Gigaom is being brought back to life. The pioneering tech site and its existing content have been purchased by Knowingly, a startup based in Austin, which plans to relaunch the publication on August 15th. The big catch is that Knowingly doesn't say what the new Gigaom will look like. Its entire staff was laid off after the site ran out of money in March, meaning that the relaunched site may be Gigaom in name only. On Twitter, Gigaom's former managing editor, Laura Owen, said that the site's most recent writers were not informed of the purchase, which suggests that they may not be involved.
Gigaom is being relaunched in August
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
Knowingly’s CEO, Byron Reese, says that Gigaom will continue reporting on how technology is creating a “more prosperous,” “more fair,” and “more just” world. In spite of his assurances, there’s good reason to question how engaging that coverage will be. According to Variety, Reese was previously the “chief innovation officer” of Demand Media, which owns Cracked and eHow. Reese is reportedly the name behind Demand’s shift toward sites that are more like content farms, churning out low-quality articles that are optimized to turn up in Google searches, bringing in a lot of traffic. Reese is obviously with a new company now — his own — but it’d be disappointing to see him turn to the same playbook for Gigaom.
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