Max Willens of Digiday writes about how tech news site Gizmodo has expanded its coverage into politics, news and other areas.
Willens writes, “Expanding an editorial scope comes with risks. But in Gizmodo’s case, it’s also yielded several major scoops, including an exposé on the suppression of conservative articles on Facebook’s trending topics widget and a full transcript of ex-Google employee James Damore’s controversial memo on diversity.
“‘Gizmodo was founded pre-iPhone, pre-Facebook, pre-Uber,’ said Kelly Bourdet, the site’s editor-in-chief. ‘The reality today is that technology touches every part of our lives.’
“For the most part, the forays into new topics haven’t driven any traffic surges. While a company spokesperson said Gizmodo is on pace to break an internal record for monthly traffic in August, the site’s U.S. traffic is essentially flat year over year, with 18 million monthly visitors in July, according to comScore data. Over the past 12 months, monthly unique visitors have oscillated between 15 million and 21 million, and average visitors’ time on-site is essentially unchanged as well, per comScore.”
Read more here.
