What's it all about, About?

While it’s no surprise that About.com finally got sold yesterday—owner Primedia had the niche Web site portal on the market for some time—it was a little surprising to see that its new owner is The New York Times Co. If someone had asked us, we would have picked a bigger Internet player like Google or Time Warner. (But no one did.)

Still, in paying only $410 million, it looks like the Times got a good deal, especially considering Primedia bought it in late 2000 (bad timing is everything) for $690 million. And, since About is, well, all about little, non-mass-market areas of interest (the site even has a word processing expert, for crying out loud), it’ll give the Times a bigger footprint in search. And these days, that’s a good thing.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

February 18, 2005 | Permalink