Smiley Media, once one of the top lead generating companies in the industry, has announced via a mass email that they are leaving the business. Smiley, which describes itself as an “internet advertising network” that generates “high quality” leads made this announcement to their partners out of nowhere; giving everyone 30 days notice that they were leaving the industry, and that all programs and advertisement would be stopped.

The termination notices were sent first thing in the morning, leaving many people scratching their heads. In the notice, they assured everyone that people would be paid in full, but that the owner was leaving his core lead business behind and would start focusing a “new social discovery site.”

It seems that more than a few people have been laid off from the company, so some people assumed something was going off. In fact, typing in “Smiley Media” in Google, the search suggests “Smiley Media Layoffs” pointing that more than a few people had noticed something going on with the company.

We were unable to reach anyone at the company for comment.

Update: 10/24:  Rhonda Allen, a representative from the company told us:

Smiley Media is a global company that operates multiple businesses.  This week we notified existing customers that we will exit the co-registration business over the next 30 days and will no longer operate our advertising network. We are focusing our resources on a social discovery site that we think will change the way people connect on the web.

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Written by Pace Lattin

Pace Lattin is one of the top experts in interactive advertising, affiliate marketing. Pace Lattin is known for his dedication to ethics in marketing, and focus on compliance and fraud in the industry, and has written numerous articles for publications from MediaPost, ClickZ, ADOTAS and his own blogs.

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