Ziff Davis Buys Mashable
By: Mark Angelo
The internet can be a highly unpredictable place for workers, company owners and investors. One day, a company is worth a lot of money. The next, the company’s values can fall precipitously. Such is apparently the case for Mashable. While the online publisher once saw fast and impressive growth very quickly, the value of the company has apparently cooled down considerably. Ziff Davis, another media company, is said to be purchasing Mashable for less than fifty million. The price would make a marked dive from the company’s recent evaluation and funding from outside sources. In the spring of 2016, officials at TimeWarner were the winners in a funding round that led the market to
value the company at about $250 million. Investors poured roughly fifteen million dollars into company coffers at that time.
Layoffs Probable Those at Ziff Davis have made it clear they are going to lay off about fifty staffers as part of their overall plans to restructure it. Employees who are not being directly laid off are expected to be offered other jobs with Ziff Davis. The goal for Mashable right now, according to those involved in the deal, is to think about ways to refocus the company’s content. Officials plan to focus more attention on technical content and other content that is related to the tech world. The company’s founder, Peter Cashman, will be staying on. He believes that Ziff Davis loves Mashable and appreciates their editorial insights into the tech world. However, he also admits that there will be cost cutting measures in place once the takeover is complete and that such measures will also include layoffs for current staffers.
Ziff Davis Ziff Davis is a digital media company. Owned by J2, they specialize in providing content that invites viewers to click on affiliate commerce links. These links are usually found in the text of an article. The reader is encouraged to head to the link to see more information about a product or service they might like to buy or use. In turn, the company gets a share of the profit should they buy it. In many cases, Ziff Davis will also earn a commission merely for bringing readers to another site. The company has purchased many low cost content providers in the past.
The Effect on Other Media Publishing Companies Officials believe that this lapse in value indicates there may be problems for those online companies that rely on digital advertising to help generate a significant chunk of their overall revenues. Google and Facebook are seen as the company that have captured the lion’s share of this type of revenue. Many observers believe that such industry giants will continue to enjoy even more such online funding and capture an ever greater share of ads. In response, other company that have similar models such as Buzzfeed have also seen layoffs. It remains to be seen if this is a momentary trend or indicative of a larger potential upheaval.
Mark Angelo Mark Angelo co-founded the Investment Manager in August 2009 and two affiliated investment managers in 2000 and 2016. http://www.yorkvilleadvisors.com/