TechCrunch is breaking the news that Conde Nast (big media company) is acquiring Reddit.com (little technology company). Print media is struggling as readership for newspapers and magazines is declining, and consumers are finding new and more engaging content providers. Don’t count these big media conglomerates out without a fight. At first glance, they may not appear to be nimble, tech savvy players, but they still employ some of the smartest people in the world and have deep, deep pockets.
Magazines have few places left to go but online, and this news proves that they are already on the move. As soon as I heard the Reddit news, I pinged my friend at Conde Nast to get his thoughts. He hadn’t heard of the Reddit or the acquisition, but immediately sent my to Lipstick.com. It would seem that although he hadn’t heard of Reddit, he was very familiar with Reddit given that the Lipstick interface looks almost identical to Reddit’s (and if you scroll to the bottom, Lipstick is in fact, Reddit).
Conde Nast, the unlikely Disruptor. Buying Reddit is telling the world that Conde Nast can play. The fact that Lipstick.com is live, and has been for some time, is signaling that there’s more to this acquisition than meets the eye. bk
We reported Conde Nast’s ownership of Lipstick.com back in June. See here.
Idea Fuel is a welcome addition to my feeds, as you guys turned out to be the first coverage I read on this. Big day today in the online publishing space, between this, and Jotspot going to Google.
Blake,
This blog post and the comment you left on TechCrunch are spot on. This is a good day for both the Reddit Team and their backers - Paul Graham’s Ycombinator. As you point out, it’s an especially good day for “Old Media”, since they have the cash, distribution and reputation to stay relevant with this acquisition. I just got my 2-year subscription renewal to Wired today - and that was before I knew about the Reddit purchase.
[…] I’ve known Patrick Richardson since kindergarten. We were roommates all through college, and after we graduated from LSU, he moved to New York and I moved to New Orleans. He is currently the Deputy Managing Editor at Conde Nast. Like I mentioned earlier, the first thing I did when I read about the Reddit acquisition was contact Patrick. I decided to have a longer discussion with him today about Conde Nast’s, and their continued growth online. […]