So the New York Times paid $410 million for the craptacularly annoying About.com. Some have suggested that what the New York Times actually bought was 500 blogs. That make the going market rate for popup-filled advertiser link filled pages that are mostly devoid of content at $820,000. Forget the scrapping donations and ad sales to cobble together something approximating the income of a WalMart checkout clerk; no the smart money is finding a stooge supremely forward thinking company to buy your blog at dot-com era prices. Sign the standard deal that keeps you onboard for 1 year before you cash out, and spend that time beach blogging. The bidding starts at $1M…
This Blog For Sale
About The Author
Kevin
Kevin founded Wizbang in 2003. He still contributes occasionally and handles all the technical and design work for the site.
Hi Kevin et al,
About was sold to Primedia by Scott Kurnit, thence to KKR. I knew Scott in the 70’s. He made a mint on that deal after a time in PBS purgatory. About was lame when it launched, and went downhill. Interesting notes: it was part of MCI for a while where he went as “chief of interactive services”, and Scott was the exec in charge at Warner Amex CUBE, an early 80’s cable attempt at VOD that failed after burning big bucks. It later became Time Warner Cable. He was an early “silicon alley” player, and made some magazine list of ydeya players
I hope he cahed out the last of his chips selling to the nitwits at the NYT. My memory is foggy, but I do recall hw went to Hampshire College (fondly remembered as “Hamster”, and his faher was a CBS big back in the day, before CBS did forgery.
Aloha!
Well, leave it to the economists and tax experts, but this deal was all about tax avoidance. I know, I know. The Times generally opposes tax avoidance schemes, but that’s what this works out to because of depreciation under the IRC and how the sale of the About.com unit to the Times is being handled.
So, next time the Times complains about tax avoidance schemes, ask if they’ve done an investigation into how the NYT Co. does business.
After all, it’s taxpayer money that we’re talking about. Paying the fair share. Watching out for the little guy…
Oh, and as for how much a blog can go for, I’ve got to wonder how much my blogs are worth. One has content going back to 1996, and was part of a group that was a direct competitor to About.com (back when they were the MiningCo.)
IawHawk is correct, forgot about the Mining Co….
Kev can I come back now? LOL
P
With apologies to the Soup Nazi, “No blog for you” 🙂
And chock full o’ spyware and some trojan programs! I guess that means that TNYT found that so appealing that they even paid for it…
TNYT has a history of buying sites they can’t wrangle, another indication that the dollars you may spend for a Sunday read are eventually wasted with intensity by the recipient. Could a conglomeration ever be worse?
The good news: I finally got a taker on my standard offer to sell out.
The bad news: I got offered some Dunkin Donuts coupons (snipped off one of their free calendars) and a couple of soda bottles with a nickel deposit.
I just can’t seem to get the hang of this racket…
J.
Man, “craptacular” has to be one of the best words ever invented…..