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Bustle (magazine)

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Bustle
Editor-in-chiefCharlotte Owen
CategoriesWomen's
FoundedAugust 2013; 11 years ago (August 2013)
CompanyBustle Digital Group
CountryUnited States
Based in
LanguageEnglish
Websitebustle.com

Bustle is an online American women's magazine founded in August 2013 by Bryan Goldberg.[1] It positions news and politics alongside articles about beauty, celebrities, and fashion trends.[2] By September 2016, the website had 50 million monthly readers.[3]

History

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Bustle logo before 2020 redesign

Bustle was founded by Bryan Goldberg in 2013. Previously, Goldberg co-founded the website Bleacher Report with a single million-dollar investment.[4] He claimed that "women in their 20s have nothing to read on the Internet."[5] Bustle was launched with $6.5 million in backing from Seed and Series A funding rounds.[4][6]

Bustle surpassed 10 million monthly unique visitors in July 2014, placing it ahead of rival women-oriented sites such as Refinery29, Rookie and xoJane; it had the second greatest number of unique visitors after Gawker's Jezebel.[7][2]

By July 2015, Bustle had 46 full-time editorial staff.[4] That October, it launched the parenting sister site Romper.[8][9] By that point, Bustle was receiving 31.6 million unique visitors per month, and it had 200 part-time contributors and 40 full-time editors.[9]

In September 2016, Bustle launched a redesign using the company's $11.5 million series D funding round. At that time, the site had over 70 full-time editors and 250 contract contributors who posted more than 200 articles daily.[3]

In April 2019, Kate Ward resigned as editor-in-chief. She had worked at Bustle since 2013.[10] Emma Rosenblum replaced Ward in June 2019.[11]

Content model

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In 2013, The New Yorker reported that Goldberg planned to hire writers from Bustle's target demographic (young women between 18 and 34) instead of professional writers. It noted, "He hopes that, by gradually hiring hundreds of these writers and asking them to 'create the content that interests them,' the Web site will become 'an accurate representation' of the larger demographic."[12] That year, Ward and her colleagues utilised the Bleacher Report's contributor model to increase traffic. The Business of Fashion wrote, "Under the approach, a vast network of writers did around-the-clock shifts for low hourly wages to deliver a quota of blog posts that often capitalised on trending Google terms to attract clicks."[13]

Bustle Digital Group

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Formation

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On April 17, 2017, DMG Media (publishers of the British tabloid The Daily Mail) announced that it had sold Elite Daily to the newly rebranded Bustle Digital Group.[14]

Sales and acquisitions

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Goldberg said that the acquisition was done in part to increase Bustle's original video content, which generated an average of 10 million monthly views, compared to Elite Daily's average of 60 million monthly views.[14][15]

Bustle Digital Group purchased the inactive website Gawker in July 2018.[16] Bustle Digital Group bought the events website Flavorpill, owner of Flavorwire, in August 2018.[17] On November 29, 2018, Mic CEO Chris Altchek announced Mic was laying off most of Mic's staff while working on a deal to sell Mic.[18] The next day, a Bustle representative confirmed that Bustle Digital Group had acquired Mic.[19][20]

In March 2019, Bustle Digital Group purchased The Outline, followed by The Zoe Report in May 2019. They also purchased Nylon in June 2019, with the intention to publish print magazines under the Nylon brand name.[21] Rather than monthly publications, the magazines will be published around large cultural events, like the Coachella music festival.[22][23][24] In July, Bustle Digital acquired Inverse, a science and culture site.[25]

In April 2020, BDG fired the staff of The Outline.[26]

In 2021, BDG acquired Some Spider, parent of Scary Mommy and Fatherly.[27]

In February 2023, BDG shut down Gawker.[28] In November of that year, Gawker was sold to Meng Ru Kuok, of the Singapore-based Caldecott Music Group.[29]

