10 ms·

Vox Media Acquiring ReCode

178 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

jonknee 11y ago
It seemed so easy when they were at the WSJ... A year and a half later they're trading their business for shares in Vox and a paycheck. Interesting times for media news lately. I'm not sure how Vox is going to work out long term, they're spending VC like it's going out of style.
- bananaoomarang 11y ago
  They do seem to be a little too confident in themselves, though they seem to have the readership (the question is whether they can monetize them quick enough before the 'empire' is too thin on the ground).
L_Rahman 11y ago
It'll be interesting to see whether Kara and Walter get absorbed into TheVerge or continue existing as a separate entity. Personally, I hope it's the latter.
- callumjones 11y ago
  By the sounds of announcement on The Verge, Kara and Walt will be remaining at Re/code while also contributing to The Verge. http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/26/8662905/the-verge-and-recode-are-joining-forces http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/26/8662905/the-verge-and-reco...
- jonknee 11y ago
  I bet they will remain separate and will leave Vox whenever they are contractually allowed to.
wiremine 11y ago
I think it goes to show you how important a brand can be. I wonder how much audience they lost moving from the AllThingsD to ReCode brand. Seems like a good move for Vox to jump on this, too.
- taylorbuley 11y ago
  Crazily, Allthingsd.com has been seeing traffic rise https://siteanalytics.compete.com/allthingsd.com/#.VWT26mRVhHx https://siteanalytics.compete.com/allthingsd.com/#.VWT26mRVh...
  - Encosia 11y ago
    Compete's data is almost totally useless in my experience. Just look at what they show for my site right now (a similar growth pattern): https://siteanalytics.compete.com/encosia.com/ https://siteanalytics.compete.com/encosia.com/ Here's my actual data from Google Analytics over the same period: http://encosia.com/i/encosia-unique-users/ http://encosia.com/i/encosia-unique-users/
    - taylorbuley 11y ago
      Compete uses an ISP-level packet-inspection appliance, I believe, and this shoulder-surfing is to me more buyable than a panel-based approach. Similar problems with a small sample size, but not subject to as many biases as self-reported data.
      - Encosia 11y ago
        I understand how Compete works. I'm just showing you one immediate example of how comically wrong their data often is, both in absolute value and in misreporting trends. This has always been my experience with their data on both small and large sites, unless you use their paid product that allows you to self-report. Kind of reminiscent of BBB/DUNs/Yelp type protection rackets actually.
petercooper 11y ago
Deals like this, the demise of Gigaom (yes, I know - but it won't work), and the general lack of runaway success of tech publications lately often get people lamenting how media is on a downward slide and the business model inherently broken. I'm starting to suspect, however, that tech media as a mass market idea is grossly overrated. The typical "person on the street" doesn't care about "tech" as an individual topic, nor for publications like Gigaom, TechCrunch, or ReCode. They'll take tech flavored news in their stream as it comes whatever the source (and folks like the BBC, CNN, the NYT, etc, all do a good job of it anyway). The people who work in and live and breathe "tech" (e.g. us) and who do really care aren't considered to be "enough" for a mass market site. It's ridiculous a newish site with 1.5 million uniques a month is classified as "struggled to draw significant traffic" in an industry that employs around 6.5 million Americans in all. The "genericization" of tech media as mass market media is horrid - look at how insipid the stories TechCrunch covers nowadays, for example. I think people need to rework their assumptions about what "tech" is, how it relates to the media as a whole, and to get used to the idea that tech-specific media is (and should be) almost (but not quite) as niche as media aimed at medical professionals, lawyers, people in aviation, or similar groups.
- efuquen 11y ago
  There are so many more demos media start ups can be targeting, but everyone is after the same tech savy millennial demo, it's completely overloaded. You really hit the issue directly, the mass market is much larger and there is a lot more potential new media that could be created targeting them.
  - comex 11y ago
    Well, Vox certainly isn't limiting itself to tech. It owns vox.com (politics, with a liberal bias), SB Nation (sports), and Polygon (gaming), among other sites.
    - mahouse 11y ago
      Saying "with a liberal bias" is certainly putting it mildly.
danso 11y ago
> ReCode will become part of Vox’s expanding digital empire, which includes the popular sports site SB Nation, as well as the technology site The Verge. ReCode also will gain access to Vox’s publishing platform, Chorus, which has been a key in luring marquee journalists including Ezra Klein. Just goes to show how journalists (either the journalists described, or just the NYT author here) are charmed by the mystique of the CMS. I don't care if Chorus is made in Angular 5.0 [1], the robustness of a CMS is not one that makes much difference to the content producers, particularly writing-focused reporters...And the parts that need to be really nice UI/UX (such as slideshow/gallery/quiz creators) aren't necessarily intrinsic to a CMS. A CMS makes a huge deal in ease of publishing...but for most writers, they don't see much difference other than the rich-text editor. It's certainly at the far bottom of reasons to join an organization as a reporter. [1] it's Rails 3.x IIRC, but perhaps Chorus also encompasses their suite of static publishing tools such as Middleman: http://product.voxmedia.com/2014/5/29/5759244/vox-media-ruby-rails-upgrade-chorus http://product.voxmedia.com/2014/5/29/5759244/vox-media-ruby... https://source.opennews.org/en-US/learning/evolution-news-apps-teams/ https://source.opennews.org/en-US/learning/evolution-news-ap...
- jakelear 11y ago
  We're on Rails 4 now for the general "Chorus" codebase (but you're right, we include a number of varied apps under the same umbrella when talking about our platform)
