Say Media Adds Remodelista

Say Media continued its efforts to remake itself from ad network into a new-style digital media company with the acquisition of home design blog Remodelista.

The purchase follows Say’s purchase of Dogster, which also operates Catster, in April. Say has also rolled out its own property, XOJane, in May. Together with exclusive rep deals, a tech platform via its Typepad acquisition and a far flung ad network, Say hopes to give a new spin to what makes up a media company.

Troy Young, president of Say Media, said the company would acquire 40-50 sites over the next few years, while launching an undetermined number of its own along the lines of XOJane.

“The formula is to find people really connected to the community where they have a real authentic point of view,” he said.

Remodelista is run by a quartet of design bloggers. The site was begun four years ago. According to Quantcast, it attracts about 175,000 visitors per month, about 128,000 of which are from the U.S.

The jury is still out on whether Say can build that kind of audience on its own. XOJane is still new. Young notes that posts regularly get more than a dozen comments, with some reaching the hundreds. It remains too small for Quantcast to measure it.

“This isn’t Glam,” Young said, referring to the women-focused ad network. “We’re really interested in people who are authentic.”

More in Media

Media Briefing: Step by step, publishers are building toward an agent-led ad business

Agentic AI-driven media trading could wipe out a lot of the problems caused by its programmatic predecessor. Namely, ad tech middlemen.

In Graphic Detail: How AI search is changing publisher visibility

AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google AI Mode are driving more search activity. Some publishers are gaining visibility — but not traffic.

AI royalties for small and midsize publishers: collective licensing’s next big play

Don’t credit OpenAI’s ChatGPT, credit corporate LLMs – enterprise RAG is what’s creating royalty revenue for publishers.