Gina Trapani founded
Lifehacker and was the site's sole blogger until September 2005, when two associate editors joined her, Erica Sadun and D. Keith Robinson. Other former associate editors include Wendy Boswell, Rick Broida, Jason Fitzpatrick, Kevin Purdy, and Jackson West. Former contributing editors include The
How-To Geek and Tamar Weinberg.
Lifehacker launched in January 2005 with an exclusive sponsorship by
Sony. The highly publicized ad campaign was rumored to have cost $75,000 for three months. Lifehacker Australia launched in 2007, and Lifehacker Japan launched in 2008. Since its founding, a variety of tech-oriented advertisers have appeared on the site.
Lifehacker's frequent guest posts have included articles by Joe Anderson,
Eszter Hargittai,
Matt Haughey,
Meg Hourihan, and
Jeff Jarvis. On 16 January 2009, Trapani resigned as
Lifehackers lead editor and Adam Pash assumed the position. On 7 February 2011,
Lifehacker's website was
redesigned with a cleaner, yet polarizing layout that led to readership declines. On 15 April 2013,
Lifehacker redesigned their site again to match the other newly redesigned Gawker sites like
Kotaku. On 7 January 2013, Adam Pash left
Lifehacker for a new
startup, and Whitson Gordon became the new editor-in-chief. On 1 January 2016, Whitson Gordon left Lifehacker for another popular technology website, How-To Geek, replacing editor-in-chief Lowell Heddings. In his January 2016 announcement, Gordon confirmed that Alan Henry would take over as the interim editor pending interviewing processes. Henry became the new editor-in-chief on 1 February 2016. On 3 February 2017, Henry left his position at
Lifehacker. He later wrote for
The New York Times. On 28 February 2017,
Melissa Kirsch became the editor-in-chief. Alice Bradley was named editor-in-chief in June 2020 but left in March 2021. Former deputy editor Jordan Calhoun succeeded her as editor-in-chief.
Lifehacker was one of six websites that was purchased by
Univision Communications in its acquisition of Gawker Media in August 2016. On 13 March 2023, it was announced that
Lifehacker had been sold from
G/O Media to
Ziff Davis. In November 2023, as part of a brand refocus after the acquisition,
Lifehacker updated with a new logo, a new site layout, and migration away from the Kinja platform. In July 2024, it was reported that Lifehacker Australia would shut down amid a restructuring at third-party publisher
Pedestrian Group. ==Accolades==