History[edit]

Salon was created by former San Francisco Examiner staff who had departed the newspaper
seeking to explore the potential of the Web,[18] especially in the wake of the newspaper strike that
had occurred in November 1994.[19] The magazine was founded by The Examiner's former arts and
features editor David Talbot[18] and launched in November 1995. In its early days, readers noticed a
specifically Northern California flavor. In an interview in 1996, Talbot agreed: "'We swim in the soup
of San Francisco. There are a lot of odd fish we've plucked out of the Bay here, and it gives us some
of that Left Coast, Weird Coast style.'"[20] Time magazine named it one of the "Best Web Site of
1996".[21]
Salon purchased the virtual community The WELL in April 1999, and made its initial public
offering (IPO) of Salon.com on the NASDAQ stock exchange on June 22 of that
year.[22] Subsequently, for the month October, 1999, Nielsen/NetRatings reported that Salon had over
2 million users.[23]
Salon Premium, a pay-to-view (online) content subscription was introduced on April 25, 2001. The
service signed over 130,000 subscribers and staved off discontinuation of services. However, less
than two years later, in November 2002, the company announced it had accumulated cash and non-
cash losses of $80 million, and by February 2003 it was having difficulty paying its rent, and made
an appeal for donations to keep the company running.