''The Verge'' is an American technology news website headquartered in

Lower Manhattan Lower Manhattan, also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York City, is the southernmost part of the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of Manhattan. The neighborhood is History of New York City, the historical birthplace o ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

and operated by

Vox Media Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company founded in Washington, D.C. with operational headquarters in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by CEO Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass ''S ...

. The website publishes news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews,

consumer electronics Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, Communication, communications, and recreation. Historically, these prod ...

news, and

podcast A podcast is a Radio program, program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an Episode, episodic series of digital audio Computer file, files that users can download to a personal device or str ...

s. The website was launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media's proprietary multimedia publishing platform Chorus. In 2014, Nilay Patel was named

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

and Dieter Bohn executive editor; Helen Havlak was named editorial director in 2017. ''The Verge'' won five

Webby Awards The Webby Awards (colloquially referred to as the Webbys) are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over three thousand industry experts a ...

for the year 2012 including awards for Best Writing (Editorial), Best Podcast for ''The Vergecast'', Best Visual Design, Best Consumer Electronics Site, and Best Mobile News App.

History

Origins

Between March and April 2011, up to nine of ''

Engadget Engadget ( ) is a technology news, reviews and analysis website offering daily coverage of gadgets, consumer electronics, video games, gaming hardware, apps, social media, streaming, AI, space, robotics, electric vehicles and other potentially ...

''s writers, editors, and product developers, including

Joshua Topolsky, left AOL, the company behind that website, to start a new gadget site. The other departing editors included managing editor Nilay Patel and staffers Paul Miller, Ross Miller, Joanna Stern, Chris Ziegler, as well as product developers Justin Glow and Dan Chilton. In early April 2011, Topolsky announced that their unnamed new site would be produced in partnership with sports news website ''

SB Nation ''SB Nation'' (an abbreviation for their full name ''SportsBlogs Nation'') is a sports blogging network owned by Vox Media. It was co-founded by Tyler Blezinski, Markos Moulitsas, and Jerome Armstrong in 2003. The blog from which the netwo ...

'', debuting some time in the fall. Topolsky lauded ''SB Nation'' similar interest in the future of publishing, including what he described as their beliefs in independent journalism and in-house development of their own content delivery tools. SB Nation's Jim Bankoff saw an overlap in the demographics of the two sites and an opportunity to expand SB Nation's model. Bankoff previously worked at AOL in 2005, where he led their ''Engadget'' acquisition. Other news outlets viewed the partnership as positive for both ''SB Nation'' and Topolsky's staff, and negative for AOL's outlook. Bankoff,

chairman The chair, also chairman, chairwoman, or chairperson, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the gro ...

and

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

(owner of ''SB Nation''), said in a 2011 interview that though the company had started out with a focus on sports, other categories including consumer technology had growth potential for the company. Development of Vox Media's

content management system A content management system (CMS) is computer software used to manage the creation and modification of digital content ( content management).''Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy''. Ann Rockley, Pamela Kostur, Steve Manning. New ...

(CMS), Chorus, was led by Trei Brundrett, who later became the

chief operating officer A chief operating officer (COO), also called chief operations officer, is an executive in charge of the daily operations of an organization (i.e. personnel, resources, and logistics). COOs are usually second-in-command immediately after the C ...

for the company.

''This Is My Next''

Following news of his untitled partnership with ''SB Nation'' in April 2011, Topolsky announced that the ''Engadget'' podcast hosted by Patel, Paul Miller, and himself would continue at an interim site called ''This Is My Next''. By August 2011, the site had reached 1 million unique visitors and 3.4 million page views. By October 2011, the site had 3 million unique views per month and 10 million total page views. ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' listed the site in its Best Blogs of 2011, calling the prototype site "exemplary". The site closed upon ''The Verge''s launch on November 1, 2011. On June 11, 2014, ''The Verge'' launched a new section called "This Is My Next", edited by former editor David Pierce, as a buyer's guide for consumer electronics. By 2022, this section had been retitled simply "Buying Guide".

Launch

''The Verge'' launched November 1, 2011, along with an announcement of a new parent company: Vox Media. According to the company, the site launched with 4 million unique visitors and 20 million pageviews. At the time of Topolsky's departure, ''Engadget'' had 14 million unique visitors. Vox Media overall doubled its unique visitors to about 15 million during the last half of 2012. ''The Verge'' had 12 former Engadget staffers working with Topolsky at the time of launch. It hired Tom Warren, former Neowin editor-in-chief and WinRumors blogger, as their new United Kingdom based senior editor. In 2013, ''The Verge'' launched a new science section, ''Verge Science'', with former ''

Wired Wired may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Wired'' (Jeff Beck album), 1976 * ''Wired'' (Hugh Cornwell album), 1993 * ''Wired'' (Mallory Knox album), 2017 * "Wired", a song by Prism from their album '' Beat Street'' * "Wired ...

'' editor Katie Drummond leading the effort. Patel replaced Topolsky as editor-in-chief in mid-2014. Journalist Walt Mossberg joined ''The Verge'' editing team after Vox Media acquired ''Recode'' in 2015. By 2016, the website's advertising had shifted from display advertisements, matched with articles' contents, to partnerships and advertisements adjusted to the user.

