Weblogs, Inc. was a blog network that published content on a variety of subjects, including tech news, video games, automobiles, and pop culture. At one point, the network had as many as 90 blogs , although the vast majority of its traffic could be attributed to a smaller number of breakout titles, as was typical of most large-scale successful blog networks of the mid-2000s. Popular blogs included Engadget , Autoblog, TUAW, Joystiq , Luxist, Slashfood, Cinematical, TV Squad, Download Squad, Blogging Baby, Gadling, AdJab, and Blogging Stocks.
26-518: Today, Engadget and Autoblog are the only remaining brands from the company, now existing as part of Yahoo! Inc. The company was founded in September 2003 by Jason Calacanis and Brian Alvey , in the wake of Calacanis's Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, with backing from investor Mark Cuban . By early 2004, Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker Media were establishing the two most notable templates for networked blog empires. Initially, Weblogs, Inc. consisted of
52-514: A Day (also known as HackADay ) is a weblog covering hacks, mods, and projects popular among computer enthusiasts. It was not included in the sale of Weblogs, Inc. to AOL, but remained a separate entity until it was sold to SupplyFrame in 2013. TV Squad was a television weblog founded on March 10, 2005. By 2006, it was one of the most popular on the Internet. TV Squad was originally conceptualized to allow any Weblogs, Inc. blogger to write about
78-488: A few dozen blogs, all residing as subdomains of weblogsinc.com. The exception was Engadget , a stand-alone site covering new technology in blog format. Engadget was co-founded by Peter Rojas, the former editor of Gizmodo in the Gawker Media network. Eventually a plethora of independent brands were established, including 26 stand-alone sites and over 50 sub-blogs. A few of the company principals also maintained personal blogs on
104-506: A new division called the "Huffington Post Media Group." Under the arrangement, the Huffington Post editorial team took responsibility for editorial oversight of AOL's other blogs and news sites. Months after the acquisition, AOL further consolidated its total count of content websites to just 20 brands, of which Engadget, Autoblog, Joystiq, and TUAW were the only remaining former Weblogs, Inc. titles. The Huffington Post Media Group branding
130-505: Is a webzine that looks like a blog. Launched in June 2004, Autoblog is an automotive news and car shopping website formerly based in Birmingham, Michigan . A winner of a 2014 Webby Award for its original video series The List , Autoblog produced daily articles and videos covering all facets of the auto industry, as well as a weekly video podcast featuring the editors of the site. Autoblog
156-670: The Moviefone movie listings website from Oath, in consideration for which Verizon took a stake in Helios and Matheson. In April 2018, Verizon sold Flickr to SmugMug , for an undisclosed amount. In May 2018, Verizon and Samsung agreed to terms that would preload four Oath mobile apps onto Samsung Galaxy S9 smartphones. The agreement includes Oath's Newsroom, Yahoo! Sports , Yahoo! Finance , and go90 mobile video apps (closed in July 2018), with integration of native Oath advertisements into both
182-599: The Oath apps and Samsung's own Galaxy and Game Launcher apps. On September 12, 2018, it was announced that K. Guru Gowrappan would succeed Tim Armstrong as CEO, effective October 1. On December 3, 2018, the company declared a new set of rules for the Tumblr community that took effect December 17, 2018, banning "adult content". This move raised objections that it harms their LGBTQ community, sexual abuse survivors, sex workers, adult content blogs, and other bloggers. The move came after
208-519: The Tumblr app was removed from the Apple App Store due to issues with child pornography, leading some to speculate that the ban may have been made to regain access to the App Store. In December 2018, Verizon announced that it was cutting 10% of Oath's workforce and would write down the value of the business by $ 4.6B. Verizon management blamed competitive pressures and that the business never achieved
234-511: The Verizon Media would be acquired by Apollo Global Management for roughly $ 5 billion, and would simply be known as Yahoo following the closure of the deal, with Verizon retaining a minor 10% stake in the new group. The acquisition was completed on September 1, 2021, with the company now known as Yahoo. On September 10, 2021, Jim Lanzone , who had most recently served as CEO of Tinder , was named CEO of Yahoo, succeeding Gowrappan. Some of
260-553: The anticipated benefits. The move wiped out all of the goodwill on the balance sheets that accompanied the acquisitions. On January 8, 2019, Oath was renamed Verizon Media. In August 2019, Verizon sold Tumblr to Automattic , the owner of WordPress.com , for an undisclosed amount that was reportedly less than $ 3 million. In November 2020, Verizon sold HuffPost to BuzzFeed . in an all-stock deal, remaining minority shareholder in Buzzfeed. On May 3, 2021, Verizon announced that
286-691: The completion of the AOL acquisition, Verizon announced a $ 4.8 billion deal for Yahoo!'s core Internet business, to invest in the Internet company's search , news , finance , sports , video , emails and Tumblr products. Yahoo! announced in September and December 2016 two major Internet security breaches affecting more than a billion customers. As a result, Verizon lowered its offer for Yahoo! by $ 350 million to $ 4.48 billion. The AOL deal and subsequent Yahoo! purchase were led by Verizon's management team, including Lowell McAdam (CEO), Marni Walden (EVP Product) and Tim Armstrong . Walden had been tasked with merging
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#1732858450074312-470: The core assets of its predecessor and merged them with AOL in 2017. The resulting subsidiary entity was briefly called Oath Inc . In December 2018, Verizon announced it would write down the combined value of its purchases of AOL and Yahoo! by $ 4.6 billion, roughly half; the company would be renamed Verizon Media the following month in January 2019. On May 3, 2021, Verizon announced that 90 percent of
