Disney Quietly Shut Down Babble, the Parenting Blog It Once Acquired For $40 Million

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Babble, a parenting blog that Disney acquired reportedly for about $40 million to help it target hipster parents, quietly ceased publishing in the middle of December, TechCrunch has learned. 'For everything there is a season, and after more than a decade of serving as a community and resource for parents, Babble will be saying goodbye,' reads a post from the site's editors. 'To all the moms, dads, family, friends, writers, and readers who supported us -- thank you. We are so grateful for the time spent sharing your stories and your lives, through all the ups and downs of raising tiny humans.'

When Disney acquired Babble -- originally spun out from a (now-defunct) dating website called Nerve.com -- in 2011, it was part of a bigger push at the media giant to built up a stock of content properties to target younger parents, the kind that turn to online media for parenting advice and inspiration. The idea was that Disney would populate the site with lots of evergreen content aimed at savvy middle class parents -- recent articles included a post on soft-serve pickle-flavored ice cream and kids nailing 80s-style Halloween costumes -- to help it build a connection to these consumers that would lead, over time, to trusting and using and exposing kids to other Disney products as they grew up. But times have changed. The Disney Interactive Media Group that housed Babble doesn't exist as such anymore -- and Babble's two founders, Rufus Griscom and Alicia Volkman, moved on years ago from Disney.

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