Classmates.com 2008 Annual Report Download - page 13

Table of Contents
Gold Membership. Gold membership on our Classmates Web site is a paid subscription service that provides members with access to all
of the features of a free membership as well as the following additional features:
•
Digital guestbook.
Our digital guestbook feature alerts a Classmates member when another member visits his or her profile,
unless the visiting member chooses not to leave his or her name. However, only a paying member is able to see the name of the
member that visited his or her profile.
•
Email.
Paying members have the ability to send double
-
blind emails through our Classmates Web site to other Classmates
members and respond to email messages from any other Classmates member, regardless of whether the sender is a free member
or a paying subscriber.
•
Classmates maps.
Paying members have access to our Classmates maps feature which can generate a map, satellite or hybrid
view showing the geographic locations, based on zip codes, of the individuals in a paying member's affiliated communities.
• Newsletter. In addition to receiving our Connections newsletter, paying members also receive our monthly "Gold Standard"
newsletter, which highlights ways for our paying members to get the most out of the subscription features accessible on our
Classmates Web site.
• Reunions. Paying members can create events and track RSVPs to reunions, build surveys, exchange party ideas on private
message boards, and share pictures in photo albums devoted to the reunion event.
We continue to develop a number of new free and pay features on our Classmates Web site that we believe will enhance the member
experience while providing an additional incentive for our free members to upgrade to a pay account. We expect the features available to free
members and paying members to continue to change from time to time.
Pricing for a Classmates pay account varies by term of membership, with most pay accounts consisting of a three-month subscription for
$15.00, or $5.00 per month, a 12-month subscription for $39.00, or $3.25 per month, or a 24-month subscription for $59.00, or $2.46 per month.
We expect that the pricing and terms of membership we offer will change from time to time.
International. In addition to our flagship Classmates Web site, we operate five international social networking services. We operate
StayFriends ( www.stayfriends.se ) in Sweden, Trombi ( www.trombi.com ) in France, StayFriends ( www.stayfriends.de ) in Germany,
StayFriends ( www.stayfriends.at ) in Austria and Klassenfreunde ( www.klassenfreunde.ch ) in Switzerland. Each service is similar to our
Classmates service, although their affiliations are focused only on schools. We offer free and pay accounts on all of our international Web sites,
although certain features of our international social networking pay services differ from those of our Classmates pay services and pricing for our
international social networking services is lower than for Classmates.
Our strategy for our online social networking services includes the following key elements: enhance the member experience and
engagement on our Web sites, in part by encouraging members to contribute user-generated content that helps to attract additional member
visits; expand our member base through a variety of marketing and registration techniques; increase monetization of our social networking Web
sites by marketing our pay account services to our free members; increase our advertising revenues; and evaluate further opportunities to expand
internationally or through the acquisition of complementary services.
Online Loyalty Marketing
MyPoints connects advertisers with our members by allowing members to earn rewards points for engaging in online activities. MyPoints is
a free service and users need only provide their name, zip
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