Business Overview
We were incorporated in the state of Nevada on March 18, 2011 and our principal business address is 2187 Preville St., Lasalle, QC, Canada H8N 1N4. Our telephone number is (514) 312-7576 and our fax number is (514) 312-7573. Our United States and registered statutory office is located at 2360 Corporate Circle, Suite 400, Henderson, NV 89074-7722, telephone number (702) 866-2500. We have established a fiscal year end of August 31. The objective of this corporation is to develop an Internet dating website review and information site.
We plan to enter into the market with an information rich website that will allow users to review the features, benefits and costs of a large number of Internet dating websites. The Company has reserved the URL www.thedatescoop.com, but we have not yet begun developing the website located at this URL. Plans for the website include search feature allowing users to view lists of dating websites sorted by any various categories including, but not limited to, geographic focus of the dating website, emphasis on users of a specific age range, religion, race, lifestyle, sexual orientation etc. We plan to provide customized reviews of these dating websites summarizing, if the information is available, the membership makeup of the website, the costs associated with using the website, any promotions or specials the website is offering, the search features available to users of the website and whether or not the site offers a mobile application.
We also intend to offer discussion forums where users of our website can exchange feedback, tips, dating advice and ideas of how to get the most out of their online dating experience. In order to be able to participate in our discussion forums, we intend to require users to register with us and provide, at a minimum, their age, gender postal or zip code and e-mail address. We may also offer incentives, such as prizes in the form of short term memberships at various dating sites, to encourage users to provide us with more detailed personal information like their income range, dating history, computer and mobile usage habits and preferences for various features of dating websites. We may offer users the option to opt into promotional e-mails which we would then be able to send on a targeted basis on behalf of advertisers in order to increase our revenue opportunities. We could make these available to a wide range of potential advertisers, beyond the online dating market.
We intend to generate revenue primarily through advertising and referral agreements. Many dating websites offer referral commissions whereby if another website sends a user to the dating site and that user subsequently purchases a membership, a commission is paid to the referring website. Simultaneous with the development of our website, we intend to contact numerous dating websites, starting with the largest and most popular, and set up referral agreements where possible along with the associated coding required on our end to facilitate tracking of any referred traffic.
Initially we intend to generate our advertising revenue through Google’s AdSense program. Google AdSense is an ad serving network run by Google Inc. Website owners can enroll in this program to enable text, image, and video advertisements on their websites. The Google Adsense network is an end to end advertising solution completely managed by Google. Advertisements are procured including associated payments, administered, maintained and technically delivered all by Google. The advertisements can generate revenue on either a per-click or per-impression basis. The Google Adsense program is free to use and the revenue split is 68% meaning the website operator is paid 68% of revenues generated by the advertisement. To be eligible to participate in the Google Adsense program websites must meet several criteria which management believes we currently meet. Google reserves the right to change these criteria at any time so we may not meet the criteria in the future. As usage of our website increases, we may seek targeted advertisements from other sources such as online or traditional advertising agencies.
Management expects to have to invest in ongoing development, maintenance and expansion of the Company’s website in order to remain competitive. The scope of the ongoing development of the website will be determined by the revenue generated and potentially by future financing opportunities. The Company has not yet implemented its business model and to date has generated no revenues.
Scoop Media has no plans to change its business activities or to combine with another business and is not aware of any circumstances or events that might cause this plan to change.
Market Opportunity
As the market continues to grow, navigating the increasing number of potential dating websites to join will present an increasingly daunting task to would-be daters. This means a growing opportunity for Scoop Media to consolidate and present useful information in a user-friendly, easily navigable format.
Management believes that as the online dating market becomes increasingly competitive, online dating website operators will make use of more targeted advertising strategies, which could likely include advertising on websites like ours. We might also develop a regular newsletter which we will send to users who register with our site informing them of the latest news from the online dating scene and any specials or discounts being offered by sites which we review.
