Salon.com, formerly Salon Magazine, has acquired 14-year-old subscription-based online community, The Well. Salon bought The Well LLC from Marin County venture capital firm Rosewood Stone Group for an undisclosed sum. When we started Salon in 1995, we looked to The Well as a model for community-building that the net makes possible, said Salon founding editor and chief executive David Talbot. The Well’s distinctive reputation for thoughtful and intelligent online discussions fits strongly with our network of high-quality content sites and our existing community, Table Talk.
Fine words, but president and publisher Michael O’Donnell probably came closer to the matter when he added: As a paid subscription business, The Well will provide Salon with new revenue sources. Since its inception, Salon has broken stories and won plaudits, but has consistently lost money. After the company bought the Salon.com domain from a network of hairdressing businesses earlier this week, it re-launched with a new, busier look and a vaunted Linux-and-Apache infrastructure. Whether an ailing magazine can thus transform itself into a successful portal remains to be seen.
