Tag Archives: Blogging
Business Insider raises $7 million from investors
by Chris Roush
The Business Insider financial and economic news operation has raised $7 million from a group of investors, writes editor and founder Henry Blodget.
Blodget writes, “We’re also thrilled to welcome a new investor, Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), to our team.
“IVP led the round. They are one of the premiere venture firms in the country, with a spectacular track record, and we’re excited to be included in their portfolio. We’re grateful to the IVP team for their interest and confidence in us. We’re also thrilled to have IVP’s Somesh Dash and Todd Chaffee as advisors.
“We’re also grateful to RRE Ventures, Allen & Co., Marc Andreessen, Gordon Crovitz, Ken Lerer, and other of our existing investors for their continued support. Stu Ellman, Jim Robinson, and the rest of the folks at RRE have been instrumental to our success over the past year, and it has been a privilege to have them on the team.
“This round began early this summer, when we decided to explore the possibility of raising another ~$2 million. In the end, we were fortunate enough to have enough interest that we ended up raising ~$7 million. For a company that has operated on a shoe-string for the last four years, this injection has made our bank account look positively massive.”
TechCrunch writer quits after Arrington leaves
by Chris Roush
Diana Samuels of the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal reports that TechCrunch writer Paul Carr has quit because he doesn’t want to work for new editor Erick Schofield.
Samuels writes, “Carr wrote that while TechCrunch’s staffers were “making a stand for the site’s editorial independence” from Huffington Post and AOL content boss Arianna Huffington, Schonfeld ‘cut a side deal with Huffington to guarantee him the top job once Mike was gone.’
“Carr previously wrote that he would quit TechCrunch if Arrington wasn’t given the opportunity to choose his own replacement. Arrington, who founded TechCrunch, announced his resignation from the blog on Monday following a storm of controversy about a new venture fund he is starting, CrunchFund, and potential conflicts of interest with the companies TechCrunch writes about.
“Arrington and TechCrunch CEO Heather Harde likely would have picked Schonfeld as at least an interim editor, Carr wrote, ‘yet when Arianna called, he answered.’
“Carr also quoted a conversation he had with Arrington, in which Arrington said, ‘At the point Erick began negotiating with Arianna instead of standing firm with the rest of us, he became nothing more that Arianna’s pet. All hope for independence with him at the lead became lost.’”
Read more here.
Washington Post to launch economic policy blog featuring Ezra Klein
by Chris Roush
The Washington Post will launch Wonkblog, a new online feature combing reporting and analysis on economic and domestic policy, on Tuesday.
An outgrowth of Ezra Klein’s popular policy column, Wonkblog will provide news updates, interviews and analysis throughout the day with reporting by policy writers Suzy Khimm, Sarah Kliff and Brad Plumer, and continued reporting and commentary by Klein.
“It is abundantly clear that government policy and regulation are critical for businesses and the health of the U.S. economy,” said Raju Narisetti, managing editor of The Post, in a statement. “Wonkblog will build on Ezra’s insightful work on important issues such as healthcare, energy and financial reform.”
In addition to appearing on washingtonpost.com, Wonkblog will have a frequent presence in The Post’s daily business section and in Sunday Business.
“Our goal with Wonkblog is to deliver policy news in an aggressive, engaging and accessible way,” said Klein in a statement. “We’re focused on breaking down the jargon and delivering news that helps link the effects of policy to our readers’ lives. Suzy, Sarah and Brad are already excelling at that task in the posts they’ve penned this past month leading up to the Wonkblog launch.”
Read more here.
AOL decides to terminate Arrington
by Chris Roush
Dan Primack of Fortune is reporting that AOL has decided to terminate TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, who has started a venture capital fund to invest in tech companies.
Primack writes, “Instead, Fortune has learned that AOL executives have decided to terminate Arrington. It is unclear how this will officially occur. Maybe a pink slip. Maybe Arrington submits a (public?) letter of resignation. Maybe Tim Armstrong simply gives Arrington a phone call, and he quickly dashes off a note to TechCrunch employees on his iPad.
“In other words, the ending has been written but much of the final chapter remains blank. This includes the fate of CrunchFund, which still includes that pesky AOL commitment (which it technically could default on, but that would lead to all sorts of other problems).
