History
Gawker Media established the blog in December 2005, with Joel Johnson as editor. Johnson had previously edited Gizmodo for Gawker. The Consumerist was an idea from Gawker Media owner Nick Denton and managing editor Lockhart Steele; according to Johnson, "they knew they wanted a shopping blog—but not a shopping blog—and that they wanted to address the issues that consumers really find the most frustrating on a daily basis."
The idea of the site was based on a similar Hungarian blog called Tékozló Homár ("Wasteful Lobster" in Hungarian), which was initiated by Nick Denton's Hungarian friend, László Szily. "Tékozló Homár" is part of the Hungarian leading portal Index.
In creating The Consumerist he established its slogan and initial focus on readers complaints, "consumer-oriented news nuggets, funny pictures and shopping tips — all with the same snarky tone that characterizes Gawker properties like Wonkette and Defamer.". Gawker hired Ben Popken to take over as site lead in February, 2006. Johnson left Gawker in July 2006, citing a "disagreement about role within the company."
Gawker put the blog up for sale in November 2008, at the same time that it announced the closure of one of its other blogs, Valleywag. The Consumerist was purchased by Consumers Union, the publishers of Consumer Reports in December 2008. The site's only two full-time employees, site lead Ben Popken and senior editor Meghann Marco, were retained through the sale.
Due to potential conflict of interest concerns, The Consumerist does not run display ads for outside advertisers; while owned by Gawker, all display ads linked to other Gawker sites, although the site sold text ads through the Google AdWords program. As such, the site was considered a loss leader, whose primary business role was to help drive traffic to other revenue-producing Gawker sites. Since the Consumer Reports acquisition, all advertising on the site is for Consumer Reports magazine or ConsumerReports.org.
Consumer Reports laid off Managing Editor Ben Popken in November 2011.. The departure was announced in a final blog post by Popken on Consumerist. Since then, traffic has fallen by over 80 percent, going from .06 percent of all web traffic to .01 percent.. Popken subsequently went on to become a Senior Staff Writer and Editor at NBC News.
Read more about this topic: The Consumerist
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