NEW YORK, Apr 21, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Philmore Anderson IV, CEO of Sahara Media Holdings, a New York City based digital media company, today issued a letter to shareholders that outlines the near-term and long-term business strategies.
Dear Fellow Shareholders:
Since its founding, Sahara Media has been focused on building, developing, and investing in undervalued urban brands that offer diverse lifestyle and technology resources for the growing market of young multicultural men and women. During our 2008 capital raise with John Thomas Financial, we promised to develop a powerful, online brand for the iconic Honey Magazine, and to launch the first social network targeting a primarily multicultural audience. Since this funding, we have delivered on both.
Over the past year, we have been focused on broadening Sahara Media’s operating plan, developing a process for launching new brands through acquisitions and in-house builds, as well as for launching new web verticals that will drive general market traffic into our social network. We have taken a number of exciting steps to expand and develop our proprietary media holdings, positioning Sahara Media for significant future revenue and profit growth. I am writing to update you on where we are today and on our near and long-term business strategies.
We’ve seen exceptional organic and viral growth on Honeymag.com since its re-launch in February 2009, with more than one million monthly ad impressions to date. In April, we launched SMI’s beta site for social networking, The Hive Spot, achieving our pre-registration milestones by the end of the year. In November 2009, we further advanced our integrated content platform with the launch of HoneyTV, becoming among the first digital media companies to pioneer this kind of platform. Sahara Media continues to grow its flagship Honeymag.com brand to becoming the leading destination for the 18-34 year old multicultural market and for Fortune 500 companies looking to reach them, as demonstrated by the following results:
— Overall traffic more than quadrupled versus one year ago
— 50% and 35% growth in daily unique visits and pageviews respectively since the end of 2009
— 35% increase in average time spent on Honeymag.com since January 2010
— Advertising relationships with Alberto Culver, Procter & Gamble (Cover Girl) and Toyota
Since the re-launch of Honeymag.com, we’ve been putting processes into place to build an ecosystem partnering the digital publication with SMI’s audited 4-million person database — with the goal of integrating these assets and thereby monetizing both. To date, we have converted 35% of this database into 1.4 million double opt-in e-mail addresses. In the second half of 2010, we will convert those consumers into early adopters of our revolutionary social utility. This new product, called YouBlast, represents the evolution of our Hive Spot beta social networking platform.
During the third quarter of 2010, Sahara Media Inc. will take social networking to the next level with the launch of YouBlast.com. This innovative service will offer patent-pending technology for social publishing and networking capabilities, allowing users to publish and share digital content about their lives like never before. YouBlast.com will be more than a niche social network – users will be able to host and instantly share large amounts of content through its community interface. This easy-to-use system will create a degree of viral interactivity that will transform the way in which consumers access, navigate, use and distribute content online.
Effective Summer 2010, SMI will be working with The Gartner Group to extend support of our new technology with its best-in-class resources. In 2011, our focus will be monetizing our critical traffic mass through YouBlast’s social networking utility. This “disruptive” technology will offer product services that provide a revenue model that includes extra bandwidth, digital storage space via an affordable monthly subscription model, embedded advertising opportunities and transaction fees generated by an e-commerce component.
Finally, I am pleased to announce that Sahara Media Inc. has extended its investment banking agreement with John Thomas Financial. This will support SMI’s business strategy of rolling out YouBlast globally with JTF serving as its financial backbone, thus ensuring the company is well capitalized through the development, launch and monetization of YouBlast.
At Sahara Media Inc., we are focused on the future. The way that people consume and share information has changed, and we’re changing along with them. As such, Sahara Media will continue to aggregate and build strong brands that address the consumer’s ever-growing digital footprint.
We could not be more excited about our company’s future prospects and appreciate your continued support.
Sincerely, Philmore Anderson IV Chief Executive Officer Sahara Media, Inc. About Sahara Media Holdings
Sahara Media Holdings, Inc., through its subsidiary, Sahara Media, Inc., operates Honeymag.com, an online magazine, and is focused on developing innovative open platforms that can attract users, advertisers, developers and publishers. It also owns a database of approximately 4.2 million names in the 18 to 49 urban demographic. Sahara Media primarily focuses on selling advertisements from its online magazine and social network Web sites; licensing its database; and offering direct marketing and customer relationship management services. The company was founded in 2005 by Philmore Anderson IV, a former music and brand executive, and is based in New York, New York.