As our user base, expertise and knowledge of the industry grows, we may chose to expand our services by creating our own dating website. While no formal plans, timeline or budget for such a project currently exist, management expects that such an endeavor would require additional financing.
Marketing
Our ability to generate advertising and referral revenue will be due in large part to our ability to get traffic to our website. A key aspect of generating traffic is a website’s ranking in the major search engines, particularly Google. Our initial marketing efforts will focus on getting our website ranked as highly as possible in the major search engines. This will include various search engine optimization (SEO) techniques such as the use of meta tags throughout our website, internal linking to optimize the ability of search engines to ‘spider’ our website and soliciting back links, whereby other websites link to ours. We will be dependent on an SEO company, or independent contractors, to perform such SEO techniques.
We may also engage the services of an SEO company to help build our ranking in the search engines. Many such companies exist and offer various services to help a websites’ search engine ranking. Specific allocation of marketing funds will occur based on the success of this offering.
Some search engines determine ranking in part by the amount of relevant content a website has in relation to the associated search term. We intend to launch our site with reviews and information on a large number of Internet dating websites. We intend to continue to increase the content on our site, both my information we input and by user reviews, feedback and related discussions in the forums we plan to offer.
Content
A key way by which we intend to distinguish our website is the breadth and depth of our content and information about the online dating world and the various services offered by different websites. After we create the back end database infrastructure for our website at www.thedatescoop.com, we intend to retain both data entry and editorial staff to populate our website with information and reviews about a large number of Internet dating websites. If we sell 50% or less of the planned offering we will likely continue to outsource content development, website development and marketing. If we sell 75% of the proposed offering we will likely hire a part time content manager. If we sell the complete offering we will likely hire a full time content manager. Again, while we cannot precisely estimate how many dating websites will be reviewed in the first version of our website, we expect the amount of shares sold to directly affect how many dating websites are reviewed in the first version of our site.
We plan to retain data entry staff to enter the basic information about a large number of Internet dating sites, including, but not limited to, the URL of the website, any information available on the number of members, pricing / membership packages, any specific focus of the website such as geographic, lifestyle etc., whether the site offers a mobile application and a list of features offered by the site and whether payment is required to use any of the features. Most of this information is generally available for free and easily discernable on most dating websites. We expect to be able to use comparatively less sophisticated and less expense data entry type staff for this.
We also intend to retain editorial staff to provide reviews and more in depth analysis of many of the sites, beginning with the larger and more popular ones. We expect this information to include comparisons and discussions of the various strengths and weaknesses of various sites in terms of their user friendliness, strength in certain geographic regions etc. We expect these content writers to be more expensive to retain than the data entry staff previously mentioned. Depending on the success of this offering, we may choose to focus first on the data entry portion of the project in order to get basic information on a large number of website to provide the greatest breadth possible to our service and then focus on the more in depth analysis as funds permit.
We may also augment our dating related content to include other dating services such as traditional match-making services, voice personals and local singles events.
Intellectual Property
We intend, in due course, subject to legal advice, to apply for trademark protection and/or copyright protection in the United States and other jurisdictions. In that regard, any summaries or reviews we write ourselves will be available for copyright protection. In addition, if we develop a logo, we may seek trademark protection for it.
We intend to aggressively assert our rights trademark and copyright laws to protect our intellectual property, including product technology, product research and concepts and recognized trademarks. These rights are protected through the acquisition of trademark registrations, the maintenance of copyrights, and, where appropriate, litigation against those who are, in our opinion, infringing these rights.
While there can be no assurance that registered trademarks and copyrights will protect our proprietary information, we intend to assert our intellectual property rights against any infringer. Although any assertion of our rights can result in a substantial cost to, and diversion of effort by, our Company, management believes that the protection of our intellectual property rights is a key component of our operating strategy.