2016–present

Vox Media revamped ''The Verge'' visual design for its fifth anniversary in November 2016. Its logo featured a modified Penrose triangle, an impossible object. On November 1, ''The Verge'' launched version 3.0 of its news platform, offering a redesigned website along with the new logo. In September 2016, ''The Verge'' fired deputy editor Chris Ziegler after it learned that he had been working for

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

since July. Helen Havlak was promoted to editorial director in mid-2017. In 2017, ''The Verge'' launched "Guidebook" to host technology product reviews. In May 2018, ''Verge Science'' launched a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel, which had more than 638,000 subscribers and 30 million views by January 2019. The channel received more than 5.3 million views in November 2018 alone. As of August 2023, the channel has over 100 million views and 1.15 million subscribers. In March 2022, Dieter Bohn announced his resignation from The Verge in his position of Executive Editor, and that he would be moving to a new position at

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

. ''The Verge'' rebranded and redesigned its website in September 2022 with a sharper, more simplistic logo, more colorful visual design, and new typefaces. Its new home page format resembled a news feed, incorporating external conversations from social media and reporting from other publications. The new format will, in part, reduce aggregation reporting. In December 2024, ''The Verge'' began to

paywall A paywall is a method of restricting access to content (media), content, with a purchase or a subscription business model, paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their website ...

some content behind a subscription service; this offering covers "premium" reports, newsletters, and reviews, as well as fewer advertisements and other features. In a blog post, Patel announced the initial subscription rate as $7 per month or $50 per year. Patel also writes in the post that the reason for moving to a subscription model was for the site to survive an increasingly difficult market for "the kind of rigorous, independent journalism we want to do."

Content

Podcasts

''The Verge'' broadcasts a live weekly

, ''The Vergecast''. The inaugural episode was November 4, 2011. It included a video stream of the hosts. A second weekly podcast was introduced on November 8, 2011. Unlike ''The Vergecast'', ''The Verge Mobile Show'' was primarily focused on mobile phones. ''The Verge'' also launched the weekly podcast ''Ctrl-Walt-Delete'', hosted by Walt Mossberg, in September 2015. ''The Verge'' ''What's Tech'' podcast was named among iTunes's best of 2015. The podcast ''Why'd You Push That Button?'', launched in 2017 and co-hosted by Ashley Carman and Kaitlyn Tiffany, received a Podcast Award in the "This Week in Tech Technology Category" in 2018. Editor-in-chief Nilay Patel hosts a weekly interview podcast called Decoder. On February 8, 2024, Patel announced Decoder would now do two episodes per week.

Video content

''On The Verge''

On August 6, 2011, in an interview with the firm Edelman, ''The Verge'' co-founder Marty Moe announced it was launching ''The Verge Show'', a web television series. After its launch, the show was named ''On The Verge''. The first episode was recorded on Monday, November 14, 2011, with guest Matias Duarte. The show is a technology news entertainment show, and its format is similar to that of a

late-night talk show A late-night talk show is a genre of talk show, originating in the American Media, United States. It is generally structured around humorous monologues about the day's news, guest interviews, comedy sketches and music performances. It is charact ...

, but it is broadcast over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

, not on

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

. The show's first episode was released on November 15, 2011. Ten episodes of ''On The Verge'' were broadcast, with the most recent episode going out on November 10, 2012. On May 24, 2013, it was announced that the show would return under a new weekly format, alongside a new logo and theme tune.

PC Build guide controversy

In September 2018, ''The Verge'' published the article "How to Build a Custom PC for Editing, Gaming or Coding" with a companion YouTube video entitled "How we Built a $2000 Custom Gaming PC". The video was criticized for containing errors on almost every step presented by its host, Stefan Etienne, such as applying an unnecessary amount of thermal paste onto the processor as opposed to a small amount. An online harassment campaign against Etienne ensued. In February 2019, lawyers from ''The Verge'' parent company

filed a

DMCA The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or ...

takedown notice, requesting that YouTube remove videos critical of ''The Verge''s video, alleging copyright infringement. YouTube took down two of the videos, uploaded by YouTube channels BitWit and ReviewTechUSA, while applying a copyright "strike" to these two channels. YouTube later reinstated the two videos and retracted the copyright "strikes" after a request from ''Verge'' editor Nilay Patel, although Patel acknowledged that he agreed with the legal argument that led to their removal. Timothy B. Lee of ''

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

'' described this controversy as an example of the

Streisand effect The Streisand effect is an unintended consequences, unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or Censorship, censor information, where the effort instead increases public awareness of the information. The term was coined in 2005 by ...

, saying that while law regarding

fair use Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...

is unclear regarding this type of situation, "the one legal precedent ... suggests ... that this kind of video is solidly within the bounds of copyright's fair use doctrine." Nearly three years after the erroneous build, PC builder and YouTuber Linus Sebastian collaborated with Etienne in a video entitled "Fixing the Verge PC build". In the video, Etienne admits not being an experienced builder when he assembled the PC, having built only four computers at that point, with ''The Verge'' build being his first on camera. Etienne said before the video went live, ''The Verge'' was unwilling to hear from him to address what he saw were editing issues, insisting that the video be uploaded regardless.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Verge American technology news websites Technology blogs Computing websites Internet properties established in 2011 Streaming television in the United States Mass media in New York City Podcasting companies Video blogs Vox Media