“It also is important to note that while I’m led to believe this decision is final, AOL has been so scattershot during this past week that any sort of reversal would not shock me (particularly since Arrington likely will be asking for the world, while Huffington will want to offer him a bowl of dust).
“Earlier today, I wrote that the biggest loser in this affair was Arianna Huffington. But perhaps I judged too early. Huffington clearly erred here in okaying a project without fully understanding its public relations consequences, and then quickly backtracking without admitting to having done so. But, at the same time, Huffington now appears to be more influential at AOL than the company’s CEO (both of them were aware of CrunchFund, but Armstrong was far more involved in its formation). And then there is Arrington, who has lost both his job and (likely) his TechCrunch platform. Oh, and AOL has a mess on its hands deciding if Arrington should or shouldn’t participate in next week’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference (assuming he’s even willing to attend).”
Read more here.
Reuters launches Counterparties, a financial news link site
by Chris Roush
Reuters unveiled Tuesday its new website, Counterparties, a linkblog for financial news and commentary, offering a curated look at the day’s big stories.
The site is being edited by Reuters financial blogger Felix Salmon and Ryan McCarthy and the name is taken from the title that Salmon uses on his blog to post links to stories he has read during the day.
Megan Garber of Nieman Lab writes, “‘It’s tags, it’s voice, and it’s my dream of just being completely source-agnostic, just linking out,’ Salmon told me. It’s exploring what voice sounds like in the service of one of the purest forms of information out there: the link. ‘This is, I believe,’ he says, ‘the first mainstream/legacy media website which is just external links.’
“I believe he is right. And that makes Counterparties not just an experiment, but also a hint, if a small one, at the trajectory of wire agencies as they evolve from straight-up ‘content providers’ into…something else. The past few years have seen the AP experimenting with ‘accountability journalism.’ They’ve seen Reuters itself expanding into investigative reporting and commentary and video, news-y and opinion-y and silly. One thing that those experiments have in common is that they emphasize, implicitly, the voices and the personalities and, finally, the brands of the news agencies’ individual journalists. ‘The whole idea here is to have real voice and attitude,’ Salmon says. ‘Basically, the page is entirely built by humans. It’s not some sort of weird technology algorithm. But it’s powered by a weird technology algorithm.’
“Counterparties finds most of its content via the service Percolate, which is similar to Summify except that it includes, in addition to Twitter feeds, RSS feeds. And: Counterparties uses Salmon’s own feeds, the ones that he’s been cultivating for his private use for several years now. ‘Counterparties is based on, literally, my Google Reader list of blogs that I read and my list of people I follow on Twitter,’ Salmon says. Which means that the feeds Percolate scans include those from, say, Salmon’s wife’s friends — ‘not because I have any particular professional interest in what they have to say,’ he notes, but because they’re his friends, too. ‘It’s a very personal thing.’”
Read more here.
Arrington resigns as ME of TechCrunch to run venture capital fund
by Chris Roush
Michael Arrington, the founder and managing editor of the tech news site TechCrunch, has resigned as managing editor of the site so that he can run a venture capital fund that will invest in startup tech companies.
Scott Austin of The Wall Street Journal writes, “‘Mike will run the fund and will continue to write for TechCrunch, but will have no editorial oversight,’ said AOL spokesman Mario Ruiz. Erick Schonfeld, who has served as co-editor in New York, will become interim editor while AOL searches for a replacement for Arrington, Ruiz said.
“It’s not immediately clear the fate of AOL’s venture capital arm, AOL Ventures, which has made recent seed investments in start-ups such as spam-defense company Imperium and price-tracking service Shopobot.
“Arrington’s new fund, called CrunchFund, closed today with $20 million, according to people familiar with the situation. AOL leads the limited partner group, which includes a long roster of venture firms that kicked in $1 million each: Austin Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Greylock Partners, Redpoint Ventures and Sequoia Capital. Several individuals contributed money as well, including Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, general partners at Benchmark Capital, angel investors Ron Conway and Kevin Rose, and Yuri Milner, founder of Russian firm DST Global.
“Arrington’s partner in the fund is Patrick Gallagher, who has been a partner at VantagePoint Capital Partners since 2008.”
Read more here.
