Some Aftermath to the NY Times Deal With About.com
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Written By Reprise Media | February 19, 2005 | Share This
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There has been some good commentary across the blogosphere since The New York Times announced that they acquired About.com the other day.
The folks at PaidContent.org feature an exclusive interview with Martin Nisenholtz, recently promoted to SVP-Digital Operations of The New York Times Co from CEO, New York Times Digital. Mr. Nisenholtz gives some […]
There has been some good commentary across the blogosphere since The New York Times announced that they acquired About.com the other day.
The folks at PaidContent.org feature an exclusive interview with Martin Nisenholtz, recently promoted to SVP-Digital Operations of The New York Times Co from CEO, New York Times Digital. Mr. Nisenholtz gives some perspective on why this is not a bubble acquisition, what The New York Times can do for About, and why the asset they acquired really is a Web 2.0 business (an interesting comment, when you consider how long About.com/The Mining Co has been around).
Fred Wilson has an excellent post that discusses why this is a good deal from an economic standpoint and why this gives an opportunity for NYTd to merge their old world media network with the new decentralized media - something Primedia obviously never pulled off.
Traffick’s always candid and insightful Andrew Goodman, writes an open letter to The Times. In it, he offers some ideas ranging from how the new About.com can better connect with their audience online and off to how NYTd can integrate their existing columnists to the more grassroots world About lives in.
Bottom line: this is a major web moment. While it’s not the first time a major offline company merged forces with an internet company (I heard something an AOL/Time Warner deal a few years ago), it’s obvious that Nisenholtz and his team get where the web is now and where it is headed. While I’d be surprised if there was an integration plan in place already, it’ll be fascinating to watch how the two properties converge, both on a content and sales strategy level. Regardless of how that plays out, this deal immediately makes the Times Digital one of the key players in the PPC contextual/behavioral advertising world.
Topics: Advertising: Behavioral, Advertising: Contextual, Blogging, Investment, M&A |