About.com
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About.com, also called Human Internet, is a web portal that relies on paid human editors to cover a specific topic by writing articles and constructing a web directory. There are currently about 700 topic-sites, most of which are led by a guide (who acts as the editor).
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Content
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The topic-sites consist mostly of selected links deemed to have good quality by the guides. There are also detailed articles or commentaries written by the guides on a set interval. Some sites have dictionary and how-to lessons. For example, the sites on major European languages have comprehensive lessons illustrated by audio files recorded by the guides themselves.
Each topic-site has at least one forum (Delphi Forum), provided at the Advanced level (with HTML capability and uploading) for registered users for all. Some guides participate daily at the forum.
History
About.com was originally founded as The Mining Company in 1997 by Scott Kurnit in New York City. The company changed its name to About, Inc. in 1999 and was acquired by PRIMEDIA in 2000. In February 2005, the New York Times Company announced that it was buying About.com, a purchase they expect to complete in the first half of the year. Google along with Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves, and AOL were reportedly among the other bidders.
It eliminated over 50% of its topic-sites in 2002. Most of those sites are not merged, and information on those sites is no longer accessible to the general public.
Miscellanea
- All guides use their real names.
- Some sites do not have guides, due to premature resignation and the lack of replacement in time.