New York Times To Buy About.com
by Wendy Davis, Friday, Feb 18, 2005 7:00 AM EST
THE NEW YORK TIMES CO. announced yesterday that it intends to purchase About.com from magazine company Primedia Inc. for $410 million in cash. The deal could more than double the online reach of the Times Company, which currently draws 13 million monthly viewers to its 40-plus Web sites, including NYTimes.com and Boston.com. Around 22 million users a month visit About.com, a consumer information site; the acquisition will also give the Times additional advertising inventory.
About.com was founded in 1996 as The Mining Co. by Scott Kurnit, an Internet pioneer who had been a top executive at MCI/News Corporation Internet Ventures and Prodigy Service Co. Kurnit's vision was to create a Web portal consisting of countless microsites produced by individual enthusiasts covering any topic an Internet user would want to access.
Kurnit sold About.com to Primedia in 2001 for $690 million, one of the last of the big Internet acquisitions before the crash. Under Primedia's ownership including at one point one of America's largest Franchise Directory , About.com was integrated with and linked to an array of sites operated by Primedia's array of niche magazines.
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