The Inquisitr » blog networks

Gawker Media Launches Video Site Gawker.TV

Duncan Riley — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:20:10 +0000

You know times are on the up when Nick Denton starts launching new blogs instead of flogging them off or shuttering them, and today Gawker Media turned the tide of the last 18 months with a new blog Gawker.TV.

Gawker TV offers a range of videos from the Gawker network, as well as content from around the web. According to the official pitch:

Amazingly cheesy 80’s and 90’s music videos, the best comedy sketches in existence, a daily wrap-up of what we’ll be watching every night, cute animal videos to make you smile, the best in fail videos, weekly how-to’s on a variety of subjects, wrap-ups of the week in video, the web shows that you should be watching, and always leaving you with a daily moment of WTF.

Gawker video producer Richard Blakeley is leading the site alongside Richard Blakeley and Whitney Jefferson.

As an add on for the Gawker network it will probably do well (nothing like an epic dose of leverage to help a new site along) although at the same time the content isn’t anything we haven’t seen on thousands of similar sites before.

Mashable signs a deal with CNN

Duncan Riley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:08:01 +0000

In a decent than syndicating your posts deal, Mashable announced yesterday that they’ve signed a deal with CNN to link to their posts from the CNN Tech page.

In a serious bout of new speak, Mashable’s founder (and good guy) Pete Cashmore said in a post that “We’re in the middle of an exciting transition as social media and the mainstream begin to overlap in all sorts of interesting ways: this underlines our belief that social media isn’t some marketing fad, but rather a fundamental change to the way we consume and interact with content. We’ve been covering this transition for four years, from the rise of social networking to the birth of the “social media” movement as people began to use these tools of personal connection to pass content around the web.”

If I didn’t make it clear already, as much as I love Pete, that quote is pure waffle.

The deal with CNN positions Mashable to pull massively clear of their main rival TechCrunch on a page view basis, having overtaken the old Michael Arrington guard in April this year.

The Next Web Goes Supernova With 10 New Sites

Duncan Riley — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 15:00:58 +0000

The Next Web technology blog has today launched a massive expansion of its line-up with 10 new blogs covering tech across Europe and beyond.

The Next Web launches eight international blogs in local languages for France, Russia, South Korea, The Netherlands, Argentina, Turkey, Romania and Germany. Each local blog has at least one time full editor to write about local tech stories, and the sites will also translate global stories for a local audience.

On top of the eight international blogs, The Next Web is launching two new hubs: The Next Web Europe and The Next Web Asia. Both are devoted to startups, news and internet culture in each region and will be offered in English.

The Next Web blog was a spinoff from the successful conferences on the same name and launched in January 2008. Giving a uniquely European take on tech news, the site did 600,000 uniques in September 2009. We’re also proud to note that Zee, who use to write for us occasionally here is now an editor at The Next Web, and we love reading his stuff, even if he does have an odd TC/TM fetish

The links for the new sites:

http://thenextweb.com/fr – France
http://thenextweb.com/ru – Russia
http://thenextweb.com/kr – South Korea
http://thenextweb.com/nl – The Netherlands
http://thenextweb.com/ar – Argentina
http://thenextweb.com/tr – Turkey
http://thenextweb.com/ro – Romania
http://thenextweb.com/de – Germany

First 2 Continent Hubs

http://thenextweb.com/asia
http://thenextweb.com/europe

Report: PaidContent may come on the market as Guardian looks to raise cash

Duncan Riley — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:16:36 +0000

ContentNext, the company behind tech and media blog PaidContent may come on the market as parent company Guardian News and Media looks to cut costs and raise money.

The unconfirmed report at Daily Finance notes that Guardian News and Media “is losing so much money — £100,000 ($162,000) per day — that it may be forced to sell assets to raise cash, industry sources say. One property that could be in play is ContentNext, the U.S.-based web publisher of PaidContent.org.”

WebMediaBrands is mentioned as a possible buyer, with CEO Alan Meckler saying “I would certainly be interested in discussing it.”

It’s hard to envisage that PaidContent is cash flow negative, so selling it off is hardly going to fix long term cash flow at the Guardian. If things are as desperate as suggested though, non-core assets are usually the first to go, and ContentNext would be the top of that list. The sale price would be anyone’s guess: the company was acquired for $30 million in July 2008, right before the global financial crisis, so the price had a premium built in that might be difficult to obtain in a fire sale today.

Eric Dane sues Gawker over McSteamy sex tape

Duncan Riley — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:27:51 +0000

Actor Eric Dane has filled suit against Nick Denton’s Gawker Media over Gawker’s publication of the now infamous
“McSteamy” sex tape.

