I was one of Joystiq's first employees, before its official launch in 2005. I was a graduating high-school senior at the time, and in a bout of senioritis I played hooky almost every day in order to hang out in the A/V room and surf the internet reading video game news. I managed to find their fledgling site somehow (this was well before "blog" was a household word) and sent in so damn many exhaustively-written leads to their tip box that they eventually started publishing them almost verbatim (with attribution, of course), and then soon after cut out the middle man by hiring me outright. A great time of my life during which I met a number of great people, though in retrospect I'm incredibly embarrassed by the articles that my teenage brain managed to produce. :P
And I'll still never forget the look on my mom's face when she came into my room one night waving a $500 check from AOL. I had been told we were getting bought out, but I was completely unaware that we'd all be getting bonuses! That was the most money that I had ever had in my 17 year-old life... and straight into the college fund it went. :)
If you liked what Google Reader did, there are countless alternatives these days. I went with Feedbin + Unread on iOS and it works just as flawless as Google Reader did before.
I'd go to TUAW just out of habit and because of its easy-to-type-URL, since it had been around for a decade, but it seemed stagnant compared to the general tech sites (engadget, gizmodo, verge) that, because of Apple's dominance, themselves became blogs about Apple.
Still, that didn't mean there weren't good niches to nimbly carve out. MacRumors Buyer's guide is, in my mind, one of the best examples of small scale data collection put to powerful use (how hard would it be for anyone, if they thought it out, to research all the release dates of Apple devices and put them in a spreadsheet). And 9to5Mac.com is getting big scoops even though its senior editor (who earns 6-figures a year, reportedly) is still in college: http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/apple_mark_gurman_9to5mac...
Looks like the people at The Verge did the right thing then, or maybe that's a root cause.
On the other hand it looks like Polygon and The Verge are becoming more and more like the same thing. Since Topolsky left there might be something happening there as well.
The Verge is unrecognizable as the tech news site that it was founded as (under the This Is My Next moniker). Two of the top five articles on their site are currently about sports, unsurprising as they are owned by the same parent as SB-Nation. They also have 'authors' whose entire output seems to consist of blogspam summaries of articles on other sites.
The Verge wasn't founded as a tech news site. It was founded as a culture site, with a slant towards tech (because technology is a part of everyday culture).
This has been their message since the very beginning.
That sports article currently featured on the front page? About how tech and social media is changing sports. Just because there's a football doesn't mean its off topic for a 'tech' website. http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/28/7878051/espn-sportscenter-...
There are many times where I've noticed Verge and Polygon post articles on the exact same topics and it doesn't make sense at all since Polygon was originally meant to only be for game industry discussion.
Which is pretty disappointing since originally their mission statement seemed to be that they wanted to escape that mindset (most of the original team came from Engadget and such).
The goal is to get traffic from facebook/reddit/twitter/etc, not to report unique or relevant things. By blurring the boundaries they create opportunities to link to each other and re-monetize content because both sites have a shot at pulling traffic from social media.
With respect to the business side that makes perfect sense. But as to their original direction when they were creating the distinct Polygon property, it's gone pretty far off-course.
Polygon was interesting when it started, but then they stopped their deep journalism pieces, adulterated the site with non-game content, and hired Ben Kuchera :-(
I think they found out in-depth longread type articles don't guarantee a consistent readership. It's possible to pull off if it's a once a week or twice a week kind of thing, but they were trying to do it as their main content source.
I used to work at Weblogs, Inc. and had done work for all three of these pubs. The worst part for me is that the original vision of Weblogs, Inc. is dead. The vision was to have dozens of niche blogs covering topics people cared about. Sad.
When Weblogs Inc sold to AOL, TechCrunch said "Congratulations to all of the bloggers and employees of Weblogs, Inc." Who's to say it would have turned out any better if they had stayed independent, but Weblogs Inc was profitable in 2005 even without AOL.
Economies of scale in sales, tech and business operations. Knowledge sharing, eg. distribution and audience development techniques. Increased leverage with 3rd party vendors, search and social platforms, etc. Plus the usual benefits of scale (cashflow stability etc.)
Partly. I run a network of email newsletters which was inspired by someone suggesting I build a "Weblogs Inc of email newsletters" and the domino effect of branching out into related topics your existing user base is interested in has proven a powerful one.
Another win, which was also true at Weblogs Inc, is the ability to share technology and editorial talent. There are certainly major branding downsides to running 10, say, smaller publications versus 1 bigger one with 10x the traffic, but it's a workable model, if not a glamorous one.
I imagine that it's promoting each other and also centralize the non-editorial parts of running the network. Distributed content staff but centralized sales, technology and administration.
I wrote for WoW Insider for several years, and still keep in touch with the writers there. I would recommend following Alex and Adam on Twitter for more information on what (might) be coming after the official closure next week.
I used to visit TUAW fairly often for very niche Apple news that none of the major tech news sites would write about. But in the past few years I've dropped it for 9to5mac because it just wasn't hitting the spot anymore.
And I'll still never forget the look on my mom's face when she came into my room one night waving a $500 check from AOL. I had been told we were getting bought out, but I was completely unaware that we'd all be getting bonuses! That was the most money that I had ever had in my 17 year-old life... and straight into the college fund it went. :)