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Website-resources for Salon.com

Jorn Barger January 2002


Timeline

old urls: www.salon1999.com; www.salonmag.com

1994: Nov: 12-day SF newspaper strike inspires Scott Rosenberg to start web-based SF Free Press [cite]

1995: 20Nov: David Talbot starts biweekly Salon Magazine [issue] at www.salon1999.com with publisher David Zwieg, writers Gary Kamiya, Laura Miller, Joyce Millman, Scott Rosenberg and Andrew Ross, and art-director Mignon Khargie [cite] [pix] [pic&bios] financial backing from Adobe, Apple, and Hambrecht & Quist [cite]

1995? Table Talk, moderated by Mary Elizabeth Williams [info] [FAQ] [thesis] [navel-gazing]
1996: 22Apr: Salon goes weekly (30 articles) [issue]
1997: Jan: last weekly (36 articles) issue
1997: Feb: Salon goes daily [annc, plus popup menu]; 20 articles/week [source]

1997: 05Jun: [Wayback] [more]
1997: 03Jul: homepage
1997: Sep: Princess-Di coverage attracts new readers [stories]
1997: Dec: deal with Border's Books? [RedHerring]
1998: Feb: 50 articles/week [source]
1998: 23Feb? subtle frames add navbar at bottom (and make linking harder)
1998: Jun: AJR profile [etext]
1998: 16Sept: Salon breaks Henry-Hyde counter-scandal amid impeachment scandal [article] [meta]

1998: Oct: $25/year 'membership' gets teeshirt, etc
1998: 02Dec: [Wayback] [more]
1998: 12Dec: homepage (redesigned since Jun97)
1999: Jan: CJR profile [etext]
1999: Feb: 65 articles/week [source]
1999: 02Feb: homepage
1999: Michael O'Donnell CEO
1999: 02Mar: homepage
1999: 09Mar? Salon plans to drop subtle-frames design after one year

1999: Apr: acquires Salon.com url [cite]
1999: 07Apr: Salon buys The Well (subscriptions $10/month) [article] [history]
1999: 09Apr: Salon weblog [sample]
1999: Apr: IPO using 'Dutch auction' raises $26M [article] [debate]
1999: 18Apr: homepage (redesigned since 02Mar, 3-column)
1999: 07May: homepage
1999: 10Jun: Boston Phoenix article
1999: Jul: stock peaks at $15

1999: 11Oct: homepage (tweaked since Apr)
1999: 17Nov: homepage
1999: 26Nov: RobotWisdomWeblog readers discuss Salon
2000: Feb: 137 articles/week [source]
2000: 16Feb: shmooze-party in DC [report]
2000: Mar: 148 employees [cite]
2000: May: site redesign?
2000: 19May: homepage
2000: May: Salon acquires mp3lit.com
2000: May: stock drops below $3 [Byron] [VVoice]

2000: Jun: Salon fires 13
2000: 18Jun: homepage (redesigned in May? 4-column incl newswires)
2000: Aug: schedule of regular writers [Wayback]
2000: 11Oct: Salon Audio launched [pr}
2000: 04Dec: online personals (with Nerve.com) [pr]
2000: Dec: nine employees laid off

2001: Feb: 94 articles/week [source]
2001: Feb: stock drops below $1
2001: Apr: critique of Salon's 10Q [NetSlaves]
2001: 25Apr: premium content for subscribers only ($30/year) [announce] "36 editors and reporters"
2001: 04Jun: UK Guardian examines financial struggles [article]
2001: 27Jun: adds wire services? [pr]

2001: 26Sep: additional financing $750k, 20k paid subscribers [pr]
2001: Oct: stock drops below $0.25

Financial: snapshot, graph, table


Access

apparently identical: salon.com, www.salon.com, salonmag.com, www.salonmag.com, salon1999.com, www.salon1999.com, salonmagazine.com, www.salonmagazine.com [whois]

homepage (updates late evening): http://www.salon.com/ [lightweight]

recent archive: http://salon.com/archives/date.html [lightweight]

subject archive: http://salon.com/archives/index.html

best-of: 1995-97; 1999

old archives: earliest, monthly:

http://salon.com/archives/1997/date02.html
                          year     ^^month

search: http://search.salon.com/ [advanced]


URL-structure

1997: 05Jun:

/june97/21st/21st.html
/salonthurs.gif [cover pic!?]
/june97/columnists/lamott.html [Nov99!?]
/june97/sneaks/sneak.html
/june97/sharps/sharps.html
/june97/blueglow.html
/food/taste.html

directories: columnists; 21st; wanderlust; games; comics; archives; sneaks; sharps; food

2000: Aug?

/archives/lamott.html
/weekly/lamott960610.html
/archives/1999/mwt_lamo.html

/mwt/col/lamo/1999/07/22/farewell/index.html /mwt/col/lamo/1999/07/22/farewell/index1.html [page2] /mwt/col/lamo/1999/07/22/farewell/print.html [print] /col/src/lamott2.gif [author image] /mwt/col/lamo/1999/07/22/farewell/email.html [emailer]

topic directories: health; health/sex; media; news; books; mwt [mothers who think]; ent; travel; travel/food; people; tech; tech/fsp; politics; politics2000

content-type directories: col; col/about; col/bios; archives; archives/to; letters; comics

meta directories: about; adsales; contact; newsletter

2002 (live)

/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/22/cold_blood/index.html
/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/22/cold_blood/index1.html
/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/22/cold_blood/print.html
/ent/masterpiece/2002/01/22/cold_blood/email.html



HTML structures

1995

homepage source: [live]

homepage HEAD contains only TITLE 'SALON'

page-head is centered TABLE creating grid 4w by 3h with six gifs of (individually clickable) text (plus a pic)

page-font is mostly size '+1'

vertical whitespace using empty PREs

sample article: [source]

article has TITLE but no HEAD

BODY has apparently-added complex-html for banners (not working?) (no other TABLEs)

text-only navbar using DIV

article-head is a single gif of text

gif of interviewee hotlinked to artist-bio

text mostly size '+3' indented with BLOCKQUOTE

next-page anchortext 'Next page:'

2002

homepage source: [live]

homepage HEAD preceded (!?) by BASE and DOCTYPE

HEAD contains TITLE 'Salon.com' and stylesheet LINK (and comment about browser detected) and four METAs incl sneaky 30min refresh

small TABLE with banner ad

simple text navbar (meta)

TABLE with elaborate messy rollover-gif navbar (content)

main TABLE contains ?3 subTABLEs generating four columns (yechhh!)

column one: search, hot topics, topic directories, interactive, PDA edition

column two: newswires (all underlined red)

column three: articles

column four: income-streams (personals, sponsored articles, stuff for sale), editor's best, featured columnist, best-of audio, Salon books

font-face='Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif'

font-size mostly '1' or '2'


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