Microsoft is looking to sell off Slate, their online news/culture/politics magazine after eight years of publication. Slate has about five million readers every month, but has never really made a profit until reporting a modest income in Q1 2004.
Microsoft is already in talks with about five or six potential buyers, and ownership could change hands within the next few weeks.
Slate was launched in 1996 and has evolved alongside the internet, and today it carries advertising and is branded with Microsoft’s MSN identity. A condition of sale is that Slate remains affiliated with MSN – which itself posted its first profit in the first quarter of this year.