Microsoft Trying To Sell Slate

from the enough-is-enough dept

It looks like Microsoft is giving up on the Slate experiment. Launched with great fanfare by Microsoft as an online magazine, it went through its disastrous attempt to charge people to subscribe (a plan that almost everyone involved admitted was a huge failure), and eventually went back to offering its daily free content. Whenever people talk about independent online magazines, they point to Salon and Slate, and mention that while Salon seems to hang on with last minute investment after last minute investment, Slate keeps going thanks to billions in Microsoft money. That may no longer be the case. Microsoft is apparently talking with a variety of media companies about selling the online magazine. Apparently, Microsoft is looking to use the sale to do a bigger advertising deal with some media company, but if that doesn't work out, selling the whole thing isn't a problem.