IAC Buys StarNet Interactive: Barry Diller Is One Smart Cookie

There's been a little bit of buzz today about the news that IAC bought StarNet Interactive, the Israeli start-up that created GirlSense, but nowhere near the buzz it's gotten in my house. StarNet was spun out in late 2006 with $2.7 million USD in venture capital, and the details of the deal with IAC have been leaked, but however much he got for it, my bet is that Barry Diller got himself a great deal.

I first covered GirlSense last March, right after it switched over to a free social networking site from its prior incarnation as a subscription service. In the past 14 months or so since I first let my now-eight-year-old daughter on the site, it's been a regular visit in her online sessions, and I regularly come back to my inbox only to find tens of emails she's sent me with creations she made on the site.

Silicon Alley Insider's brief take on the deal today seemed almost confused as to why IAC would bother, referencing that IAC also owns Zwinky, which "targets the same demographic." I can only assume that those who don't understand the appeal don't have a tween girl of their own. My article from last March has retained a regular stream of readers, many of the teen and tween variety themselves.

IAC has, through some savvy acquisitions, become more invasive into my lives of American families than most people realize. A quick trip through their businesses shows me that my kids are wearing shoes from ShoeBuy and selling things for school fundraisers from Sally Foster and Entertainment books. We have products in our house ordered (or sent as gifts) from Smith + Noble, The Territory Ahead, and Garnet Hill. We refinanced our mortgage through Lending Tree. And every single children's show we've gone to, from Sesame Street Live to The Wiggles, had tickets purchased through Ticketmaster properties. In short, they are probably more a part of our daily lives than even Google.

Companies who regularly market to children, like Disney, recognize that tweens are just like adults. They don't all like the same things, and it pays to have more than one property aimed at the age group, who have disposable income from parents, etc., and are in training to become future consumers. Even better, they can cross-brand between Zwinky and GirlSense, bridging the audience and increasing traffic to both sites. If anything, I'd be surprised if IAC doesn't try to buy up a few more social networks aimed at this demographic, especially since their coverage of tween boys seems a bit lacking. Forget worrying about whether Microsoft might buy Facebook; the real deals are in what tween social network will be snapped up next.