About.com Up For Sale... Again?
from the what-a-waste dept
It appears that Primedia is looking to sell About.com. Primedia, of course, seriously overpaid for About.com a few years back and then did very little with it, other than to make it less and less useful, on the theory that if they put more and more ads on it, it would somehow pay for itself, rather than driving users away. Especially in an age of blogs, the whole reason for About.com seems to make less and less sense. However, apparently some people think it's actually worth between $350 and $500 million -- which is almost scary. The article says that Google, Yahoo, AskJeeves, the New York Times (who, it appears, broke the story) and AOL are all bidding for the site. Of course, Google already supplies ads to the site (they bought About's advertising service a while back) so it may be a protective move. Still, isn't it interesting that search engines and media plays are bidding on the same property? It certainly suggests the business model convergence that's happening between media and search these days. Either way, if they were smart, they'd save their money. The various attempts at blogging "media empires" are probably much cheaper, and a better long term deal.
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About.com buyout
Mike may be interested in getting his tax advice from some guy who knows how to file a couple of forms and made a blog post about it. He may prefer to learn about how to train for a marathon from someone who runs and blogs than from a certified coach. He may even decide that getting advice on how to treat his kid's illnesses from someone who had a child with a similar condition and blogged it is a better choice than reading something from a Pediatrician. That just shows me that he doesn't have very much common sense! For me, I'll stick to the experts at About! Their advice has proven to be good time and time again - unlike Mike - who has some pretty strange ways of looking at things.
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Re: About.com buyout
However, if you want to insult me and make insinuations that simply aren't true, that really helps me take you seriously.
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Re: About.com buyout
J
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Re: About.com buyout
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Perhaps you don't know how to use a website?
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About.com Sale
Can you at times find info on the many topics the guides at about.com write on elsewhere, that may be better suited to you needs at the time? I'm sure you can, I certainly found more useful and non-demeaning information on the buyout on sites other than this. I guess it really depends on what you are looking for. About's success stands on its own and we don't need you or anyone else to validate the worth of the company or the worth of the staff. The opinion that ultimately matters is that of our many users, 20 million of them to be exact. They see value in About.com. That is the ultimate valuation of any site if you ask me, the opinions of the users. Not the opinions industry experts, CEO's or Staff. The users are what counts.
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