According to TMZ, “Dane and and [partner Rebecca] Gayheart filed the lawsuit today in L.A. County Superior Court, claiming Gawker.com had not only unlawfully posted almost 4 minutes of the private video that was shot behind closed doors, but “maliciously” distributed the video and included nude shots of the fabulous threesome — the third wheel was former beauty queen Kari Ann Peniche.”

The pair are asking for “more than $1 million in damages” and for the video to be removed from Gawker.

Nick Denton’s only response has been on Twitter, saying that “To quote the great Marty Singer — Eric Dane’s lawyer — if you don’t want a sex tape on the internet, ‘don’t make one!’”

SB Nation relaunches front page as real time aggregator, signs Fanhouse deal

Duncan Riley — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:28:53 +0000

Sports blog network SB Nation has relaunched its front page as a real time sports news aggregator, and has announced a deal with the AOL owned Fanhouse sports news network.

The new front page of SB Nation highlights stories from across the extensive SB Nation blog network, and combines these with external links to other sports properties in a move that’s part meme tracker, part real-time play. CEO Jim Bankoff told PaidContent that they now calls SB Nation “national sports site” and that some of the changes add a “human touch” that helps make the content “much more valuable than a robotic aggregator.”

The deal with Fanhouse sees SBNation added a feed from Fanhouse to give it more link love, while Fanhouse is going to add SBNation stories to its mix “to add local coverage to its national spin.”

The new look and feature set is a marked step up for SB Nation from its previous role as a catch all for its blog network, and sports fans will enjoy the mix.

Yardbarker sports blog network raises new round of $1.5 million

Duncan Riley — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 03:25:51 +0000

Sports blog and advertising network Yardbarker has raised $1.5 million in a round that included previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Baseline Ventures and Labrador Ventures.

YardBacker is the Glam Media of the sports blogging scene, running both their own blogs and aggregation tools and selling advertising across other sites. As well as having over 600 blogs in their network, Yardbarker also sells advertising for Fark.com.

The new cash injection is the third round for Yardbarker, taking the total investment in the company to just over $14 million in three rounds. PaidContent notes that Yardbarker isn’t commenting publicly on the new round.

Yardbarker was founded in March 2006 by Jack and Jeff Kloster, Pete Vlastelica and Mark Johns and is based in San Francisco.

Exclusive: b5media selling off business blogs

Duncan Riley — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 23:30:45 +0000

Canadian blog network b5media is selling off its business blogs, and possibly its travel blogs (see below) as part of a restructure under new CEO Elaine Kunda.

According to sources familiar with the matter, b5media is shopping the blogs privately to other blog networks and potential buyers. Private sales are primarily used to ensure a smooth transition to a new owner outside of the public eye.

No one will go on the record, and we’re also not sure exactly how b5media is structuring the sale. The b5media business blog network was rolled into the one uber-blog under the name Bizzia earlier this year, and the travel blogs reside under the Blisstree site. It would be difficult to split the blogs out and sell them individually; I’d think Bizzia would be offered as the one site, with the travel blogs either being broken out of Bliss Tree, or they’re not on the market (note I’d couldn’t confirm the travel sale with a second source, only the business sale.)

The sale doesn’t come as a huge surprise for the network given the new management. CEO Elaine Kunda’s previous role at ZipLocal saw similar cost cutting before an eventual sale, something we noted when she took the position late July.

The Bizzia/ b5media business blogs have been the least successful vertical for the company, with Bizzia.com only managing to come in at 31,000 on Alexa. Notably as of 4pm Pacific August 19, there has been very little activity on the site in recent times, suggesting that some writers may have been let go.

We’ve asked b5media for comment and will update the post if we receive it.

Update: a spokesperson for b5media responded via email saying that the story was “unsubstantiated,” which by that I can only presume means they’re not going to confirm it.

Correction: the original post mentioned August 20, when the post went up August 19; my laptop time set to US Pacific (I’m in Seattle as I write this) however Calendar still on Australian Eastern. Apologies for the confusion.

My standard disclosure: I was a founder of b5media, but have had nothing to do with the company since November 2006.

Shiny Media saga ends with split in assets

Duncan Riley — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 03:14:11 +0000

The assets of UK blog network Shiny Media have been split between the company’s founders and investor Brightstation, finally putting an end to a messy ending.

The former Shiny Media fashion blogs Catwalk Queen, Kiss and Make Up, Bag Lady, Shoewawa, Crafty Crafty, Dollymix, Trashionista, Shiny Gloss, Star Trip and Nollie have gone to Aigua Media Limited, a fully owned subsidiary of Brightstation. The remaining blogs are now owned by Shiny Digital Ltd, a new company made up of Shiny Media’s founders.

