Ripp raids Gigaom

Hires 6 staffers after balking at buying site

TIME Inc. CEO Joe Ripp was negotiating in the last couple of weeks to buy the shuttered Gigaom. com tech site— but broke off talks and instead hired a halfdozen of the site’s 15 journalists to bolster Fortune Editor Alan Murray’s tech coverage. “They [ Time Inc execs] took a serious look at it, but felt this was the better way to go,” said Murray.

Gigaom, which blew through $ 30 million in funding in nine years, was started by a former Forbes editor turned venture capitalist, Om Malik, backin2006. It was considered one of the pioneering sites about news and tech and had branched out early into highpro file events and later into the research business.

But the money abruptly ran out on March9— when staffers were summoned to a meeting and told the site was closing.

Stacey Higginbothom, a senior editor who was among the first to tweet about the site’s demise, is joining Fortune. So, too, are senior writers Mathew Ingram and Katie Fehrenbacher, and writers Barb

Darrow, Jeff Roberts and Jonathan Vanian.

Murray said it was actually Time Inc. Executive Vice President Evelyn Webster who gave the hiring the OK.

Murray said the new hires “will be digital first, but you will see them in the magazine occasionally and on the conference stage.”

This week, Travel & Leisure is pulling a rare double— introducing its redesigned magazine with the May issue while simultaneously relaunching its Website.

“It is no small task to get a Web site and a magazine redesigned at the sametime,” said Editor Nathan Lump, who jumped from Condé Nast, where he was director of branded content, to take over from long time Editor Nancy Novogrod last August.

“The core DNA of Travel & Leisure was right when I got here, but now we want to embrace a lot of the lifestyle that feeds into travel from culture to fashion,” said Lump, who worked on both Condé Nast Traveler and the New York Times fashion title T Magazine prior to T & L.

The news comes as the competition in the travel category, which suffered mightily in the years after the Great Recession, heats up.

At Condé Nast Traveler, Publisher Bill Wackermann told the New York Times that it planned to add 2 inches to the trim size of its magazine when it relaunches it in September and switch to a heavier paper stock. Ad pages last year were up 5.8 percent to 935 pages, he said.

CNT was helped by a 20 percent rise in luxury fashion and 5 percent increase in travel advertisers— but if it is going to thrive again thisyear, it will have to find a newavenue to make up for lost pharmaceutical ads, which made up more than 10 percent of its total in2014.

One advertiser, Xarelto, pumped more than 54 ad pages into CNT lastyear alone, according to one report— but has since spread some of its ad spending this year to Golf Digest, another Condé title.

T& L, which has a slightly larger circulation— 973,834vs. 813,262for CNT— also saw an increase in ad pages in 2014, rising about 2.5 percent. It is estimated to be up about 8 percent in 2015 through May.

Publisher Jay Meyer said the redesigned May magazine, called the Europe issue, will have 200 total pages ( ad and edit) and will boast new advertisers— including Forevermark, Belstaff, Ritz Carlton, Montage Beverly Hills, Corinthia, Swissair, Sofitel.

Lump said recently hired Sarah Firshein handled the digital overhaul while new Creative Director Gretchen Smelter, who joined last year from Women’s Health, handled much of the print overhaul.

On digital, he said, he is pushing for “immersive experiences” with bigger pictures and video. “It allows us to adopt to a faster and higher volume publishing model,” he said of the overhaul. Where theold site added about 12 new pieces of content a week, he said he now plans to add 20 pieces per day. In print, the logo is staying the same but everything else from typography to section heads are changing.

“We need to bring more storytelling intothe book,” said Lump.