338-582: The deal, Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer resigned. Yahoo! operations not acquired in the deal were renamed Altaba , a holding company whose primary assets are its 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba Group and 35.5 percent stake in Yahoo! Japan . After the merger, Oath cut fifteen percent of the Yahoo-AOL workforce. In 2018, Altaba sold Yahoo! Japan to SoftBank Group . In April 2018, Helios and Matheson Analytics acquired
364-460: The division would be acquired by American private equity firm Apollo Global Management for roughly $ 5 billion, and would simply be known as Yahoo ; Verizon would retain a ten percent stake in the new group. The acquisition was completed on September 1, 2021. The company is headquartered in Manhattan , New York. As of December 2019 , the company employed about 10,350 people. A year after
390-558: The network, including Mark Cuban. Weblogs Inc was sold to AOL for a reported $ 25 million in October 2005. The move came as AOL was preparing to become an independent division within Time Warner . Weblogs Inc continued to operate independently from AOL's other content websites for many years, until AOL began phasing out the Weblogs Inc branding in favor of its own, consolidating to a few of
416-528: The original staff, often incorrectly attributing the wrong author and including AI-generated images of people alongside their bylines . According to TUAW's website, the brand was acquired by Web Orange Limited in 2024, "without its original content". Web Orange Limited says on its website to be a Hong Kong –based "advertising services" company. Download Squad was a popular blog following web-based and downloadable software and news for desktop and mobile platforms. Consistently cited among popular software blogs, it
442-401: The site in 2010. During the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike , while some industry blogs stopped or wrote articles in support of the strike, TV Squad continued to publish material normally. TV Squad operated as a separate, independent site until May 2011, when AOL merged TV Squad with AOL. This meant all of the old TV Squad content would then be found on AOL TV. Originally, TVSquad.com
468-413: The strongest titles, and integrating more closely with its namesake media division, which included AOL News, AOL Autos, AOL Tech, etc. The emphasis on AOL branding was increased following the spin-off of AOL from Time Warner in 2009. Up until mid-2010, Weblogs, Inc. branding remained subtly alongside AOL's, on titles like Engadget and Autoblog, but in late 2010, the name was dropped and the official website
494-451: The television shows they watch. Eventually, a core group of bloggers for the site was realized, with several other Weblogs, Inc. bloggers contributing on an irregular basis. TV Squad had about 20 regularly contributing bloggers. Writers include Adam Finley, Keith McDuffee, Bob Sassone, Jane Boursaw, Jay Black , Wil Wheaton , and Paul Goebel , and the site's main television critic is former Chicago Tribune critic Maureen Ryan, who came to
520-431: The two entities and delivering on the promise of moving Verizon from an analog to digital platforms business. Walden exited Verizon in 2017 and as later events revealed, the integration did not deliver the expected value. Two months before closing the deal for Yahoo!, Verizon announced it would place Yahoo! and AOL under an umbrella named Oath. The deal closed on June 13, 2017, and Oath was launched. Upon completion of
546-513: Was acquired by Verizon . In 2017, AOL's content business, along with that of Yahoo! , which was also acquired by Verizon, were combined into a new online media subsidiary. Then Verizon sold that to private equity firm Apollo Global Management . Currently, Engadget and Autoblog are the only remaining former Weblogs Inc. titles. Launched in March 2004, Engadget is updated multiple times a day with articles on gadgets and consumer electronics . Engadget
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#1732858450074572-460: Was also home to vehicle shopping tools and research pages where users could search for new and used vehicles for purchase. Autoblog's final Editor-in-Chief was Greg Migliore and its last General Manager is Adam Morath. Staff were let go and the website converted to an all AI driven blog effective September 2024. Joystiq was a weblog covering video games and video game culture. It was shut down on February 3, 2015. Founded in September 2004, Hack
598-485: Was automatically redirected to AOLTV.com. Just seven months later, AOLTV became HuffPost TV, moving the content once again. TUAW covered tips, reviews, news, analyses, and opinions on Apple Inc .'s products. Founded in 2004 and one of the most successful blogs from Weblogs, Inc., TUAW was shut down February 3, 2015, and its archives republished on Engadget. The blog was revived in mid 2024, publishing AI-generated articles . Many are AI-generated summaries of old posts from
624-451: Was named among Computerworld' s list of the ten best-written blogs on the Internet in 2008. Download Squad, along with sister blog Switched, was shut down on April 12, 2011, by parent company AOL. Yahoo! Inc. (2017%E2%80%93present) Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational technology company that focuses on media and online business. It is the second and current incarnation of the company, after Verizon Communications acquired
650-591: Was never used in any significant public-facing capacity, but the Huffington editorial team was put firmly in control of AOL's news websites. This led to numerous controversies over editorial direction, including the departure of TechCrunch editor and founder Michael Arrington . Joystiq and TUAW were shut down and folded into Engadget in February 2015. Around the same time, AOL Autos and AOL Tech were shut down and redirected to Autoblog and Engadget, respectively. In 2015, AOL
676-442: Was redirected to AOL.com, approximately coinciding with a major redesign of AOL branded properties. Around the same time, AOL also acquired tech industry blog TechCrunch , at a time when it had less than a dozen remaining blog brands. Following AOL's $ 315 million acquisition of The Huffington Post in February 2011, the former Weblogs Inc blogs, along with TechCrunch and many of AOL's other content brands, were reorganized under
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