About.com

1997–2005: Launch, renaming, Primedia acquisition

Founded in 1996 as The Mining Company, the site was launched on April 21, 1997 by Scott Kurnit, owner of General Internet, Bill Day, and a group of other entrepreneurs in New York City. The original goal was to maintain 1,800 topic areas, but after five years of operation, this number was reduced to around 700.

In May 1999, the company changed its name to "About Inc." and the website name from "miningco.com" to "about.com". The company was acquired by Primedia (now Rent Group), in 2000 through a deal valued at US$690 million, whereby Primedia swapped 45.2 million shares for About, Inc.'s 18.1 million shares. At the time of the acquisition announcement, About Inc. was measured at US$133 million in cash and no debt (September 30, 2000), while the Media Metrix company tallied 21 million unique monthly visitors—making it the seventh-most-visited "network of sites" at the time—a network of over 700 topic sites, sorted into 36 areas and 50,000 subjects, and approximately 4,000 advertisers. Following the purchase, which was finalized in the first quarter of 2001, the combined company was called "Primedia" and Kurnit remained chief executive officer (CEO).

2005–2012: Times Co. acquisition

In February 2005, The New York Times Company (Times Co.) announced it was buying About.com, a purchase that was completed in the first half of the year for US$410 million. Google and Yahoo! were reportedly among the other bidders. Following the Times Co. acquisition, Peter C. Horan was appointed as About Inc.'s president and CEO, but he was soon replaced by Scott Meyer in May 2005.

In March 2007, About.com's patronage was measured at 33.5 million unique visitors. On May 7, 2007, About Inc. acquired ConsumerSearch.com—a site that generated 3 million unique monthly visitors during the first quarter of 2007—for US $33 million in cash following two other purchases that were made in the preceding eight-month period: UCompareHealthCare.com and Calorie-Count.com.