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Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

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Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#2
Not specifically apropos of the buyout, but my experience with Angie's List has been similar to that of Yelp, that is, businesses that paid to advertise on AL were better able to maintain high rankings. The top-rated companies were not the best from either a quality or price perspective. While it's a great idea to crowd-source referrals for contractors like that, it's unfortunate that that model falls prey to the same impulse to increase revenue by soliciting advertising contracts with the firms that it purports to rank impartially.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#5
I have always been super skeptical how Angie's list stays in business and continues to grow competing against Yelp, Thumbtack, FindAPro, Porch, etc. Turns out I was wrong about Angie's list (sort of).

Angie's list earnings have been all over the place missing and beating, and for me was a big fat red flag.

    2016 EPS

    Q1 -0.07
    Q2 0.08
    Q3 -0.28
    Q4 0.15

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#7
For a split second, I misread the headline as IAC buying AngelList and my brain went "whoa!", wondering why that crew sold to IAC of all organizations, what this meant for angel investing, what chaos would ensue, etc. Then I blinked and re-read the headline with relief.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#8

I have always been super skeptical how Angie's list stays in business and continues to grow competing against Yelp, Thumbtack, FindAPro, Porch, etc. Turns out I was wrong about Angie's list (sort of). Angie's list earnings have been all over the place missing and beating, and for me was a big fat red flag. 2016 EPS Q1 -0.07 Q2 0.08 Q3 -0.28 Q4 0.15

They got out right before Amazon Home Services started eating their lunch.

Re: Angie's List Acquired for $500M by IAC

#9
post #2

Not specifically apropos of the buyout, but my experience with Angie's List has been similar to that of Yelp, that is, businesses that paid to advertise on AL were better able to maintain high rankings. The top-rated companies were not the best from either a quality or price perspective. While it's a great idea to crowd-source referrals for contractors like that, it's unfortunate that that model falls prey to the sam…

I think this is why TripAdvisor is better, in my experience, for restaurants than Yelp. If I'm not mistaken, TripAdvisor makes most of its money off of hotel booking referrals.
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