- lambdaelite 11y ago
  I don't understand the obsession with journalism CMS. Articles about Vox Media never seem to fail to mention Chorus. As a news consumer, I don't give a crap about how the sausage is made: I want accurate reporting. I find Vox Media, of all the new media groups, to have a most embarrassing level of sloppy and inaccurate reporting. I can't tolerate blatant and lazy errors. The focus on tools seems misplaced to me. They desperately need a quality system.
  - brown9-2 11y ago
    Journalists focus on the tools because so much of the initial Vox PR was about their tools. It's become a part of the established lore, even if it really doesn't make all that much sense.
DigitalSea 11y ago
Seems the tech blog industry is not doing so well. First Gigaom shuts down and ReCode gets acquired by Vox Media. I think Vox are definitely the right buyers of the site though, they seem to have a decent track record and their current properties like TheVerge are doing quite well all things considering. As long as they keep Walt and Kara on with ReCode, the site will continue as normal.
presty 11y ago
official recode announcement http://recode.net/2015/05/26/a-note-to-our-readers/ http://recode.net/2015/05/26/a-note-to-our-readers/
robzz1 11y ago
I wonder how successful recode was because they seemed to be competing with the WSJ market along with review tecg market while being so pro apple all the time site
thewhizkid 11y ago
I wonder if there's any correlation between the tech saviness of their reader base and use of Adblock?
- sharkweek 11y ago
  >The site receives 1.5 million regular monthly visitors I have a friend who runs his own blog about movies, pulls about 1.5-1.7M monthly uniques. He has two writers and himself cranking on this thing. For comparison Recode apparently has 44 employees, that's REALLY expensive. I understand they have events and likely a higher opportunity for monetization with their credibility but the math simply doesn't add up no matter how you slice it on that one.
  - xux 11y ago
    Just curious, how do they distribute their content so widely with just three people?
- caseyf7 11y ago
  I doubt it would've mattered. The quality of the ads on Re/Code was very low. It didn't even look like they were selling their own ads - mostly remnants and retargeting. They reportedly made most of their money from events.
37prime 11y ago
Mixed Feelings about this. It would be acceptable as long as ReCode retains its editorial independence from Vox Media.
lloydde 11y ago
I'm interested in what this means for the tech ReCode uses. ReCode staff have deep expertise in WordPress and at least historically employed top WordPress development talent. Matt Mullenweg, Automattic CEO, wrote about AllThingsD when it first launched, "All Things D is a fantastic new WordPress MU powered site that I think is a really good example of what the platform can do." http://ma.tt/2007/04/allthingsd-on-wp/ http://ma.tt/2007/04/allthingsd-on-wp/
- thedz 11y ago
  In the short term, not much
- brown9-2 11y ago
  Readers aren't coming to the site because of the technology that powers it.
  - lloydde 11y ago
    Of course not, but the reader experience is influenced by the CMS. And the promise of related posts is still unfulfilled. Instead most of the news sites compromise themselves with outbrain.
jordanthoms 11y ago
I would have been happy about this a year ago, but the Verge has really been going downhill recently - clickbait, poor articles, less of the awesome long form features they used to do etc. Probably part of the reason Topolsky left if it is due to pressure from Vox. Hopefully ReCode doesn't go the same way.
- pyrophane 11y ago
  Yes, my first thought as well. The Verge has gotten downright terrible of late. So much of the content on the site now is either pop culture click bait or PR fluff pieces for tech companies. Other than the reviews, which are still decent but don't offer much that I can't get on any other tech reviews website, I can find very little reason to go there.
- tyleregeto 11y ago
  On the other hand, Polygon has been knocking it out of the park lately. Examples: http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-history http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-histor... http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/5/21/8627231/the-first-first-person-shooter http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/5/21/8627231/the-first-... The day-to-day Polygon "news" doesn't interest me much, but their "features" have been excellent.
  - JamesBaxter 11y ago
    I've had to stop reading Polygon whilst the Features can be good there's so much clickbait and non gaming news. I understand they need more traffic but if I want film reviews I'll go to a film website I don't understand why they think their game reviews are equipped to discuss things they don't know much about.
- MBCook 11y ago
  No kidding. Today's piece (nearly unreadable in all lower case) was an article complaining that the Apple Watch wasn't good because when you dictate to it for text messages it... dares to punctuate and capitalize. Yeah.
- 11y ago
brianstorms 11y ago
Face it, Re/Code's main selling point is its conferences. I bet Vox values them (and the names that run them) more than the Re/Code site. To me, Re/Code and AllThingsD were not about tech, they were about money. Who has it, who just spent it, who just made it, who just lost it. The "D" in AllThingsD was to me not "digital" but "dollar." It would be interesting to learn if the Re/Code folks got along with their owners (CNBC?) or if that was a clash, and one party wanted out.
davidu 11y ago
Since nobody else is saying it: Congratulations. Re/Code was a startup. They built it into a thing someone else wanted, and they sold it. That's hard work. Congratulations and best of luck carrying the torch at Vox.
bootload 11y ago
"But as traditional news organizations and upstarts alike descended on Silicon Valley, ReCode found itself somewhat lost in the crowd. “Everybody is bigger than us,”" Maturing market. Is the market for meta technology news (ie: the business behind technology) that big? Will it support lots of niche news outlets?