It’s not clear from the report at Journalism.co.uk whether the original Shiny Media company will now be wound up due to it no longer having any assets, but you’d presume this would be the case.

The split of the assets is recent, with all sites still appearing to be branded as Shiny Media sites, although Aigua Media does have a page up. None of the sites we visited, including the masthead and original Shiny Shiny blog have been updated since July 16, so it’s not clear whether all titles will be revived, or even when.

The odd thing, or maybe sad thing to note about the whole Shiny Media saga is that the whole thing would appear to be nothing more than a dispute between the company and its investors. Despite having pushed the founders out and bringing in their own people, Brightstation obviously wanted more, and were willing to gut the company to get it. One thing is for sure: I don’t think there will be a lot of bloggers out there today who would go anywhere near Brightstation in the future, either as a potential investor or employer.

Food blog network FoodBuzz raises $750,000

Duncan Riley — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:39:30 +0000

San Francisco based food blog network FoodBuzz has raised $750,000 in a proposed round of $1.25 million, according to an SEC filing lodged by the company August 7.

FoodBuzz is a blog network similar to Glam Media in that it primarily aggregates content from other sites, and offers advertising to network blogs. FoodBuzz claims to “aggregate, organize and curate more than 1 Million blog posts from 10,000 food blogs worldwide.”

The FoodBuzz network does 15.7 million visits a month on 7.6 millon uniques according to direct measure stats at Quantcast. Advertisers include Quaker, Contadina and Kikkoman.

There’s not a lot of public information available on the company, and Paid Content (who discovered the round) couldn’t find any extra info either. The stats though are impressive, and despite plenty of competition the vertical is one of the few spaces that may have survived the recession well; various reports suggest that with less money to spend, there has been a boom in home cooking, and FoodBuzz’s blogs would cater well to that demand.

Gizmodo, Gawker, i0, Jezebel, Consumerist up and down all day

Kim LaCapria — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 23:11:33 +0000

Gawker media blogs and Consumerist have been experiencing intermittent outages today.

“Server issues” is being bandied about as a cause- Consumerist, a blog that was sold by Gawker Media in 2008, indicated as such at around 11:30am EST and since that post the blog has been unusually quiet all day. Gawker also addressed the issue at 2:47pm with a brief post entitled “If You Can Read This Post, You’re One of the Lucky Few.”

It always seems pretty pointless to put up a post on a website to say that that site’s down. But to state the obvious: all Gawker Media sites are having really bad server problems today. It’s not just you.

In addition to Gizmodo, Gawker, i0, Jezebel, and Consumerist; Defamer, Deadspin, Jalopnik, Fleshbot, and Kotaku are also having connectivity issues. Whatever the cause may be, here’s to hoping it gets fixed soon. In the absence of many of my favorite blogs I’ve cleaned a few things and returned some long-waiting e-mails and bring back my celebrity gossip, damnit! It feels like one of those summer days where everyone else ran off to the beach and you’re the only one in the office. Bummer.

b5media gets a new CEO

Duncan Riley — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 00:46:58 +0000

Jeremy Wright, the founding CEO of blog network b5media has left the position after three years in place of Elaine Kunda.

Investor John Albright said in a statement that “Elaine is exactly the right leader for b5media, with her strong leadership and proven ability to lead top performing teams. We look forward to continuing our investment in b5media as they continue to build on their position as a leading online media company.”

Kunda comes to the position having previously led Ziplocal and worked with a number of newspapers. Her full resume (literally) is on Wikipedia here.

Wright said in a post on his personal blog that he was leaving due to burn out:

I did it because I was tired, burnt out and recognized that my life wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I was working too much, unhappy at home, unhappy at work and just felt completely blah. Basically I did it because a friend asked me what I wanted my life to be… It was then that I realized not only was I unhappy, but that I had no idea what I wanted my life to be.

Wright said that he remains on the b5media board but will have no day to day role with the company, and instead will pursue consulting work through his new company Netmobs.

(via The Blog Herald. Post disclosure here.)

Shiny Media Update: story takes a colorful turn

Duncan Riley — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 00:46:50 +0000

As we reported early this morning, blog network Shiny Media has been placed into administration, but the story around the closure of the UK’s largest blog network is starting to become colorful.

