In midst of offers debate, Offerpal names George Garrick as CEO

Offerpal Media has named George Garrick as chief executive. He replaces founder Anu Shukla (right), who has been in the midst of a fiery debate about the ethics of the business of offers, which are special ads that direct users to participate in a promotional deal as an alternative payment for a game or social app.
Shukla stirred lots of debate since Friday, when she got in a verbal tussle with Techcrunch editor Michael Arrington, who challenged Shukla about scam offers in social games. Shukla fought back, saying Arrington’s accusations were “shit, double shit and bullshit.” The debate continued this week as Shukla offered a rebuttal Q&A in reaction to Arrington’s stories and industry players reacted as well.
Fremont, Calif.-based Offerpal has otherwise been a quiet player in the ecosystem of social networks. Social games such as Zynga’s FarmVille have been huge hits on Facebook, which has grown to more than 300 million players. About 90 percent of users play social games for free. But about 10 percent will buy virtual goods such as poker chips or farm tractors to improve the game experience. Most pay with credit cards. But Offerpal has an alternative payment system for those who don’t have money or just prefer offers, such as a cell phone subscription deal.
There are a lot of competitors in the business, but Offerpal has handled transactions for more than 160 million consumers in the past two years. Garrick’s job is to keep it going, and, perhaps, to make sure that Offerpal comes out on the winning side of the current debate over the ethics of offers.
Garrick was previously named CEO of Mochi Media in November, 2008. But he didn’t last long in that job and has now moved on to Offerpal. He has more than 25 years of experience in tech, ad, and consumer businesses. Garrick was on a team that took Information Resources from $2 million in revenue to $300 million. And he was CEO of Flycast communications, a direct-response ad network that had a $500 million initial public offering and then was acquired for $2.3 billion.
“I have known George for a long time,” said Shukla in a statement.  “After many months of searching, I believe that George is the best CEO to scale the company to new heights. I am looking forward to working with him closely.”
The timing is, of course, very interesting. I look forward to what happens next.