Yardsellr's Parent Company Launches Style.ly; Reveals Growth Plans; Re-brands as YellowDog Media Inc.

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Yardsellr Inc., a company dedicated to making marketplace commerce social and fun, today announced the launch of a new fashion social marketplace, style.ly. Ahead of F8, Facebook's annual developer conference which takes place on September 22nd, Yardsellr also shared plans for further expansion of its portfolio and its re-branding to YellowDog Media Inc.

"E-commerce is undergoing a profound shift," said YellowDog CEO, Danny Leffel. "Social networks and mobile devices have created massive rivers of content and by being in that river, retailers and small sellers can reach way outside the confines of destination e-commerce websites. In the News Feed, the intersection of friends who share interests makes online shopping social, like going to the mall with a group of friends," said Leffel.

The idea of overlaying the interest graph with the social graph to inspire commerce has proven powerful. Yardsellr, YellowDog's first title, has been growing by more than 35% each month since launching in early 2010.

Yardsellr is a person-to-person marketplace that connects buyers and sellers through Facebook. Today, Yardsellr has over 4,000 "blocks", or micro-communities, and has grown to over five million people who are passionate about a wide range of items from guitars to handmade jewelry. People join blocks by liking them on Facebook and when a seller lists an item, the listing is distributed widely into the News Feeds of all members who have joined the relevant blocks.

On any given day there are more than 120,000 items for sale through Yardsellr with 6,000 new items listed for sale each day.

YellowDog started with general merchandise and has realized the opportunity to reach new audiences by creating vertical experiences tailored to specific audiences. Today the company is announcing it's taking a game-studio approach to social commerce, leveraging its social commerce platform to launch more titles.

Style.ly, the company's second title, was created with fashionistas in mind. Style.ly is for anyone who wants to buy and sell new, lightly-used and vintage items, from designer labels to boutique finds.

"We started testing style.ly a few weeks ago and have already seen a tremendous validation of our strategy," said Leffel. "By leveraging our social commerce platform, style.ly generated greater gross merchandise sales in its first week than Yardsellr in its first four months," said Leffel. "Our next two titles are already under development and we are aggressively hiring talent, from general managers to customer support staff, for these studios."

Yardsellr and style.ly are free to anyone who wants to list and sell. YellowDog charges buyers a small transaction fee at the time of checkout. For more information visit: http://yardsellr.com/about or http://style.ly/about.

About YellowDog Media Inc.:

YellowDog Media Inc. was founded in January 2010 to make marketplace commerce social and fun. YellowDog operates under a game-studio model and currently offers two titles: Yardsellr, a person-to-person marketplace which connects people with shared interests to buy and sell the stuff they love using Facebook, and style.ly, for fashionistas who want to buy and sell new, lightly-used and vintage items, from designer labels to boutique finds . Venture-backed, YellowDog has received $5.7 million in funding from Accel Partners and Harrison Metal. For more information, please visit: www.yellowdogmedia.com.

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SOURCE YellowDog Media Inc.