The company itself is yet to officially confirm the administration, however co-founder Katie Lee (who was forced out of Shiny in February but remains a shareholder) confirmed the story on Twitter, saying in a tweet that “Looks like everyone knows Shiny Media has gone into administration. Still not entirely sure what’s going on tbh. Sorry for all writers.” Anna Leach who writes for the company’s ShinyShiny blog tweeted that “ahem. Shiny Shiny is *sob* on hold, while parent company shiny media sorts itself out. Sorry darlings! hope to be back soon.”

Piecing together the story prior to the administration has been difficult. We know Shiny started to get into trouble last year, however the company had, by its own accounts turned a corner. It was presumed that Shiny banked $4.5 million in funding in 2007, because that’s what Shiny said in their own media, but that funding may never have existed, or may have been significantly less than the figure reported. Katie Lee on Twitter again: “Just to clarify, because it’s always bugged me, Bright Station did not put $4.5m into Shiny Media.”

But it gets even more bizarre than a phantom round of funding. Katie Lee: “It was incorrectly reported in the press and we were told to stick with the story. Was mortified.” It wasn’t incorrectly reported in the press, because the press reported on what Shiny said at the time…and still says on their corporate blog.

We’ve dug through the archives and related content and it would appear almost certain that Bright Station invested in Shiny…but at an amount lower $4.5 million. What doesn’t make sense is that Bright Station itself never attempted to correct the record either: Bright Station’s founders were interviewed in the Time in January 2007, a piece that includes the $4.5 million figure.

The current status of the company is also up in the air going forward. Lee writes that “my fellow co-founders, Chris Price and Ashley Norris. Don’t know who administrators were. All presented as fait accompli” suggesting that the administration was imposed by Bright Station. But then we get this: “As far as I know, Shiny Media has already been bought [before I even knew it had gone into administration]. So hopefully some jobs OK.” It’s been sold then placed into administration doesn’t make a lot of sense. Shiny Media’s staff aren’t waiting around to find out: Lee again “Shiny Media Staff – looking for a job, please contact me ASAP!”

Shiny Media goes into administration

Duncan Riley — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:38:57 +0000

The UK’s largest and best known blog network Shiny Media has gone into administration with the company ceasing to trade.

Andy Merrett, who (use to write) for Shiny Media broke the story at The Blog Herald, writting that “Access to Movable Type, on which most of Shiny Media’s blogs run, was lost/removed yesterday” although there has been no official announcement yet.

A quick glance through Shiny Media’s range of blogs would back up the claim: the most recent posts on any of the blogs is dated July 19 (it’s July 21 as I type this) with many not having been updated since since July 16.

Shiny launched in 2004 in the first great wave of blog networks, and for memory was the first of its type in the United Kingdom. Despite raising $4.5 million in 2007, the company fell on harder times with problems first appearing last year when a number of sites were shut and staff put off. Shiny had though appeared to have turned a corner, and had started launching new sites and hiring again.

Shiny Media was always a hard ask: the network primarily had a UK focus for much of its existence, limiting its appeal in North America, a market over 10x as large. Shiny also went wide on content and sites, a typical model in the early days that has passed its used by date: most other networks consolidated titles or cut where necessary. Shiny was trying to run sports blogs alongside beauty and gadget blogs, and I know from experience that it’s not an easy thing to do.

(thx to Franky for the tip)

Surviving the recession: blog networks raise good money in 2009

Duncan Riley — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:44:24 +0000

Despite tough economic times and a drop in venture capital funding in web companies, blog networks and their derivatives have received strong funding in 2009 and investment in the sector would appear to be accelerating.

Funding for blog networks and similar entities has previously tended to be small scale investments but recent rounds show an increasing interest in content as a business model. For the sake of this post content plays that might not immediately be labeled blog networks are counted, for example sites like Associated Content and Examiner.com run an uber-blog model, as does The Huffington Post. The core difference is that where the traditional blog network included multiple blogs, the uber-blog model revolves around a single destination/ brand with many sub-blogs or content streams.

Here’s a few highlights from the year so far: BuzzMedia ($12.5 million), Associated Content ($6 million), Business Insider ($5 million), Sugar Inc ($16 million), High Gear Media ($5.5 million) and SB Nation ($8 million)…and that’s just the ones we can recall on short notice. Examiner.com is backed by the Clarity Media Group (a subsidiary of The Anschutz Company) so any funding is off the books, and others attract private investment. Even going back to late last year you can also add GigaOmni Media with $4.5 million in October 2008 and the Huffington Post with a cool $25 million in December 2008.

I spoke with a source who was involved with one recent deal, and he told me that content is being seen now as a safer investment than untried Web 2.0 product startups. He explained that online content providers such as blog networks had proven business models and that the sector continues to grow as the broader media industry struggles.

