People Inc. facts for kids
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| Industry | Digital media |
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| Founded | April 21, 1997 (as The Mining Company) |
| Founder | Scott Kurnit |
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People Inc. is a company based in New York City, USA. It creates online articles and videos about many different topics. These topics include health, home, food, money, technology, beauty, travel, and education.
The company owns many popular online brands. Some of these are People, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, Better Homes and Gardens, Verywell, Allrecipes, Real Simple, Investopedia, Southern Living, Byrdie, Serious Eats, The Spruce, EatingWell, Health, Parents, InStyle, Simply Recipes, Entertainment Weekly, and Martha Stewart Living.
People Inc. makes money from advertising on its websites. The company has offices in New York, Des Moines, Iowa, and Birmingham, Alabama. It has changed its name several times over the years. It was known as The Mining Company, About.com, Dotdash, and Dotdash Meredith before becoming People Inc. in 2025.
Contents
Company History
Early Years: 1997 to 2005
The company started in 1996 as The Mining Company. It officially launched its website on April 21, 1997. It was founded by Scott Kurnit and other business people in New York City. The first idea was to cover 1,800 different topics. After five years, this number was changed to about 700 topics.
In May 1999, the company changed its name to "About Inc." Its website also changed from "miningco.com" to "about.com". In 2000, a company called Primedia bought About Inc. This deal was worth a lot of money. At that time, About Inc. had 21 million visitors each month. It was one of the most visited groups of websites.
Growth and New Owners: 2005 to 2012
In February 2005, The New York Times Company bought About.com. This purchase was completed later that year. After this, About.com continued to grow.
In March 2007, About.com had 33.5 million unique visitors. The company also bought other websites, like ConsumerSearch.com, UCompareHealthCare.com, and Calorie-Count.com.
About.com also started to expand internationally. In December 2007, it launched Abang.com in China. This site had articles in Chinese about topics like fashion, food, and travel. In April 2011, About.com launched About en Español. This was its first channel in Spanish, offering topics like movies and makeup.
During this time, the company faced challenges due to changes in online advertising. This led to some leadership changes.
New Direction: 2012 to 2017
In August 2012, IAC bought About.com for $300 million. IAC owns other online brands like Ask.com. At the time of this purchase, About.com had almost 1,000 topic websites. It also had over three million articles.
On April 2, 2013, Neil Vogel became the new CEO of About.com. He focused on making the website better for mobile phones and tablets. He also wanted to make sure people spent more time on the site. Vogel explained that the company makes money from ads and from people clicking on links.
By May 2013, About.com was getting about 84 million unique visitors each month. The company also grew its team of employees and writers. In April 2014, the team had grown to 176 employees. The website was updated to work better on different devices.
In September 2014, About.com launched a big redesign. This made the website easier to use and share on social media.
Rebranding to Dotdash and Meredith Merger: 2017 to 2025
On May 2, 2017, the company changed its name from About.com to Dotdash. CEO Neil Vogel said the company needed a new marketing plan. Dotdash then focused on specific topics through different websites. These included The Balance (for money), Lifewire (for tech), The Spruce (for home and food), VeryWell (for health), TripSavvy (for travel), and ThoughtCo (for education).
Dotdash won the "Publisher of the Year" award in 2018 and 2020. It also bought several other popular websites and brands. These included Investopedia in July 2018, Byrdie and MyDomaine in January 2019, and Brides in May 2019. In October 2019, it acquired Liquor.com. In 2020, Dotdash bought TreeHugger, Mother Nature Network, Simply Recipes, and Serious Eats.
On October 6, 2021, Dotdash announced a big purchase. It acquired many magazines and other assets from Meredith Corporation. This created a new company called Dotdash Meredith. The deal was completed on December 1, 2021.
In February 2022, Dotdash Meredith announced changes for some magazines. Six magazines, including Entertainment Weekly and InStyle, stopped printing paper copies. They became digital-only publications.
People Inc. Today: 2025
On July 31, 2025, the company announced its latest name change. It is now known as People Inc.
Offices
People Inc. has offices in three cities in the USA. These locations are New York, Des Moines, and Birmingham.
Images for kids
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People Inc. logo
