Business Insider
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Business Insider Logo.png
Commercial Yes
Type of site
Online newspaper
Available in English
Owner Axel Springer SE
Editor Henry Blodget
Launched February 2009; 7 years ago
Alexa rank
Negative increase 269 (January 2016)
Current status Active
Business Insider is an American business, celebrity and technology news website launched in February 2009 and based in New York City. Founded by DoubleClick former CEO Kevin P. Ryan, it is the overarching brand where Silicon Alley Insider (launched May 16, 2007) and Clusterstock (launched March 20, 2008) appear. The site provides and analyzes business news and acts as an aggregator of top news stories from around the web. In 2011, the online newsroom employed a staff of 50, and the site reported a profit for the first time ever in the 4th quarter of 2010. In June 2012 it had 5.4 million unique visitors.
Business Insider hosts industry conferences including IGNITION, which explores the emerging business models of digital media. In January 2015, Business Insider launched BI Intelligence, a subscription-based research service that provides data and analysis on the mobile, payments, eCommerce, social, and digital media industries. The site each year publishes editorial franchises such as the "Digital 100: The World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies".
Contents
1 Contributors
2 Reception
3 Acquisition
4 Tech Insider
5 References
6 External links
Contributors
The site editors vary greatly in background. CEO and Editor-In-Chief Henry Blodget is a Yale history graduate who had worked on Wall Street until he was charged with securities fraud in 2003. He agreed to a permanent ban from the securities industry, payment of a $2 million fine and disgorgement of $2 million. Deputy editor Nicholas Carlson worked at Internet.com and Gawker Media's Silicon Valley gossip blog, Valleywag. Senior editor Jim Edwards was managing editor at Adweek.
Reception
Business Insider was named to the Inc. 500 in 2012. The Clusterstock section appeared in the Time article "Best 25 Financial Blogs", and the Silicon Alley Insider section in the PC Magazine article "Our Favorite Blogs 2009". Business Insider was an official Webby honoree for Best Business blog in 2009. The New York Times reported in January 2014 that Business Insider's web traffic was comparable to that of The Wall Street Journal. However, the website has received widespread criticism for blatant clickbait. It has also been criticized for routinely putting publishing speed before fact checking.
Acquisition
In September 2015, Re/Code revealed that Germany's largest publisher, Axel Springer, was nearing an agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Business Insider Inc. for a reported "500 million euros ($560 million)".
On 29 September 2015, Axel Springer SE announced that it had acquired 88% of the stake in Business Insider Inc. for a reported $343 million (€306 million). After the purchase Axel Springer SE will hold a stake of approximately 97%, the personal investment company of Jeff Bezos will hold the further shares.
Tech Insider
In July 2015 Business Insider launched standalone technology website Tech Insider with a staff of 40 people working primarily from the company's existing New York headquarters, but separately from the main Business Insider newsroom.
References
"Welcome To Business Insider". Retrieved April 5, 2013.
"Business Insider Turns A$2,127 Profit On $4.8 Million in Revenue". TechCrunch. March 7, 2011.
Hagey, Keach (July 29, 2012). "Henry Blodget's Second Act". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2015-11-09.
"Digital 100: The World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies"
Factual allegations as submitted by SEC
"The Securities and Exchange Commission, NASD and the New York Stock Exchange Permanently Bar Henry Blodget From the Securities Industry and Require $4 Million Payment". SEC. Retrieved 2007-04-21.
McIntyre, Douglas A.; Allen, Ashley C. (January 22, 2009). "Best 25 Financial Blogs". Time (New York). Retrieved June 1, 2010.
"Our Favorite Blogs 2009". PC Magazine (New York). November 23, 2009. Retrieved June 1, 2010.
"Blog-Business: Official Honoree". Webby Awards.
Carr, David (January 26, 2014). "Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 26, 2014. Retrieved December 26, 2014.
Hagey, Keach (29 July 2012). "Henry Blodget's Second Act". WSJ. Retrieved 2015-08-13.
Ha, Anthony (May 22, 2012). "Business Insider’s Henry Blodget Defends Linkbait, Slideshows, And Aggregation". Tech Crunch. AOL. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
Bershidsky, Leonid (September 29, 2015). "Can Business Insider Make Money?". Bloomberg View. Bloomberg. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
Auletta, Ken (April 8, 2013). "Business Outsider". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
Orihuela, Rodrigo. "Axel Springer Close to Buying Business Insider, Re/code Reports". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2015-09-22. "Leading Digital Publisher Axel Springer Acquires Business Insider". 29 September 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
"US-Nachrichtenseite: Springer kauft "Business Insider" für 300 Millionen Euro" (in German). Retrieved 29 September 2015.
"Business Insider Broadens Ambitions With New Tech Site". The Wall Street Journal. 27 July 2015.
External links
Business Insider homepage
Categories: American business magazines
Economics websites
American news websites
Magazines established in 2009
Magazines published in New York City
American online magazines
BI Science
BI Tech
