About.com is adding a weight-loss site to its portfolio. The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT) announced this morning that it has acquired Calorie-Count.com from AeroDiet.com. No terms are being disclosed. Founded in 2003, the site, which includes various weight-tracking tools, had 464,108 users in August, producing 24 million pages views. (I think that works out to about 52 page views per unique.) Those numbers come from internal data, which About says also shows an annual growth rate of more than 125 percent. Founders Erik Fantasia and Igor Lebovic are joining About and will report to Marjorie Martin, GM, About.com Health. Release.
-- Calorie-Count.com already has been added to the About.com community. The site is now designated as calorie-Count from About.com and links to About.com health & fitness, weight loss and exercise areas are prominently displayed. When I clicked on, a front-page message said 2,491 “calorie counters” were online, including 693 members, and that 227, 253 accounts had been created since February 2005.
Update: Just got off the phone with About CEO Scott Meyer,who explained that Calorie-Count sits between two of the company’s “most key channels”—the fourth-largest food channel on the web and the second-largest health channel. About has licensed other tools for use directly on About but Meyer said this time “we felt it was important to own the asset versus licensing it from a partner.” Calorie-Count comes out fairly high on Google (NSDQ: GOOG) searches but Meyer says referrals by friends drives much of the use so Putting it on About should provide a boost. He wouldn’t say how the company arrived at a value for the site.