178 points by coloneltcb 11y ago

It seemed so easy when they were at the WSJ... A year and a half later they're trading their business for shares in Vox and a paycheck. Interesting times for media news lately. I'm not sure how Vox is going to work out long term, they're spending VC like it's going out of style.

bananaoomarang 11y ago
They do seem to be a little too confident in themselves, though they seem to have the readership (the question is whether they can monetize them quick enough before the 'empire' is too thin on the ground).

L_Rahman 11y ago

It'll be interesting to see whether Kara and Walter get absorbed into TheVerge or continue existing as a separate entity. Personally, I hope it's the latter.

callumjones 11y ago
By the sounds of announcement on The Verge, Kara and Walt will be remaining at Re/code while also contributing to The Verge. http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/26/8662905/the-verge-and-recode-are-joining-forces http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/26/8662905/the-verge-and-reco...
jonknee 11y ago
I bet they will remain separate and will leave Vox whenever they are contractually allowed to.

wiremine 11y ago

I think it goes to show you how important a brand can be. I wonder how much audience they lost moving from the AllThingsD to ReCode brand. Seems like a good move for Vox to jump on this, too.

taylorbuley 11y ago
Crazily, Allthingsd.com has been seeing traffic rise https://siteanalytics.compete.com/allthingsd.com/#.VWT26mRVhHx https://siteanalytics.compete.com/allthingsd.com/#.VWT26mRVh...
- Encosia 11y ago
  Compete's data is almost totally useless in my experience. Just look at what they show for my site right now (a similar growth pattern): https://siteanalytics.compete.com/encosia.com/ https://siteanalytics.compete.com/encosia.com/ Here's my actual data from Google Analytics over the same period: http://encosia.com/i/encosia-unique-users/ http://encosia.com/i/encosia-unique-users/
  - taylorbuley 11y ago
    Compete uses an ISP-level packet-inspection appliance, I believe, and this shoulder-surfing is to me more buyable than a panel-based approach. Similar problems with a small sample size, but not subject to as many biases as self-reported data.
    - Encosia 11y ago
      I understand how Compete works. I'm just showing you one immediate example of how comically wrong their data often is, both in absolute value and in misreporting trends. This has always been my experience with their data on both small and large sites, unless you use their paid product that allows you to self-report. Kind of reminiscent of BBB/DUNs/Yelp type protection rackets actually.

