Ars Technica, the widely read Malden, MA, tech blog for the computer set, has been acquired by media giant Condé Nast and will effectively become part of Wired and its growing digital assets, TechCrunch is reporting this afternoon. The purchase price is in the neighborhood of $25 million, about the same as what Condé Nast paid for Wired.com in 2006, TechCrunch says.
Founders Ken “Caesar” Fisher and Jon “Hannibal” Stokes launched Ars Technica (Latin for the art of technology) in 1998. They and their small staff of roughly 8 people will be integrated into Wired Digital, which also owns Wired.com and Reddit, says TechCrunch, which notes: “Comscore says Ars Technica has just 1.5 million monthly unique visitors and 4 million page views, but our understanding is that the actual number of unique visitors to the site is around 4.5 million.” (We note that Ars Technica itself reports 3 million monthly visitors.)
The About page on the Ars Technica site reads: “Technology is the ‘art’ at the forefront of our changing world, and we’re here to help it all, even the difficult judgments.” We wonder how difficult it was for Caesar and Hannibal to join forces with Condé Nast.
Author: Robert Buderi
Bob is Xconomy's founder and chairman. He is one of the country's foremost journalists covering business and technology. As a noted author and magazine editor, he is a sought-after commentator on innovation and global competitiveness. Before taking his most recent position as a research fellow in MIT's Center for International Studies, Bob served as Editor in Chief of MIT's Technology Review, then a 10-times-a-year publication with a circulation of 315,000. Bob led the magazine to numerous editorial and design awards and oversaw its expansion into three foreign editions, electronic newsletters, and highly successful conferences. As BusinessWeek's technology editor, he shared in the 1992 National Magazine Award for The Quality Imperative.
Bob is the author of four books about technology and innovation. Naval Innovation for the 21st Century (2013) is a post-Cold War account of the Office of Naval Research. Guanxi (2006) focuses on Microsoft's Beijing research lab as a metaphor for global competitiveness. Engines of Tomorrow (2000) describes the evolution of corporate research. The Invention That Changed the World (1996) covered a secret lab at MIT during WWII. Bob served on the Council on Competitiveness-sponsored National Innovation Initiative and is an advisor to the Draper Prize Nominating Committee. He has been a regular guest of CNBC's Strategy Session and has spoken about innovation at many venues, including the Business Council, Amazon, eBay, Google, IBM, and Microsoft.
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