Over the past several years AnandTech has grown to be much more than just a PC hardware review site. In fact, we consider ourselves to be just as much about the new mobile world as we do about the old PC world. We leveraged our understanding of component and system architecture in bringing a deeper, more analytical look to mobile silicon and devices. As we continued to invest in our mobile coverage and expertise, we found that readers, mobile component and device makers responded quite well to our approach.
AnandTech’s focus grew, but we quickly ran into a bottleneck when it came time to monetize that mobile content. Our mobile content did a great job of helping to grow the site (as well as bring new eyeballs to our traditional PC coverage as well). While we had no issues competing with larger corporate owned sites on the content front, when it came to advertising we were at a disadvantage. Our advantage in quality allowed us to make progress, but ultimately it became a numbers game. The larger corporate owned sites could show up with a network of traffic, substantially larger than what AnandTech could deliver, and land more lucrative advertising deals than we were able to. They could then in turn fund a larger editorial operation and the cycle continues.
AnandTech has been profitable since its inception; it’s been on a great growth curve these past couple of years and we’ve always been able to do more with less, but lately there’s been an increased investment in high quality content. It wasn’t that long ago where the only type of content seeing real investment was shallow, poorly researched and ultimately very cable-TV-news-like. More recently however we’ve seen a shift. Higher quality content is being valued and some big names (both on the publishing and VC fronts) have been investing in them. Honestly we haven’t seen a world like this in probably over a decade.
Before his departure, Anand spent almost a year meeting with all of the big names in the publishing space, both traditional and new media players. The goal was to find AnandTech a home with a partner that had a sustainable business model (similar to AnandTech’s), but could add the investment and existing reach to allow the site to better realize its potential. That search led to a number of interesting potential partners; it was a refreshing experience to say the least knowing that there are groups in the world who really value good content. Ultimately that search brought AnandTech to Purch.
Purch met the requirements: they have a sustainable business model, are profitable and have the sort of reach AnandTech needs to really hit the next level. More fundamentally however, Purch’s values are in line with AnandTech’s. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that Purch acquired one of AnandTech’s biggest competitors in the late 1990s: Tom’s Hardware. Purch had already demonstrated a value for the sort of deep, long form content AnandTech was known for. In meeting with the Purch business and editorial teams, there was a clear interest in further developing AnandTech’s strengths as well as feeding back AnandTech’s learnings into the rest of the Purch family.
AnandTech and Tom’s Hardware remain editorially independent, and though no longer competitors, the goal is to learn from one another. To further invest in the areas that make us different, and together with the rest of the Purch family help to bring a higher standard of quality to the web.
The AnandTech team is staying in place and will continue to focus on existing coverage areas. We’re not changing our editorial policies or analytical approach and have no intentions of doing so. The one thing that will change is our ability to continue to grow the site. This if anything starts from the top; with a publisher to more directly handle the business of AnandTech, this frees me up to spend more time on content creation and helping the rest of our editors put together better articles. And in a hands-on business like journalism that benefit cannot be overstated.
AnandTech was an incredibly powerful force as an independent publisher, but it now joins a family whose combined traffic is eight times larger than what AnandTech was on its own. Our goal is to continue to invest in what we feel is the right approach to building high quality content; now we have an even greater ability to do just that.
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theSeb - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link
Correct, whilst TH has been deteriorating slowly for some time, it became really bad after the purchase and especially more so recently with ads and links to buy placed everywhere in every article.I am surprised that people try to look at this with an optimistic view - just take a look at every other "review site" that Purch has purchased (hehe) .... I do not see anything good in the future for Anandtech. What a pity.
jb14 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link
A very sad day. I hope the team manage to maintain their independence but every single similar site sellout I can think of ended in the front page car crash that is Tom's Hardware. But who knows, maybe Anandtech will be the first site to prove us all wrong!Shiitaki - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link
Sorry to hear Anadtech was bought, but since Anand left it, not really a surprise. Toms is still doing some good work, and much better than ZDnet, CNET, etc. So I will remain positive, but I will not be surprised to see Toms and Anand merge next year sometime.daniel142005 - Saturday, December 20, 2014 - link
I check Anandtech literally daily and have for at least 2-3 years. A few coworkers do as well and we have read articles from other sites before but never trusted it until it was Anandtech. If Anand was a part of it then I trust his judgement and look forward to seeing what comes from it!Not much of a fan of Tom's Hardware though.. it seriously needs a new design.
KenPC - Sunday, December 21, 2014 - link
Anand has built a respectable, valuable site. I hope that continues and I am not going to get upset before it is needed.Times and interests move on,, so hats off to Anand for building something of value, then going off to try something new and maybe better!
The crew at Anand is great, and builds a lot of value in the site.
But there are warning clouds out there... for example how Purch has structured Tom's site.
Tom's has some great content, but I go there perhaps as much as 5% as often as Anand. AD's are the reason, not content. Tom's site, once in, takes a hold and wont let go.. A complete browser shutdown is needed to exit tom's site. And those full page ads that block the page content are the most annoying.
Purch believes the more ads, the more aggressive the approach, the more cash (as shown with Tom's site). But I do believe if they are trying to increase Tom's readership (and cash flow), they need to first look in the mirror to find the problem.
The first full page, page blocking ad on Anand, and I am gone. With an obnoxious ad-centric theme aimed to 'better monetize' the site, I am gone. So Purch, if that happens, run your cash flow calculations on my click count compared to what you get now.
And then of course, thinking how Purch may try to gain cash flow and margin, they will be assessing whether 2 sites makes sense. I would smile from afar if they chose something catchy like 'The comprehensive T&A review site'. But consolidation, I fear, is an already done deal somewhere in the executive management plan.
drzzz - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
I have followed the site since Anand posted his first article. Anand left and now the site has been sold. I am truly sad. I sometimes follow a link to a THG article and always leave it thinking how much better AT is. Now they are in the same bed together and I really feel betrayed as someone that has supported AT from the start. I have not supported this site to see it get lumped in with the crap that THG puts out. Some of the crap THG writes is clearly paid for infomercial level articles. I so hope AT does not turn into the same cess pool. My stomach turned when I read its was numbers and dollars decision. The bottom line syndrome (must be bigger) is destroying too many great companies.I will be watching and reading but honestly my hopes are not that high. Too many great companies get sold and destroyed today to believe that AT will one of the exceptions.
ppi - Monday, December 22, 2014 - link
What happened with the DailyTech news feed?MDX - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
And the list of media not owned by a company that's owns by a company that's owns by a company that's owns by Rupert Murdoch gets even shorter...really sad to see this. Tim to remove the anandtech bookmark..BoyBawang - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
So, How much is the aquisition?djkroon - Tuesday, December 23, 2014 - link
I used to visit Tom's Hardware on a daily basis. Suddenly it became more advertising and less content. I rarely visit now. I understand the need to generate revenue but it severely overshadowed the content. I hope that does not become the path of AnandTech.