The Verge

''The Verge'' is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.

The website launched on November 1, 2011, and uses Vox Media's proprietary multimedia publishing platform Chorus. In 2014, Nilay Patel was named editor-in-chief and Dieter Bohn executive editor; Helen Havlak was named editorial director in 2017. ''The Verge'' won five Webby Awards 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''s writers, editors, and product developers, including editor-in-chief 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'', 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. Jim Bankoff of ''SB Nation'' saw an overlap in the two sites' demographics and an opportunity to expand ''SB Nation'' 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 and CEO of Vox Media (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 (CMS), Chorus, was led by Trei Brundrett, who later became the chief operating officer 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'' 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. In 2013, ''The Verge'' launched a new science section, ''Verge Science'', with former ''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 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 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.

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.

''The Verge'' redesigned its user experience in September 2022 with an edgier logo and more colorful visual design. Its new home page format resembled a Twitter feed, incorporating external conversations from social media and reporting from other publications. The new format will, in part, reduce aggregation reporting.

Content

Podcasts

''The Verge'' broadcasts a live weekly podcast, ''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 an interview podcast called Decoder.

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, but it is broadcast over the Internet, not on television. 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.

Other video co