Chowhound Becomes CNet

CNet recently made a very smart acquisition called Chowhound. I had somehow missed this acquisition, and Rafat Ali did not report it on Paidcontent.org, so I guess he missed it too.

Chowhound is a grassroots community for serious foodies, and my friend Leslie Huang has helped them with their accounting for a while. It has been a very, very difficult business to run, and as you will read in the interview below with Jim Leff, the founder, they have been running this operation in the red for about 9 years.

Some statistics:

Alexa Rank: 4,499 .
Reach per Million Users: 120 .
Unique Monthly Visitors: 800,000 .
Impressive numbers?

Listen to this: Zagat’s Alexa rank is 5,255, which means Chowhound is more popular than Zagat.

I have to say, I am thrilled to see this outcome for them. Over the years, Leslie has kept us entertained with new restaurant ideas that she garnered from Chowhound, and many of them were absolutely awesome, unique adventures. Sam Lok, a hole in the wall on Jackson Street, comes to mind as one that was so off-beat and authentic, that it drove my Chinese friend, Joey, visiting from Boston over New Years a few years back, into fits of ecstasy!

Here is an interview with Jim Leff, the founder. I had the pleasure of meeting him once at a Chowhound dinner in Chinatown, San Francisco some years back.

Well, congratulations, Jim, well done!