inc., the world’s largest photo-blogging community and the third most actively-used social network on the Internet, has become a global cultural phenomenon. More than 15 million member accounts from more than 200 countries have shared more than 400 million photos since its inception in October 2002. Fotolog has grown 100 percent virally since its founding in 2002, with no marketing or member incentives. The site provides a platform for members to share experiences and connect with others across the globe by bringing together the power of digital photography, social networking and blogging to attract and entertain in a unique and captive user experience.

About Hi-Media Group

Hi-Media is now one of the main worldwide Internet publishers, with its 26 million unique users putting it in the top 100 of the world’s Internet media groups, according to Comscore. This audience has been monetized by its integrated advertising network and its micro-payment platform, that also provide these services to third parties, including more than 200,000 partner sites. Hi-Media is therefore one of the European leaders in interactive advertising and electronic micro-payments. The group is present in 9 countries. Hi-Media is listed on the Euronext Eurolist Paris and is included in the SBF 250, CAC IT and CAC Small 90. ISIN code: FR0000075988