References

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  1. ^ Malone, Noreen (September 16, 2013). "What Bustle's Funding Really Shows Us". The New Republic. Archived from the original on September 19, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
  2. ^ a b Hess, Amanda (August 21, 2014). "The Bro Whisperer of Bustle". Slate. Archived from the original on October 12, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
  3. ^ a b Segran, Elizabeth (September 29, 2016). "The Women Behind The New Bustle On Reinventing "Women's Media"". Fast Company. Archived from the original on March 25, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara (July 22, 2015). "How Bustle Proved the Haters Wrong". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on October 13, 2017. Retrieved October 12, 2017.
  5. ^ Rebecca Greenfield (September 16, 2013). "This Picture Says Just About Everything About Bustle". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 25, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  6. ^ Goldberg, Bryan (August 13, 2013). "I've raised $6.5 million to build and grow my new company, Bustle". Pando. Archived from the original on September 10, 2015. Retrieved October 12, 2015.
  7. ^ Griffith, Erin (July 14, 2014). "With an audience of 11 million young women, Bustle raises $5 million more". Fortune. Archived from the original on October 31, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
  8. ^ Shontell, Alyson. "2-year-old Bustle hits 45 million monthly uniques, flirts with profitability, and launches a new website for millennial moms, Romper". Business Insider. Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  9. ^ a b Widdicombe, Lizzie (October 29, 2015). "Bustle Has a Baby". The New Yorker.
  10. ^ Hod, Itay (April 9, 2019). "Bustle Founding Editor-in-Chief Kate Ward to Exit After 6 Years". TheWrap. Retrieved August 27, 2024.
  11. ^ Hays, Kali (June 4, 2019). "Bustle Digital Pulls New Group Editor From Elle Magazine". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved August 27, 2024.
  12. ^ Widdicombe, Lizzie (September 16, 2013). "From Mars". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved August 27, 2024.
  13. ^ Odell, Amy (January 11, 2019). "Is Bustle the Next Condé Nast?". The Business of Fashion. Archived from the original on April 22, 2023. Retrieved August 28, 2024.
  14. ^ a b Shontell, Alyson. "Bustle acquires Elite Daily from Daily Mail and rebrands as Bustle Digital Group". Business Insider. Archived from the original on November 11, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  15. ^ "Elite Daily lost a ton of money, but Bustle just bought it from the Daily Mail anyway". Nieman Lab. Archived from the original on April 21, 2017. Retrieved April 22, 2017.
  16. ^ Kludt, Tom; Darcy, Oliver (July 12, 2018). "Gawker.com sold to Bleacher Report co-founder Bryan Goldberg in bankruptcy auction". CNN. Archived from the original on July 12, 2018. Retrieved July 12, 2018.
  17. ^ "As Publishers Build Experiential Events, Bustle Digital Group's Newest Acquisition Will Help It Compete". August 15, 2018. Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  18. ^ Kafka, Peter (November 29, 2018). "Mic has laid off the majority of its staff". Recode. Archived from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  19. ^ Spangler, Todd (November 29, 2018). "Bustle Digital Group Acquires Mic Following Mic's Massive Layoff". Digital > News. Variety website. Penske Media Corporation. Archived from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
  20. ^ "Pivoting to nowhere: How Mic ran out of radical makeovers". Digiday. November 30, 2018. Archived from the original on December 1, 2018. Retrieved November 20, 2018.
  21. ^ "Bustle Digital Group Buys Nylon Magazine, Plans to Relaunch Print". Folio. June 27, 2019. Archived from the original on December 24, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  22. ^ Kafka, Peter (March 27, 2019). "Bustle Digital, the company that bought Gawker and Mic, has acquired the Outline". Recode. Archived from the original on March 30, 2019. Retrieved March 31, 2019.
  23. ^ Bloomgarden-Smoke, Kara (March 26, 2018). "Bustle Digital Group Acquires The Zoe Report". WWD. Archived from the original on July 6, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  24. ^ Spangler, Todd (June 27, 2019). "Bustle Digital Group Buys Nylon, Plans to Relaunch Print Edition of Fashion and Culture Mag (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Archived from the original on November 8, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
  25. ^ Spangler, Todd (July 23, 2019). "Bustle Digital Buys Digital-Media Startup Inverse, Its Eighth Acquisition to Date". Variety. Archived from the original on December 31, 2019. Retrieved December 31, 2019.
  26. ^ Goggin, Benjamin (April 3, 2020). "Bustle Digital Group lays off about 25 people, including the entire staff of The Outline". Business Insider. Archived from the original on April 11, 2020. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  27. ^ "Bustle Digital Buys Scary Mommy's Parent Company for $150 Million in Stock". Variety. July 21, 2021. Archived from the original on November 14, 2022. Retrieved December 19, 2022.
  28. ^ Spangler, Todd (February 1, 2023). "Gawker Is Shutting Down". Variety. Archived from the original on February 1, 2023. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
  29. ^ Spangler, Todd (November 15, 2023). "Gawker Sold to Founder of Singapore's Caldecott Music Group: 'It Has the Opportunity for Reinvention' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Archived from the original on November 29, 2023. Retrieved November 8, 2024.
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