Lifehacker

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Lifehacker
Web address lifehacker.com
Commercial? Yes
Type of site Blog
Registration Optional
Available language(s) English, Japanese
Owner Gawker Media
Created by Gina Trapani
Editor Whitson Gordon
Launched January 31, 2005
Alexa rank negative increase 496 (January 2014)[1]

Lifehacker is a weblog about life hacks and software which launched on January 31, 2005. The site is owned by Gawker Media. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including: Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux programs, iOS and Android, as well as general life tips and tricks. The staff updates the site about 18 times each weekday, with reduced updates on weekends. The Lifehacker motto is "Tips and downloads for getting things done."[2]

In addition, Lifehacker has two international editions, Lifehacker Australia and Lifehacker Japan, which feature most posts from the U.S. edition along with extra content specific to local readers.[3]

History

Lifehacker was founded by Gina Trapani, who was the site's sole blogger until September 2005, when two associate editors joined her, Erica Sadun and D. Keith Robinson.[4] Other former associate editors include Kevin Purdy, Jason Fitzpatrick, Wendy Boswell, Rick Broida,[5] and Jackson West.[6] Former contributing editors include The How-To Geek,[7] and Tamar Weinberg.[8]

Lifehacker's frequent guest posts have included articles by Matt Haughey,[9] Eszter Hargittai,[10] Jason Thomas, Stewart Rutledge, Joe Anderson,[11] Jeff Jarvis,[12] Meg Hourihan,[13] and Erik Benson.

On January 16, 2009, Trapani resigned as Lifehacker's lead editor and Adam Pash assumed the position.[14] Trapani continued to contribute a weekly column to the site after her departure, though the frequency of these articles has since decreased.

On January 7, 2013 Adam Pash moved on from Lifehacker to a new start up, and Whitson Gordon became the new editor-in-chief.[15]

Staff

Writer Position
Whitson Gordon Editor-in-chief
Adam Dachis Senior Writer/Art Director
Tessa Miller Contributions Editor
Walter Glenn Community Editor
Melanie Pinola

Alan Henry
Thorin Klosowski
Eric Ravenscraft
Shep McAllister

Writers

Tina Mailhot-Roberge Contributing Designer
Gina Trapani Founding Editor

Advertising

Lifehacker launched in January 2005 with an exclusive sponsorship by Sony. The highly publicized ad campaign was rumored to have cost $75,000 for three months.[16] Gawker Media never confirmed this number, and the campaign ended after 2 months.[citation needed] Since then a variety of tech-oriented advertisers have appeared on the site.[17] As a commercial entity, the website is supported entirely by advertising.[citation needed]

Redesign

On February 7, 2011, Lifehacker revealed a redesigned site with a cleaner layout.[18] The redesign added new features such as flipping from one story to the next and scrolling through headlines.

Then, on April 15, 2013, Lifehacker redesigned their site again to match the other newly redesigned Gawker sites like Kotaku.[19] This redesign reverted to the older style of having a scrolling blog and added Kinja, which is a whole new blogging system for them. This allows every commenting account to have their own blog-within- a blog.

Accolades

  • Time named Lifehacker one of the "50 Coolest Web Sites"[20] in 2005, one of the "25 Sites We Can't Live Without"[21] in 2006 and one of the "25 Best Blogs 2009"[22]
  • CNET named Lifehacker in their "Blog 100" in October 2005.[23]
  • Wired presented Gina Trapani with a Rave Award in 2006 for Best Blog.[24]
  • In the 2007 Weblog Awards, Lifehacker was awarded Best Group Weblog.[25]
  • PC Magazine named Lifehacker in "Our Favorite 100 Blogs" in October 2007.[26]
  • US Mensa named Lifehacker as one of their top 50 sites[27]

References

  1. "Lifehacker.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2013-12-01. 
  2. Power Grid: Lifehacker Accessed: 6/17/2013
  3. Lifehacker AU Goes Live (August 28, 2007). Retrieved on August 31, 2007.
  4. Gina Trapani (September 6, 2005). "Introducing Team Lifehacker, triple threat". Lifehacker.com. Retrieved 2007-01-18. 
  5. "Farewell, Rick!". Lifehacker. 2007-05-11. Retrieved 2007-05-11. 
  6. "Jackson West is our Newest Associate Editor". 2008-11-05. Retrieved 2009-05-31. 
  7. "Welcome Our New Contributing Editor, The How-To Geek". 2009-02-19. Retrieved 2009-05-31. 
  8. "Farewell to Tamar". 2008-10-17. Retrieved 2009-05-31. 
  9. "Guest editor this week: Matt Haughey". Lifehacker. 2006-03-13. Retrieved 2007-07-09. 
  10. "This Week s Guest Editor". Lifehacker. 2005-08-29. Retrieved 2007-07-09. 
  11. "This week's guest editor: Joe Anderson". Lifehacker. 2006-07-25. Retrieved 2007-07-09. 
  12. "Special Report: Web 2.0 Conference". Lifehacker. 2005-10-06. Retrieved 2007-07-09. 
  13. "How to mouse goofy". Lifehacker. 2006-05-25. Retrieved 2007-07-09. 
  14. "Letter From The Editor: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish". Lifehacker. 2009-01-16. Retrieved 2009-01-16. 
  15. "It was Pash like Cash". Lifehacker. 2013-01-0y. Retrieved 2013-01-28. 
  16. Mike Rundle (February 1, 2005). "Sony Paying $25k Per Month for Lifehacker Blog Sponsorship". businesslogs.com. Retrieved 2007-01-18. 
  17. "Internal Surveys from July, 2006". Gawker Media. July 2006. Retrieved 2007-01-18. 
  18. Hello World! This Is The New Lifehacker
  19. "Welcome to the New Lifehacker". Lifehacker.com. Retrieved 2013-06-14. 
  20. 50 Coolest Web Sites
  21. 25 Sites We Can't Live Without
  22. TIME: 25 Best Blogs 2009
  23. "News.com's Blog 100 - CNET News". News.com.com. Archived from the original on 2012-07-20. Retrieved 2013-06-14. 
  24. Wired http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/gina.html |url= missing title (help). 
  25. "Seventh Annual Weblog Awards". The 2007 Bloggies. Retrieved 2013-06-14. 
  26. Heater, Brian (2007-10-15). "Our 100 Favorite Blogs". PC Magazine. 
  27. http://www.us.mensa.org/AM/TemplateRedirect.cfm?template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=13269

Further reading

External links

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