Salon.com

Salon.com
URL Salon.com
Commercial? Yes
Type of site Online Magazine
Registration Optional
Owner Salon Media Group
Launched 1995

Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group (OTCBB: SLNM), often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S. politics and current affairs, and on reviews and articles about music, books and films.[1][2][3]

Salon's headquarters are located west of downtown San Francisco, California. Its current Editor in Chief is Kerry Lauerman. Long-time Editor in Chief Joan Walsh stepped down from that position in November 2010 to concentrate on writing a book, but has stayed on at Salon.com as Editor at Large.[4]

Contents

Content and coverage

Salon magazine covers a variety of topics. It has reviews and articles about music, books, and films. It also has articles about "modern life", including relationships, friendships and human sexual behavior. It covers technology, with a particular focus on the free software/open source movement.

Salon has always been an interactive site to some degree. The "salon" concept is played out in The WELL, and since 2005, comments on editorial stories open to registered readers.

In 2008, Salon launched its biggest interactive initiative, Open Salon, a social content site/blog network for its readers.

Responding to the question "how far do you go with the tabloid sensibility to get readers?", former Salon.com editor-in-chief David Talbot said:

Is Salon more tabloid-like? Yeah, we've made no secret of that. I've said all along that our formula here is that we're a smart tabloid. If by tabloid what you mean is you're trying to reach a popular audience, trying to write topics that are viscerally important to a readership, whether it's the story about the mother in Houston who drowned her five children or the story on the missing intern in Washington, Chandra Levy.[5]

Key people

Regular contributors include the political opinion writers Glenn Greenwald and Alex Pareene; political analyst Steve Kornacki; critics Laura Miller, Matt Zoller Seitz, and Andrew O'Hehir; pop-culture columnist Mary Elizabeth Williams; aviation columnist Patrick Smith; Tracy Clark-Flory writing on feminist and gender topics; advice columnist Cary Tennis; and economics writer Andrew Leonard.

David Talbot is founder and original editor-in-chief. He has served several stints as CEO,[6] most recently replacing Richard Gingras in that position in July 2011.[7] Kerry Lauerman is the editor-in-chief. Gail Williams manages The WELL. Norman Blashka is the CFO and VP of Operations.

History

Salon was founded by David Talbot[8] and was first published in 1995. It purchased the virtual community The WELL in April 1999, and made its initial public offering of Salon.com on the NASDAQ stock exchange on June 22 of that year.

Salon Premium, a pay-to-view (online) content subscription was introduced on April 25, 2001. The service signed over 130,000 subscribers and staved off discontinuation of services. However, less than two years later, in November 2002, the company announced it had accumulated cash and non-cash losses of $80 million, and by February 2003 it was having difficulty paying its rent, and made an appeal for donations to keep the company running.

On October 9, 2003, Michael O'Donnell, the chief executive and president of Salon Media Group, said he was leaving the company after seven years because it was "time for a change." When he left, Salon.com had accrued $83.6 million in losses since its inception, and its stock traded for 5¢ on the OTC Bulletin Board. David Talbot, Salon's chairman and editor-in-chief at the time, became the new chief executive. Elizabeth "Betsy" Hambrecht, then Salon's chief financial officer, became the president.

In July 2008, Salon launched Open Salon, a "social content site" and "curated blog network".[9] It was nominated for a 2009 National Magazine Award.[10] in the category "best interactive feature." However, Open.salon.com has received criticism from both readers and users (June, 2011) for a lack of editoral control.

On June 10, 2011, Salon closed its online chat board Table Talk. While there was heartfelt sentiment from the board's manager about Table Talk closing, Salon.com has not yet given an official reason why they ended this section of their site.[11]

Business model and operations

Aspects of the Salon.com site offerings, ordered by advancing date:

Books published by editors and contributors

References

  1. ^ New York Times
  2. ^ New York Times
  3. ^ Los Angles Times
  4. ^ Joan Walsh (November 8, 2010). "I'm not leaving Salon!". Retrieved December 12, 2010.
  5. ^ "Interview with Salon.com's David Talbot". JournalismJobs.com. June 2001. http://www.journalismjobs.com/interview_talbot.cfm. Retrieved April 22, 2010. 
  6. ^ a b Calderone, Michael (Sept 27, 2011). "Salon CEO Calls For 'American Spring' With Site's Relaunch". Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/salon-ceo-site-relaunch_n_981992.html. Retrieved October 04, 2011. 
  7. ^ "Form 8-K, Salon Media Group, Inc". Securities and Exchange Commission. July 7, 2011. http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1084332/000143774911004646/salon_8k-070711.htm. Retrieved October 04, 2011. 
  8. ^ Herhold, Scott (1997-12-28). "Net magazine Salon epitomizes fate of mind over matter". San Jose Mercury News. Archived from the original on 1999-02-21. http://web.archive.org/web/19990221024841/www5.mercurycenter.com/business/center/salon122997.htm#. Retrieved 2011-07-07. 
  9. ^ Lauerman, Kerry (July 28, 2008). "Welcome to our public beta". Opensalon.com. http://open.salon.com/blog/kerry_lauerman/2008/07/24/welcome_to_our_public_beta. Retrieved April 21, 2010. 
  10. ^ Lauerman, Kerry (March 18, 2009). "Congratulations! You've just been nominated...". Opensalon.com. http://open.salon.com/blog/kerry_lauerman/2009/03/18/congratulations_youve_just_been_nominated. Retrieved April 21, 2010. 
  11. ^ Salon.com 6/10/11 "Requiem for Table Talk"

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