Editing Dotdash Meredith (section)

===1997–2005: Launch, renaming, Primedia acquisition===
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]].<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Kushner |first=David |author-link=David Kushner (writer) |date=April 21, 1997 |title=Drilling Begins at The Mining Company |url=https://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,3272,00.html |magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|WIRED]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040910143418/http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,3272,00.html |archive-date=September 10, 2004}}</ref> The original goal was to maintain 1,800 topic areas, but after five years of operation, this number was reduced to around 700.<ref name="Prim" />

In May 1999, the company changed its name to "About Inc." and the website name from "miningco.com" to "about.com".<ref>{{cite news |last=Fleming |first=Eric |date=May 17, 1999 |title=Miningco.com changes name to About.com |url=https://www.zdnet.com/article/miningco-com-changes-name-to-about-com/ |publisher=[[ZDnet]]}}</ref> The company was acquired by [[Primedia, Inc.]], in 2000 through a deal valued at US$690&nbsp;million, whereby Primedia swapped 45.2&nbsp;million shares for About, Inc.'s 18.1&nbsp;million shares. At the time of the acquisition announcement, About Inc. was measured at US$133&nbsp;million in cash and no debt (Sept. 30, 2000), while the Media Metrix company tallied 21&nbsp;million unique monthly visitors—making it the seventh-most-visited "network of sites" at the time—a network of over 700 topic sites, sorted into 36 areas and 50,000 subjects, and approximately 4,000 advertisers. Following the purchase, which was finalized in the first quarter of 2001, the combined company was called "Primedia" and Kurnit remained [[chief executive officer]] (CEO).<ref name="Prim">{{cite news|title=Primedia buys About.com|url=https://money.cnn.com/2000/10/30/deals/pri/|access-date=November 5, 2014|work=CNN Money|date=October 30, 2000}}</ref>