IAC: Zwinky Delivers; Reveille Investment Unwound

A couple of additional notes from IAC’s earnings earlier this week:

Zwinky.com: A lot about virtual worlds in various earning calls this quarter. IAC provided some details on its entrant, Fun Web Products’ Zwinky.com: more than 8 million registered users, an average user session of 64 minutes, more than 15 million transactions using Zwinky virtual currency. COO Doug Lebda: “In addition to monetizing through search, there are clearly e-commerce opportunities with Zwinky, as well.” Analysts skipped right by it during the call but the NYT’s Bits blog followed up: “The catch is to use any of these services, you have to download a toolbar that will install in your Web browser that prominently features a box for searches (by, of course, Ask). The advertising revenue from these searches has become a $100 million a year business ….” Zwinky’s still in beta.

Reveille: A small amount by IAC terms but mentioned by CFO Tom McInerney because it had a positive impact on emerging business results — an $8.2 million “non-recurring” gain from an investment in Reveille. The SEC filing puts it a little differently: “Emerging Businesses results were positively impacted by an $8.2 million reimbursement of advances related to the restructuring of our interests in a business venture.” I’m told the investment was unwound because Ben Silverman moved from heading the production company to running programming for NBCU. MediaPost has more.