It does help that in 2009 that many have tried and succeeded before hand. The Huffington Post (rightly or wrongly) is often held up as the shining light of what is possible, but a range of blogs beneath have also proved that the sector is a sound investment. At the height of the Web 2.0 boom, content plays were decidedly unsexy and struggled to attract serious funding, but how many funded content plays are still going today vs the sea of Web 2.0 product startups that failed sometimes as quickly as a year from launching.

The blog network/ online content market is still small fry compared to some of the funding being spent in social networking startups, but it is a sector that continues to grow while others have declined. With newspapers going out of business, and the reemergence of hyper-local in a more sustainable form, my prediction is that VC investment in the sector will continue to grow for at least the next 2-3 years.

More money for blogs: SB Nation raises $8 million new round

Duncan Riley — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:30:05 +0000

SB Nation, the sports blog network founded in 2003 by DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas has raised $8 million in a round led by Comcast Interactive Capital (CIC) that also included earlier investor Accel Partners.

SB Nation has over 200 blogs dedicated to American sports team and is built and run on the same custom platform used on DailyKos. The network 3.5 million visitors a month according to a direct measure at Quantcast, although page views are unknown.

CEO Jim Bankoff said in a statement that the company would use the money to :grow our investment in developing new and compelling ways for the very best authors to inform and connect with the audiences that share their passions.”

The new round takes total funding for SB Nation to $13 million.

Buzz Media signs OK Magazine deal

Duncan Riley — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:00:17 +0000

Celebrity blog network Buzz Media has signed a strategic partnership deal with OK! Magazine.

Under the deal OK! Magazine has relaunched OKmagazine.com as a member of Buzz Media’s Celebuzz network. Both companies will revenue share on the site and OK! Magazine will share content with the network.

The deal is another big one for Buzz Media, the blog network that has not only bought up a range of celebrity blogs, but also provides blogs for celebrities themselves, including Kim Kardashian, Mischa Barton and others.

Previous Buzz Media coverage here.

(via Paid Content)

Car blog network High Gear Media takes $5.5 Million Series B

Duncan Riley — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 00:31:04 +0000

Car blog network High Gear Media has taken $5.5 million Series B in a round led by DAG Ventures with existing investors Accel Partners and Greylock Partners also participating.

High Gear Media operates 38 car themed blogs including sites such as TheCarConnection.com, GreenCarReports.com, AllCarsElectric.com and AllAboutPrius.com. According to Quantcast the network does around 3.3 million page views a month on 1 million uniques.

The company makes most of its money through content syndication deals, with partners including Yahoo! Autos, HuffingtonPost.com, FoxNews.com, NBCAutoShow.com, Business Insider, Oodle, The San Francisco Chronicle and Glam Media.

The company said it would use the new round further expansion of their technology platform and strategic acquisitions. Total funding to date is $12 million.

Sweet: Sugar Inc raises $16 million Series C

Duncan Riley — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:57:39 +0000

Sugar Inc, the company behind a range of blogs including the popular celeb site PopSugar has raised $16 million Series C in a round funded by Sequoia.

Along withe funding, Sugar announced that it had acquired video shopping site Shopflick.com, and is entering the video business with a new division Sugar Digital Entertainment (SDE). Heading SDE is David Grant, former President of Fox TV Studios, Exec VP of the FOX Network and founder and CEO of Shopflick.com.

The company also said that it had used part of the new round to acquire shares held by NBC. Total funding for Sugar is now approx. $31 million.

The company, built on top of the original PopSugar celeb blog, describes itself today as an “online media network” which while accurate, covers for a more raw description: Sugar is a blog network, with some shopping and other things thrown in for good measure. As much as the round is nothing short of staggering, it’s also a sign that content plays have survived the recession well.

Sugar Inc

Business Insider raises new round of $5 million

Duncan Riley — Fri, 22 May 2009 00:24:12 +0000

Business Insider, the Henry Blodget founded multi-channel blog previously known as Silicon Alley Insider has raised a third round believed to be around $5 million.

According to Paid Content, the new investors were Allen & Company LLC, Marc Andreessen, Jim Friedlich of Zelnick Media, and Matt Luckett of Balestra Capital, along with a range of existing investors.

Starting originally with Silicon Alley Insider, the Business Insider network expanded into several stand alone blog properties, until being consolidated under the Business Insider brand in February 2009. Blodget tells Paid Content the site is doing 8 million page views a month, a figure that would place it level with, or ahead of tech industry blog leaders TechCrunch and Mashable.

It’s not clear from reports what Blodget will be doing with the new investment.