Posted on 02/21/2005 12:28:27 PM PST by JerseyHighlander
Link here: http://johnellis.blogspot.com/Weblog
How much are 500 weblogs worth? $410 million! Or $820,000.00 per weblog! How do I know this? Because that's what the New York Times paid Prime Media (KKR) for About.com. You can't make this stuff up.
Here's some (mostly) positive comment, including the NYT press release. In fact, the deal is an embarrassment of overpayment and reveals a kind of strategic ennui. The "metro" strategy of marketing the newspaper has failed. The television strategy has failed. The great Internet opportunity of 2000-2001 has long since passed (the NYT company could have acquired Yahoo! for a relative song in 2001). Having failed to even comprehend the turbo-dynamics of Blogger, the NYT Company now throws $410 million at 500 weblogs.
It is a company adrift. At some point, institutional shareholders are going to start abandoning ship.
No seriously, I laughed when I heard the announcement, even the CNBC newspeakers had a hard time keeping a straight face when they read the wire copy, and those anchors are the A-list TV hucksters in the nation.
Good description!
Also, I never mind seeing the NYT pour money down the toilet.
The NYT has too much of a negative brand in its name to ever be other than a niche log.
Too bad they did not realise the power of the forums.
Can anyone imagine how fake a NYT forum would be?
bump for later reading
And television, and radio...
Imagine how much the NYT et al are going to manipulate the search results of the sites.
Imagine the attitude of their moderators.
This is a joke, right? It cannot be true. A fool and his/her money soon part, but a fool with $410 million? Wish they'd send some my way.
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