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Dotdash Meredith

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About.com is an online source for original consumer information and advice, and was once a "top 10 content site"[1]. It is written in English, and is aimed primarily at North Americans. It is owned by The New York Times.

The site’s content is dynamic, keeping up with new information and changing consumer interests. About.com is divided into topic sites, which are grouped into channels and cover subjects from home repair to pediatrics. The content is written by a network of over 600 journalists, called Guides, who are experts in their particular fields. Each Guide looks after one subject and is the exclusive writer for that subject. Content on the site can take the form of articles, online courses, interactive quizzes, videos and so forth.

Guides are compensated with a base salary plus bonuses for increased traffic; according to About.com, several guides are averaging over $100,000 per year, although the exact number is not disclosed.[2]

Content

The Guide's sites consist of articles or commentaries written by the Guides. Some sites have dictionaries, how-to lessons, and free eCourses. For example, the sites on major European languages have comprehensive lessons illustrated by audio files recorded by the Guides themselves.

Each Guide's site has at least one forum, provided at the Advanced level (with HTML capability and uploading), for registered users. Site visitors may subscribe to free email newsletters for each site. Some Guides participate daily at the forum. About.com employs strict editorial guidelines for all of the content that appears on its site. All content on About.com is overseen by a team of editors, who review materials for relevance and accuracy. New health content on About.com is reviewed and checked for accuracy by a group of physicians and a medical director, who is also an M.D.

In 2006, the About.com Health channel became HONCode accredited (Health On the Net Foundation).

History

About.com was originally founded in 1996 as The Mining Company. The site was launched on April 21, 1997 by Scott Kurnit, owner of General Internet, Bill Day, and a group of other entrepreneurs in New York City.[3] The original goal was to maintain 1,800 topic areas, but after five years of operation, this number was eventually reduced to 700. The original business plan offered expert Guides a minimum rate of $250 a month or one-third of the advertising revenue generated within their topic area. The Mining Company also employed around 50 full time staff for administration, advertising sales and the overall site design work.

The company changed its name to About, Inc. on May 17 1999, and the Web site address miningco.com, to About.com. The renaming was partly to broaden the appeal of the site and the instant brand equity during the Internet bubble of using a simple word followed by dot com as both site address and company name. The company was acquired by PRIMEDIA in 2000 in a deal that valued About at $690 million. In February 2005, The New York Times Company announced that it was buying About.com, a purchase that was completed in the first half of the year for $410 million. Google along with Yahoo!, Ask.com, and AOL were reportedly among the other bidders.

It eliminated over 40% of its topic-sites in 2002. Most of the eliminated sites are not merged, and their contents are no longer accessible to the general public. However, the rights to the material remained with the original authors and some of it has reappeared on other websites.

In 2002, 77 former and current About.com Guides filed a class-action suit in New York against PRIMEDIA. The complaint was that labor laws were violated and contracts breached. The case was still ongoing as of March 2006.

In May of 2005, The New York Times Company named Scott Meyer, president & CEO of About.com.

As of December 2006, About.com was one of the 15 largest sites on the Web[citation needed] and its third-quarter revenues increased 29.3 percent to $18.3 million compared to $14.2 during the same period last year. Year to date, About.com’s revenue’s were up 56% through September.

On May 7, 2007, About.com acquired ConsumerSearch for $33 Million.[4]

References

  1. ^ History page on About.com
  2. ^ Guide compensation page on About.com
  3. ^ 1997 Wired Article
  4. ^ About.com buys ConsumerSearch from The New York Times
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