I am so, so sad. I really do not know what I am going to do. It is the end of an era. “Daily Candy” an online email newsletter is closing down as of April 4. Subscribers (I being one of them) were notified last Friday via email. They had a dedicated and loyal fan base.
Daily Candy is an online newsletter that started 14 years ago (2000) by Dany Levy. It started in New York, as an email newsletter about fashion and the insider scoop. I, myself, signed up for Daily Candy because I lived in Boston at the time and wanted to keep up with what was happening in New York. Gradually more cities were added. While Portland never made it on the Daily Candy map, I still kept up with their Daily Candy Seattle, and Daily Candy Everywhere newsletters.
Daily Candy was profitable in their first year. Almost unheard for an email newsletter at that time of the Internet. In 2008, Daily Candy was sold to Comcast for $125 million. Over the years, I learned about new movies, TV shows, books, beauty products, recipes, fitness ideas, you name it, from my Daily Candy emails. It makes me wonder if Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks have made some online email newsletters a blast from the past? Are we so used to having content so immediate that when we see email newsletters in our inbox we no longer pay attention?
It is hard to say. Or maybe for a company the size of Comcast, they were not making enough money to be considered part of their portfolio. Local, creative, insider content would cater to a specific group of users. Of course advertising is what keeps companies such as Daily Candy afloat. If users saturated with online advertising begin to tune out banner ads, will that be the end of such companies in the future? Will our purchasing power dictate who can deliver us such customized news?
RIP Daily Candy. You will be missed.
