UPDATED 02:29 EDT / OCTOBER 27 2015

NEWS

Time acquires xoJane.com & xoVain.com from Say Media for an undisclosed price

Time, Inc. has continued its buying spree of online media properties with the acquisition of sites xoJane.com and xoVain.com from Say Media, Inc.

According to The Wall Street Journal, terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

xoJane.com was launched in 2011 by Sassy and Jane magazine founding editor Jane Pratt as a site where “women go when they are being selfish, and where their selfishness is applauded.”

The site is said to be written and created by an “entirely devoted community of women (and some token males) who have strong ideas, identities and opinions, who are living what they are writing about.”

Like others in its space, xoJane.com embraces community contributions, with commenters being given the opportunity to write for the site as well.

Companion site xoVain.com was founded in 2013 and pitches itself as a “new kind of beauty site where there are no secrets;” the site focuses on beauty as a tool to make women feel good about themselves, for themselves and where readers can go to learn that they’re apparently “not the only one with curly eyebrows, uneven lips, or weird toenails, and to learn how to deal with them… or not.”

Traffic wise, both sites come with moderate numbers at best with XoJane.com attracting 2.5 million United States unique visitors in September according to comScore with a modest Alexa rank of 10,248 globally and 3,043 in the United States, while xoVain.com is smaller again attracting only 958,000 United States unique visitors in September (per comScore) with an Alexa rank of 21,931 and 6,179 respectively.

The sale of both sites isn’t a huge surprise with parent company Say Media announcing some 12 months ago that it was looking to get out of publishing and shift their business model to one that only sells ads for other sites; other sites previously and currently owned by Say Media include ReadWrite, Remodelista and a number of other smaller properties.

Gobble gobble

The acquisition of xoJane.com and xoVain.com by Time follows the company’s acquisition of women-focused lifestyle site Hello Giggle for around $20-$30 million October 19.

That acquisition, along with these new acquisitions, come at a time of increased interest in online media properties, including eighty-eight percent of Business Insider being acquired by German publisher Axel Springer SA for $442 million in September, and NBCUniversal recently investing in both BuzzFeed and Vox Media.

Time seems to be serious in diversifying its portfolio away from its core, traditional legacy print publications into broader spaces, particularly within the women’s interest category.

Whether the diversification strategy works long term is yet to be seen but certainly the might, finances and resources of Time can only assist both xoJane.com and xoVain.com in growing in the coming months and years ahead.

Image credit: xoJane.com

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