Newsarama, the long-running comics news site, has been purchased by TopTenReviews, a content aggregation site out of Ogden. UT, it was announced today. The site, along with Space.com, and LiveScience, were sold by Imaginova, a science news web publisher which purchased Newsarama in 2007.
Although Imaginova purchased Newsarama with an eye to beefing up their consumer offerings, it was not always a great fit, editorially, with reader complaints about formats and technological issues along the way.
More information, via PR, in the jump.
TopTenREVIEWS, the 4th largest technology news site according to September 2009 U.S. comScore Media Metrix data, joins Space.com, LiveScience and Newsarama as TechMediaNetwork properties, a network encompassing technology, science and entertainment. Combined, 12.2 million people visit TechMediaNetwork sites each month.
“This acquisition expands TopTenREVIEWS coverage as a trusted technology adviser and strengthens the company as a source of technology news,” said TopTenREVIEWS founder and CEO Jerry Ropelato. “We see strong potential for growth in traffic and revenue as a result of the synergy between the sites.”
TopTenREVIEWS is a privately held technology review Web site covering software, Web services, consumer electronics and entertainment, offering millions of reviews in more than 350 categories. With Space.com, LiveScience.com and Newsarama.com, TopTenREVIEWS expands its coverage to include news and information about technology, science and comic genre entertainment, in addition to content about purchasing the best technology and entertainment products. TopTenREVIEWS will expand its coverage of consumer reviews to include products and services related to the new properties.
“Creating TechMediaNetwork is a natural progression in our company’s goal to create a more comprehensive network of technology and entertainment news, information and purchasing advice,” said Stan Bassett, president of TopTenREVIEWS. “Our new tech network broadens our ability to educate people on a wider range of topics – from astronomy to health to computer security.”
The sites, each brand leaders in their markets, will remain fundamentally the same. The science properties syndicate original content to the following news portals: Yahoo!, MSNBC, AOL, USA Today and FoxNews.com. TopTenREVIEWS will also continue the relationships Imaginova had with the scientific community, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), while expanding its technology and entertainment coverage.
I could never figure out why Newsarama was part of Imaginova. Hopefully TopTen will handle things better.
I agree, it never seemed like a good fit. I checked out the other imaginova sites and was never really grabbed.
I think the site needs a major overall personally. Editorial and structurally. Their message board format seems outdated. I think either a blog format or an online newspaper format are the way to go.
I’m hoping Top Ten would exercise some of that fabled “benevolent neglect” we all like. Let the staff do what they’re best at, give support when they need it, and just sit back and enjoy the ad revenues.
It seems to me whenever a site gets purchased and its character changed dramatically by the new owner, the original audience goes away. This story repeats time and time again… so many new media wannabe titans just never seem to learn.
Does this mean Newsarama may narrow their coverage a bit again, as opposed to trying to broaden it to get more varieties of nerd and non-nerd interested, weakening the overall product in the process?
Hey, as long as you can still have 100 plus page thead on powergirl it’ll be newsarama. :D
Here’s hoping they implement a better commenting system. Newsarama’s is the worst; there’s no way to fix it if you accidentally double post or make a typo. Every thread includes double, triple, and quadruple comments.
While I’m dreaming… maybe they could get someone to actually copyedit their content. Some of their stuff (reviews and TV show recaps especially) would make a junior high English teacher cringe.
So….how much was it sold for?
Hey, as long as you can post comments without using proper capitalization and punctuation it’ll still be newsarama.
Alan: you forgot to mention having a point. :)
Alan Coil Says:
“Hey, as long as you can post comments without using proper capitalization and punctuation it’ll still be newsarama.”
Um…Shouldn’t Newsarama be capitalized in your comment then?
Sarcasm is lost on the computer screen.
(Charles, I was referencing a previous post on this page.)
Top Ten Reviews is a very biased review site which deals primarily with affiliations to make money on the products they claim to review (reviews are mostly plagiarized from other sources like Cnet) and their main objective is money.
Newsarama and other organizations within Imaginova were nearly bankrupt which lead to the buyout. Having watched Top Ten this last year I can assure you that the support behind Newsarama will dwindle before it is eventually pulled but not before upset fans express their concerns.