The New York Times used to crow about the performance of its About unit, which it bought for $410 million in 2005. Not so much anymore. PaidContent has the news that About is reorganizing its operations. Business Insider claimed it is laying off its editorial team, which is apparently not the case. NYT brought in executive Martin Niesenholtz to run About, which is now regularly tagged as “troubled,” replacing Cella Irvine. The downfall of About was speeded by Google’s Panda algorithm update that hit so-called content farms hard. It’s hard to see a future where the NYT is able to turn around About, considering it is a legacy business built on search optimization at a time when Google is hellbent of fighting the spam that clogs its results.
More in Media
The top AI platforms for publishers, ranked
Digiday’s Jessica Davies and Sara Guaglione joined the Digiday Podcast to handicap the more than a half-dozen AI platforms, from Amazon to OpenAI, that have begun doing business with publishers.
Not all creators are the same: How the creator economy breaks down by business model
Breaking down the creator economy by business model, from audience-owned media companies to micro creators with a niche.
‘JG believed that even in a demanding industry, it was possible to lead with both rigor and humanity’
The industry pays respects to OpenX CEO John Gentry, who sadly passed away last week.