Media: The Demise of Mashable

Success in digital media requires doing a million things right, though, and Mashable seems to have fumbled a number of them. Former employees and observers cite a loss of editorial focus and unique identity, lack of financial controls, an ill-executed shift to video content and hesitance to diversify revenue away from the fickle ad market. Mashable wouldn’t make executives available for this story.

Like most digital media, Mashable was all but entirely reliant on advertising revenue. It finally got into commerce content earlier this year, long after other publishers made the move. By the time it moved into general news, BuzzFeed had a three-year head start. That hesitation and earlier missteps cost Mashable. In addition to Roberts, a string of top executives left in the past couple years, including CRO Seth Rogin, chief strategy officer Adam Ostrow and CMO Stacy Martinet, which doesn’t help a company’s ability to hone its message. It grew revenue 36 percent to $42 million in 2016, but not enough to offset $10 million in losses, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Last week, the Journal reported that Mashable would be sold to Ziff Davis for $50 million, one-fifth of its one-time value and below what CNN was believed to have offered for it in 2012.

BuzzFeed envy
All this time, people at Mashable were closely watching BuzzFeed, which like Mashable, started with a focus on light, sharable content, but had hired Ben Smith from Politico to build a serious newsgathering operation. The meme coverage that built Mashable was becoming commoditized. So Mashable used its new capital to hire Roberts and other pedigreed journalists.

Soon, there were stories on terrorism and Ukraine leading the homepage, a big change for a site better known for covering social media and internet memes. Whether it was the increased editorial resources, Facebook’s generosity or both, Mashable’s traffic soared to over 27 million monthly uniques in December 2015, according to comScore.

The shift was debated internally, though, and caused friction between Roberts’ new hires and pre-existing staffers.

In the early days, Mashable was like any scrappy startup, crammed in a small office, but with a camaraderie and sense of fun. People brought their dogs to the office. There was a Twitter feed devoted to a mouse that ran around the office. People applauded snarkily when someone left early. Still, the company was breaking even.

The company took a long time to take outside money, but once it did, everything changed. In 2014, armed with its first round of funding, Mashable started spending it. The thing about venture capital is, investors don’t give it to companies to sit on it for a rainy day; they want it deployed — and fast.

Mashable moved into swank offices on Fifth Avenue near New York City’s Union Square befitting a well-funded startup. The fully stocked kitchen had a cereal bar, snacks, fresh cheeses, beer on tap and a wine fridge. Like a lot of media companies, Mashable also opened an office in Los Angeles, where its video studio was housed. There was a living plant wall, with its own attendant. At its peak, the company had more than 300 people and was in seven countries, including the U.K., India and Australia.

The rise and decline have left current and former employees angry, sad and frustrated about a former media darling they believe helped define digital publishing.

“It gets me in the door,” said Josh Catone, who was executive director of editorial projects at Mashable until 2014. “I think people associate it with, ‘They know digital media.’ I don’t know how long that lasts, though.”

-Digiday