AboutCom

About.com was originally founded in 1996 as The Mining Company. The site was launched on April 21, 1997 by Scott Kurnit, owner of General Internet; Bill Day; and a group of other entrepreneurs in New York City... The company was acquired by PRIMEDIA in 2000 in a deal that valued About at $690 million. In February 2005, The Ny Times Company announced that it was buying About.com, a purchase that was completed in the first half of the year for $410 million. Google along with Yahoo!, Ask.com, and AOL were reportedly among the other bidders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About.com