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Ex-Ziff'er here. That company seems to exist to be sold. Back in late 1990's it was split and sold: Things like Gamespot and TechTV came out of it. Now, what's being sold is a husk of the old media empire. Kinda like Atari: mostly name, and a few remaining properties.
Mashable, notably, is often credited with kicking off the much-derided "pivot to video" trend: https://www.recode.net/2016/4/7/11585950/mashable-fires-news... But the buyout is sad to me because, if you break it down, it was a really great example of technology blog getting launched by a guy in his bedroom and that guy finding major success with it. There was a time that Mashable was so prominent in the social sphere…
A friend of mine and I did this http://mashable.com/2012/04/19/pinview-facebook-pinterest-ap...
and they picked it up which then started a whole slew of other magazine picking it up.
It was one of the reasons I could get an O visa as it gave me exposure in a lot of international magainze.
Anway sad to see them sell for a while it was one of my favorite online blogs.
Back in the day mashable seemed like a competitor to TechCrunch, with a focus on tech news and trends. Then they pivoted toward viral content, and were personally never a destination again. It seemed a weird move even at the time. Why would you want to build a business that's contingent upon catching the zeitgeist in a bottle? That's so incredibly hard.
Comparisons: Mashable: $46M raised[0], 15M MAU[1] and $35-40M p.a in revenue[2] (sold for $50M) Business Insider: $55M raised, 76M MAU, $50M+ rev (sold at $442M[5]) Refinery29: $125M raised, 27M MAU, $100M+ rev Vox: $307M raised[4], 170M MAU, $100M+ rev Buzzfeed: $496M raised, 200M+ MAU, $280-300M rev (was $350M - updated thanks) HuffPo: $37M raised, 126M MAU, $30M+ rev (sold for $316M) TechCrunch: $0 raised, 5M+ MAU…
Back in the day mashable seemed like a competitor to TechCrunch, with a focus on tech news and trends. Then they pivoted toward viral content, and were personally never a destination again. It seemed a weird move even at the time. Why would you want to build a business that's contingent upon catching the zeitgeist in a bottle? That's so incredibly hard.
If you look at raw traffic numbers Mashable is far bigger than Techcrunch and far more profitable. What you are feeling and seeing is that the media is turned into a hyper-partisan machine where any issue discussed is in the context of extremes. It drives emotion, creates and drives viral content, and drives revenue. However, it doesn't produce substantive content one would find meaningful. It doesn't pay.
Techcrunch is 281 US, 632 world, Mashable is 364 US, 855 world.
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/techcrunch.com https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/mashable.com
Mashable, notably, is often credited with kicking off the much-derided "pivot to video" trend: https://www.recode.net/2016/4/7/11585950/mashable-fires-news... But the buyout is sad to me because, if you break it down, it was a really great example of technology blog getting launched by a guy in his bedroom and that guy finding major success with it. There was a time that Mashable was so prominent in the social sphere…
Mashable, notably, is often credited with kicking off the much-derided "pivot to video" trend: https://www.recode.net/2016/4/7/11585950/mashable-fires-news... But the buyout is sad to me because, if you break it down, it was a really great example of technology blog getting launched by a guy in his bedroom and that guy finding major success with it. There was a time that Mashable was so prominent in the social sphere…
How about Pando?
Sites like Pando and The Information really fit in a different category—they're built less around aggregation like Mashable and company were upon launch, and more on original reporting.
Ex-Ziff'er here. That company seems to exist to be sold. Back in late 1990's it was split and sold: Things like Gamespot and TechTV came out of it. Now, what's being sold is a husk of the old media empire. Kinda like Atari: mostly name, and a few remaining properties.
That inspired me to comment on their AOL page that I thought they gushed too much and I mentioned that after reading it I had to wonder if they owned stock in Netscape. One their representatives came on and trashed me for insinuating such a thing and then their fan club piled on me and just reamed me over my comments but the very next month they had yet another article about it and this one began with a disclaimer saying they did own stock in Netscape.
That was it for me. I never bought another issue of it or anything else they published.