Salon’s now a 10-year-old

Here we are crowing about AdFreak's first birthday, while Salon, the progressive online magazine, has much more to be thrilled about. The San Francisco-based site, which for better or worse went public during the dot-com boom and has stayed that way, celebrated its 10th birthday last night at Manhattan's Crobar (also known as the home of the portholes that let unsuspecting guests see the backsides of men doing their business at the urinals). Why we were invited, we honestly don't know, but the party featured some headline-making guests, including the one, the only Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., along with a smattering of arts-and-culture types from the Times. We passed on an opportunity to meet Camille Paglia but decided to tell Jann Wenner (whose Wenner Media has a stake in Salon) how great it is that Rolling Stone offered its most recent Rolling Stone Interview as an extended-play podcast. When you consider how many Internet companies came and went during the last decade, it's nothing short of amazing that Salon is still among us and still, despite having to report to shareholders, has liberal cred. When we went to the home page this morning, we initially thought the day's marquee advertiser was Wal-Mart (!) but then discovered it was an ad for Walmartwatch.com that centered on excerpts from the anti-Wal-Mart documentary The High Cost of Low Price.

—Posted by Catharine P. Taylor

November 16, 2005 | Permalink