petercooper 11y ago

Deals like this, the demise of Gigaom (yes, I know - but it won't work), and the general lack of runaway success of tech publications lately often get people lamenting how media is on a downward slide and the business model inherently broken. I'm starting to suspect, however, that tech media as a mass market idea is grossly overrated. The typical "person on the street" doesn't care about "tech" as an individual topic, nor for publications like Gigaom, TechCrunch, or ReCode. They'll take tech flavored news in their stream as it comes whatever the source (and folks like the BBC, CNN, the NYT, etc, all do a good job of it anyway). The people who work in and live and breathe "tech" (e.g. us) and who do really care aren't considered to be "enough" for a mass market site. It's ridiculous a newish site with 1.5 million uniques a month is classified as "struggled to draw significant traffic" in an industry that employs around 6.5 million Americans in all. The "genericization" of tech media as mass market media is horrid - look at how insipid the stories TechCrunch covers nowadays, for example. I think people need to rework their assumptions about what "tech" is, how it relates to the media as a whole, and to get used to the idea that tech-specific media is (and should be) almost (but not quite) as niche as media aimed at medical professionals, lawyers, people in aviation, or similar groups.

efuquen 11y ago
There are so many more demos media start ups can be targeting, but everyone is after the same tech savy millennial demo, it's completely overloaded. You really hit the issue directly, the mass market is much larger and there is a lot more potential new media that could be created targeting them.
- comex 11y ago
  Well, Vox certainly isn't limiting itself to tech. It owns vox.com (politics, with a liberal bias), SB Nation (sports), and Polygon (gaming), among other sites.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    Saying "with a liberal bias" is certainly putting it mildly.

danso 11y ago

> ReCode will become part of Vox’s expanding digital empire, which includes the popular sports site SB Nation, as well as the technology site The Verge. ReCode also will gain access to Vox’s publishing platform, Chorus, which has been a key in luring marquee journalists including Ezra Klein. Just goes to show how journalists (either the journalists described, or just the NYT author here) are charmed by the mystique of the CMS. I don't care if Chorus is made in Angular 5.0 [1], the robustness of a CMS is not one that makes much difference to the content producers, particularly writing-focused reporters...And the parts that need to be really nice UI/UX (such as slideshow/gallery/quiz creators) aren't necessarily intrinsic to a CMS. A CMS makes a huge deal in ease of publishing...but for most writers, they don't see much difference other than the rich-text editor. It's certainly at the far bottom of reasons to join an organization as a reporter. [1] it's Rails 3.x IIRC, but perhaps Chorus also encompasses their suite of static publishing tools such as Middleman: http://product.voxmedia.com/2014/5/29/5759244/vox-media-ruby-rails-upgrade-chorus http://product.voxmedia.com/2014/5/29/5759244/vox-media-ruby... https://source.opennews.org/en-US/learning/evolution-news-apps-teams/ https://source.opennews.org/en-US/learning/evolution-news-ap...

jakelear 11y ago
We're on Rails 4 now for the general "Chorus" codebase (but you're right, we include a number of varied apps under the same umbrella when talking about our platform)
lambdaelite 11y ago
I don't understand the obsession with journalism CMS. Articles about Vox Media never seem to fail to mention Chorus. As a news consumer, I don't give a crap about how the sausage is made: I want accurate reporting. I find Vox Media, of all the new media groups, to have a most embarrassing level of sloppy and inaccurate reporting. I can't tolerate blatant and lazy errors. The focus on tools seems misplaced to me. They desperately need a quality system.
- brown9-2 11y ago
  Journalists focus on the tools because so much of the initial Vox PR was about their tools. It's become a part of the established lore, even if it really doesn't make all that much sense.

