Jim Bankoff, the fomer AOL exec responsible for buying Engadget for the Internet portal, has grabbed eight staffers who had left the huge tech site amid tensions recently, in order to start a new gadget content property.
The site, which is still unnamed, will debut sometime in the fall, as part of content expansion at the Washington, D.C. sports news site SB Nation, which is helmed by Bankoff.
The new site will be run by former Engadget editor-in-chief Josh Topolsky, as well as managing editor Nilay Patel. Also included in the tech-exodus
techxodus?are former Engadget staffers Paul Miller, Joanna Stern, Ross Miller, Chris Ziegler, Justin Glow and Dan Chilton.
All of the above had left Engadget in a
series of departures of late, all due to increasing unhappiness with AOLs management and content strategy.
Paul Miller and Ross Miller, who are not related, both stated publicly that they did not like the editorial direction AOL was going in, especially a controversial content strategy document titled The AOL Way.
New AOL content head Arianna Huffington has shifted more toward a more journalistic path, but the talent bleed began before AOLs $315 million purchase of the Huffington Post.
Sources said that while the new SB Nation gadget site will be similar in pace and topic, it wil be broader than Engadget.
The move is an interesting one for SB Nation, which completed a
$10.5 million Series C round, led by Khosla Ventures, in the fall. It had already raised about $13 million in total venture funding from Accel Partners, Allen & Company and Comcast Interactive Capital, as well as from angel investors such as Ted Leonsis and others in Silicon Valley.
In related news, also restarting tomorrow will be a popular gadget podcast that Topolsky, Patel and Paul Miller had done for Engadget
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