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"The ones who are most provocative tend to raise issues in a clarifying way," Waldman said. "But we also have middle-of-the-road and mainstream viewpoints."

He added that while there are occasional bouts of Beliefnet users criticizing other religions, the site's users (and managers) police truly hostile messages, keeping a civil tone throughout.

That's important when you run a site as diverse as Beliefnet, with Mormons click-by-jowl with Methodists, and Jews with Jehovah's Witnesses. The main roster includes Baha'is, Jains, pagans, and Scientologists along with Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, and Mormons—the latter four under the "Christian" heading.

"Being multifaith actually helped us, from a business point of view," Waldman said. "It's not a practical thing, but there is an economy of scale for an About.com to deal with one Web site like us; so I think [while] some people thought [being] multifaith was our Achilles' heel, it turned out to be the reason for our success."

The multiplicity of faiths adds another dimension: the firm's site-hosting venture, Beliefnet Web Services, said in December that it had signed up more than 1,000 congregations during its first 90 days.

"With nearly 375,000 churches in the U.S. and Canada, and thousands of other religious and spiritual communities as potential customers, the market opportunity for the Beliefnet Web Services program is huge," Beliefnet's CEO, Tony Uphoff, said in a statement. (Of course, Beliefnet isn't the only company targeting those churches for online partnerships.)

The firm recently acquired online donation service CharityCounts.com, which assists in making online cash donations to nonprofits and offers celebrity auctions (profits go to charities). CharityCounts.com's software will also allow Beliefnet visitors to contribute to churches and organizations using Beliefnet's Web hosting service.

Such groups, Beliefnet says, range over "all practice and denominational lines, from Baptist churches to yoga centers, [and] from urban ministries to retreat centers."

While Beliefnet's Waldman says the firm "seems to be doing well," there's no easy way to verify this. Unlike other dot-coms who sold stock and then had to produce detailed financial reports, Beliefnet answers only to the venture capitalists who funded the project.

At the same time, Beliefnet is avoiding the massive media spending that apparently helped doom iBelieve.com. While admitting to dreams of expensive Super Bowl TV ads, Waldman said the firm is counting on deals such as those with AOL and About.com to drive traffic to the Beliefnet site.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Beliefnet is available at both Beliefnet.com and Belief.net.

Read Time's profile of Steve Waldman, Beliefnet's innovative force.

CBS profiled Beliefnet itself, describing ways that people were using several sites on the Internet to fuel their spiritual quests.

Other media coverage includes:

Beliefnet.com Performs Modern Miracle | The religious site's $20 million in second-round financing bucks the e-commerce beating. — The Standard (June 7, 2000)

Beliefnet preaches the gospel of diversity — LocalBusiness.com (Aug. 16, 2000)

Beliefnet.com seeks an interfaith niche amid the Web maze — Associated Press (Feb. 10, 2000)

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February 19 2001, Vol. 45, No. 3