DigitalSea 11y ago

Seems the tech blog industry is not doing so well. First Gigaom shuts down and ReCode gets acquired by Vox Media. I think Vox are definitely the right buyers of the site though, they seem to have a decent track record and their current properties like TheVerge are doing quite well all things considering. As long as they keep Walt and Kara on with ReCode, the site will continue as normal.

presty 11y ago

official recode announcement http://recode.net/2015/05/26/a-note-to-our-readers/ http://recode.net/2015/05/26/a-note-to-our-readers/

robzz1 11y ago

I wonder how successful recode was because they seemed to be competing with the WSJ market along with review tecg market while being so pro apple all the time site

thewhizkid 11y ago

I wonder if there's any correlation between the tech saviness of their reader base and use of Adblock?

sharkweek 11y ago
>The site receives 1.5 million regular monthly visitors I have a friend who runs his own blog about movies, pulls about 1.5-1.7M monthly uniques. He has two writers and himself cranking on this thing. For comparison Recode apparently has 44 employees, that's REALLY expensive. I understand they have events and likely a higher opportunity for monetization with their credibility but the math simply doesn't add up no matter how you slice it on that one.
- xux 11y ago
  Just curious, how do they distribute their content so widely with just three people?
caseyf7 11y ago
I doubt it would've mattered. The quality of the ads on Re/Code was very low. It didn't even look like they were selling their own ads - mostly remnants and retargeting. They reportedly made most of their money from events.

37prime 11y ago

Mixed Feelings about this. It would be acceptable as long as ReCode retains its editorial independence from Vox Media.

lloydde 11y ago

I'm interested in what this means for the tech ReCode uses. ReCode staff have deep expertise in WordPress and at least historically employed top WordPress development talent. Matt Mullenweg, Automattic CEO, wrote about AllThingsD when it first launched, "All Things D is a fantastic new WordPress MU powered site that I think is a really good example of what the platform can do." http://ma.tt/2007/04/allthingsd-on-wp/ http://ma.tt/2007/04/allthingsd-on-wp/

thedz 11y ago
In the short term, not much
brown9-2 11y ago
Readers aren't coming to the site because of the technology that powers it.
- lloydde 11y ago
  Of course not, but the reader experience is influenced by the CMS. And the promise of related posts is still unfulfilled. Instead most of the news sites compromise themselves with outbrain.

jordanthoms 11y ago

I would have been happy about this a year ago, but the Verge has really been going downhill recently - clickbait, poor articles, less of the awesome long form features they used to do etc. Probably part of the reason Topolsky left if it is due to pressure from Vox. Hopefully ReCode doesn't go the same way.

pyrophane 11y ago
Yes, my first thought as well. The Verge has gotten downright terrible of late. So much of the content on the site now is either pop culture click bait or PR fluff pieces for tech companies. Other than the reviews, which are still decent but don't offer much that I can't get on any other tech reviews website, I can find very little reason to go there.
tyleregeto 11y ago
On the other hand, Polygon has been knocking it out of the park lately. Examples: http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-history http://www.polygon.com/2015/4/6/8285529/looking-glass-histor... http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/5/21/8627231/the-first-first-person-shooter http://www.polygon.com/features/2015/5/21/8627231/the-first-... The day-to-day Polygon "news" doesn't interest me much, but their "features" have been excellent.
- JamesBaxter 11y ago
  I've had to stop reading Polygon whilst the Features can be good there's so much clickbait and non gaming news. I understand they need more traffic but if I want film reviews I'll go to a film website I don't understand why they think their game reviews are equipped to discuss things they don't know much about.
MBCook 11y ago
No kidding. Today's piece (nearly unreadable in all lower case) was an article complaining that the Apple Watch wasn't good because when you dictate to it for text messages it... dares to punctuate and capitalize. Yeah.
11y ago

brianstorms 11y ago

Face it, Re/Code's main selling point is its conferences. I bet Vox values them (and the names that run them) more than the Re/Code site. To me, Re/Code and AllThingsD were not about tech, they were about money. Who has it, who just spent it, who just made it, who just lost it. The "D" in AllThingsD was to me not "digital" but "dollar." It would be interesting to learn if the Re/Code folks got along with their owners (CNBC?) or if that was a clash, and one party wanted out.

davidu 11y ago

Since nobody else is saying it: Congratulations. Re/Code was a startup. They built it into a thing someone else wanted, and they sold it. That's hard work. Congratulations and best of luck carrying the torch at Vox.

bootload 11y ago

"But as traditional news organizations and upstarts alike descended on Silicon Valley, ReCode found itself somewhat lost in the crowd. “Everybody is bigger than us,”" Maturing market. Is the market for meta technology news (ie: the business behind technology) that big? Will it support lots of niche news outlets?