PeexMe : Meetic wants to compete with Bebo

The second largest online dating service behind Match.com with more than 500 000 active subscribers around the world and especially in its home market, French company Meetic corp also wants to compete with MySpace, FaceBook and Bebo in the dynamic “social network” segment.

After the failure of Friendset.com (A Friendster clone) or SuperLov.com, Meetic Corp should launch within the next weeks a new service called PeexMe.com, mainly focused on members’ photos.

According to Marc Simoncini, Meetic CEO and founder, PeexMe will use an ad-supported model on its free access, premium membership, and mobile subscription services. “We are targeting teenagers and young adults and we know it’s pretty difficult to get money from this audience” he explained.

Mr. Simoncini has more than 20 years in the online industry (from the Minitel in the early 80’s to iFrance in the late 90’s, a company sold for € 170 M to Vivendi Universal) and currently attracts more than 9 million unique visitors on Meetic.fr. He appears well-positioned to seriously compete with SkyRock.com which is, according to ComScore, the first French social network, with 9.1 million unique visitors (July 2007).