After layoffs and the departure of top executives, Seattle-based CarDomain is merging with its California rival, StreetFire.net. Both operate online communities for car enthusiasts, allowing users to upload photos and videos of cars, street races and other automotive antics. Together, it will have 25 employees between Seattle and Los Angeles, with the companies saying they will attract more than five million unique visitors per month.
StreetFire acts like a YouTube for car enthusiasts, with a deep focus on video. It serves more than 250 million video streams annually, with videos of car crashes, street races and offroad antics sometimes attracting over 100,000 views and more than 50 comments.
CarDomain, with two million registered users, has focused on car profile pages where people can share photos, automotive tips and other information with members. But it too has expanded into car videos recently.
CarDomain founder Alex Algard -- who started the company as a mobile electronics store in 1998 -- said that the combined company plans to reach profitability in June. It was a stock deal, but Algard declined to offer more details. Both companies sell online advertising, relying on the battered auto industry for their revenue.
The news follows a shakeup at CarDomain. In February, CEO Rajan Krishnamurty and Vice President of Marketing Sam Bell left the company, which came three months after a layoff of 16 employees in November.
StreetFire CEO Glenn Rogers will lead the company, which will continue to operate under the CarDomain name. Algard -- who remains CEO of Seattle-based WhitePages.com -- will serve as chairman.
“StreetFire has developed a great online video platform and built a tremendous asset of automotive video content," said Algard in a release. "We are excited about bringing a strong video offering to CarDomain.”
Here's a look at the unique visitor traffic at the two companies over the past 13 months, according to Compete.com. Algard said that Compete.com generally undercounts visitors, noting that Quantcast and Google Analytics show the combined entity running at more than five million unque visitors per month.
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