Dismantling About.com: A remarkable turnaround story

on YouTube ↗13m

" summary

About.com becomes Dotdash by ripping apart a general-interest portal and rebuilding five vertical publishers: health, personal finance, technology (The Flier), home (The Spruce) and TripSavvy. The team audits 20 years of content with a 60-person review squad, removes roughly half the archive, builds a seven-person data science team (five PhDs) and launches brand sites that grow fast: health 12M→17M (+42%), finance 6.5M→13M (×2), tech 3.5M→6.5M (≈×2) and home +40%, then renames the company Dotdash.

AI-written summary · about

" chapters (6)

1. 0:00The legacy challenge
2. 1:27Initial attempts at change
3. 2:46Defining the pivot strategy
4. 4:22Executing the brand transition
5. 6:35Success of new verticals
6. 9:40Rebranding to Dotdash

" related talks

• 09mHigh Order BitJoanne Bradford · Web 2.0 Summit 2011
• 08mJoanne Bradford interviewed at Web 2.0 Summit 2011Joanne Bradford · Web 2.0 Summit 2011
• 41mNews in a Platform WorldDavid Spitz, Scott Lamb, David Arabov, Brian Morrissey · DLD 2014
• 48mA Proven Blueprint for a Scalable Content StrategyJames Brockbank · Digital Marketing Europe 2022
• 40mAll together now: Turning technologists into documentariansLiani Lye, Gretchen Maciolek · Write the Docs Portland 2022
• 26mArianna Huffington in Conversation with Tim O'ReillyTim O'Reilly, Arianna Huffington · Web 2.0 Expo NY 2008
• 40mDid We(b Development) Lose the Right Direction?Stefan Judis · GOTOpia November 2020
• 02mHighlights - News in a Platform WorldDavid Spitz, Scott Lamb, David Arabov, B.Morrissey · DLD 2014