Regulatory Matters
We are unaware of and do not anticipate having to expend significant resources to comply with any governmental regulations. We are subject to the laws and regulations of those jurisdictions in which we plan to sell advertising, which are generally applicable to business operations, such as business licensing requirements, income taxes and payroll taxes. In general, the development and operation of our business is not subject to special regulatory and/or supervisory requirements.
Employees
As of November 29, 2012, Scoop Media has no employees other than its President, Awais Khan, and Vice President Richard Lee.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
Smaller reporting companies are not required to provide the information required by this item.
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES
Our principal executive office is located at 2187 Preville St., Lasalle, QC, Canada H8N 1N4, and our telephone number is (514) 312-7576. We do not have a lease agreement for this property. This property is owned by our Chief Executive Officer, Awais Khan, and he allows us to use the space to run the business at no cost. We have no other properties and at this time have no intention to acquire any properties.
ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
We are currently not involved in any litigation that we believe could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition or results of operations. There is no action, suit, proceeding, inquiry or investigation before or by any court, public board, government agency, self-regulatory organization or body pending or, to the knowledge of the executive officers of our company or any of our subsidiaries, threatened against or affecting our company, our common stock, any of our subsidiaries or of our companies or our subsidiaries’ officers or directors in their capacities as such, in which an adverse decision could have a material adverse effect.
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES
Not applicable.
PART II
ITEM 5. MARKET FOR REGISTRANT’S COMMON EQUITY, RELATED STOCKHOLDER MATTERS AND ISSUER PURCHASES OF EQUITY SECURITIES
Our common stock is quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board (“OTCBB”) under the symbol “SOOP”. The OTCBB is a quotation service that displays real-time quotes, last-sale prices, and volume information in over-the-counter (“OTC”) equity securities that are not listed on national securities exchanges.
Since the inception, there has not been any public trading of our shares of common stock on the OTCBB. We can provide no assurance that our shares of common stock will be traded actively on the OTCBB.
Holders of Our Common Stock
As of the date of this report, in accordance with our transfer agent records, we had 34 shareholders holding 8,000,000 shares of our common stock.
Stock Option Grants
To date, we have not granted any stock options.
Dividends
Since inception we have not paid any dividends on our common stock. We currently do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future on our common stock, when issued pursuant to this offering. Although we intend to retain our earnings, if any, to finance the exploration and growth of our business, our Board of Directors will have the discretion to declare and pay dividends in the future. Payment of dividends in the future will depend upon our earnings, capital requirements, and other factors, which our Board of Directors may deem relevant.
Transfer Agent and Registrar
Our transfer agent is Action Stock Transfer, 2469 E. Fort Union Blvd, Ste 214, Salt Lake City, UT 84121 and its phone number is (801) 274-1088.
Securities Authorized for Issuance Under Equity Compensation Plans
We presently do not have any equity based or other long-term incentive programs. In the future, we may adopt and establish an equity-based or other long-term incentive plan if it is in the best interest of the Company and our stockholders to do so.
ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA
As a smaller reporting company, we are not required to provide disclosure pursuant to this item.
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
This section of this Form 10-K includes a number of forward-looking statements that reflect our current views with respect to future events and financial performance. Forward-looking statements are often identified by words like believe, expect, estimate, anticipate, intend, project and similar expressions, or words which, by their nature, refer to future events. You should not place undue certainty on these forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our predictions.
We plan to enter into the market with an information rich website that will allow users to review the features, benefits and costs of a large number of Internet dating websites. The Company has reserved the URL www.thedatescoop.com Plans for the website include search feature allowing users to view lists of dating websites sorted by any various categories including, but not limited to, geographic focus of the dating website, emphasis on users of a specific age range, religion, race, lifestyle, sexual orientation etc. We plan to provide customized reviews of these dating websites summarizing, if the information is available, the membership makeup of the website, the costs associated with using the website, any promotions or specials the website is offering, the search features available to users of the website and whether or not the site offers a mobile application.