History
The former New Zealand media company Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL) launched Stuff on 27 June 2000 at a cybercafe in Auckland, after announcing its intention to go online more than a year earlier. Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi conceived the name "Stuff", and INL had to buy the domain name from a cyber squatter. In its first month, the site had 120,000 unique visitors.
On 30 June 2003, INL sold its publishing assets including The Dominion Post, The Press, and the Stuff website to Fairfax Media.
Fairfax upgraded the website in December 2006, and again on 4 March 2009, adding the ability for visitors to personalise the homepage. The first mobile phone news service from Stuff began in 2003, in a partnership with Vodafone New Zealand. On 21 April 2009, Stuff launched a dedicated mobile site, m.stuff.co.nz.
For larger news events, the site usually creates a dedicated section, such as for the Bain family murders retrial and the February 2011 Christchurch earthquake. During the trial of Clayton Weatherston, press.co.nz, a subsidiary section on Stuff accidentally ran the headline "Guilty of Murder" the day before the jury delivered the verdict. The article was quickly withdrawn, and Fairfax executive editor Paul Thompson said it was a mistake "we take very seriously."
The site has won numerous awards including the Newspaper Publishers' Association awards "Best News Website" for 2010 and 2011.
The earliest articles still available on Stuff are from around August 2007.
On the 17th April 2013, to celebrate the passing of same-sex marriage in New Zealand, the colour of the Stuff logo was changed from black to the colours associated with the pride flag. The editor of Stuff at time, Mark Stevens, openly declared his support in August 2012.
Read more about this topic: Stuff.co.nz
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.”
—Imre Lakatos (1922–1974)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)