Bloomberg loses in attempt to get analyst call case dismissed
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg LP lost a bid to dismiss a lawsuit by Swatch Group AG that accused the news service of secretly recording an earnings conference call with securities analysts and giving a transcript to clients.
Moira Herbst of Reuters writes, “Swatch accused Bloomberg of tapping into its Feb. 8 earnings call and providing a transcript that day to online subscribers, without permission in both cases.
“The world’s largest watchmaker said this occurred after it told listeners at the beginning of the call not to record it for publication or broadcast.
“Swatch sought a court order directing Bloomberg to destroy its copies of the recording and transcript, as well as damages and other remedies for alleged ‘willful’ infringement.
“Bloomberg countered that Swatch had an obligation to be transparent and disclose financial performance information to everyone rather than select analysts.”
Read more here.
WaPo hires three bloggers to work with economics columnist Klein
by Chris Roush
The Washington Post has hired three bloggers to work with Ezra Klein, its popular economics columnist.
Jim Romenesko has the memo from the business news desk announcing the hires. It states:
The Financial staff is thrilled to announce that we’ve hired three talented bloggers to work with Ezra Klein. Stay tuned, because we’ll have more to say about these plans. But in the meantime, please welcome our new colleagues, who all start July 25:
Suzy Khimm, who comes to us from Mother Jones, where she covered Congress, politics and domestic policy. Previously a staff member at The New Republic, she has also contributed to the Economist, Newsweek, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal Asia, the Christian Science Monitor and Los Angeles Times. From 2006-7, Suzy was an associate editor for the English-language Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. She also spent two years in Rio de Janeiro, reporting on urban violence in Brazil’s prisons and shantytowns.
Sarah Kliff, who joins us from Politico, where she covered how federal regulation, Congress and lobbying affect the implementation of health care reform. She also was an author of Politico Pulse, a daily health policy briefing. Prior to Politico, Sarah was a staff writer at Newsweek, reporting on issues at the intersection of health policy and politics. She covered the 2008 election for Newsweek, traveling with Vice President Joe Biden. Sarah is the recipient of reporting fellowships from both the Kaiser Family Foundation and University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. Her writing has appeared in National Geographic, the BBC, Humanities Magazine and St. Louis Magazine.
Brad Plumer, who was previously an associate editor at The New Republic, where he reported on the environment and energy issues and wrote TNR’s green blog, The Vine, for three years. Before that, he was an assistant Web editor at Mother Jones. His work has appeared in Audubon, New York, Foreign Policy, The National and The Journal of Life Sciences.
Read more here.
Norris to blog for Economix
by Chris Roush
Floyd Norris, the chief financial correspondent at The New York Times, is now going to be a featured blogger for its Economix blog.
An item from the Economix editors states, “He was also among the first regular bloggers at The Times, with a blog called Notions on High and Low Finance. Now he will join forces with Economix, offering frequent posts on economic and financial trends, ideas and follies. (Economix also now has a complete archive of posts from his previous blog, back to its inception in 2006.)
“Mr. Norris has been a financial columnist for The Times since 1988, with the exception of one year that he spent writing editorials for the paper. He was previously the stock market columnist for Barron’s, the national financial weekly.
“He has a master’s degree in business administration from Columbia University, where he was a Walter Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business Journalism, and he has received three lifetime achievement awards in financial journalism.
“His posts will reward your continued visits to Economix.”
Read more here.
TechCrunch writer fears the site is doomed
by Chris Roush
M.G. Siegler, a writer on the tech news site TechCrunch, writes that its new owner AOL is ruining the site with its handling of founder Michael Arrington, who was removed from overseeing it after starting a venture capital fund.
“If AOL tries to bring in their own Editor-in-Chief to run TechCrunch, it will be a colossal fucking mistake. The old adage: ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ — if AOL throws out Mike and tries to install their own despot, it will be breaking it just so they can fix it. And they might not like the end result. It may run, but it will never purr with the precision at which we purr right now.
“I can’t believe this is even a possibility. But it is. And so I’m writing this at the eleventh hour to let you, our readers, know before you find out via a press release. I don’t know, maybe I’m hopeful that the collective voice of millions of loyal readers can change a company’s mind. Maybe that’s naive. But it’s worth a shot. We owe that to Mike.
“AOL seems to think that by cutting off the biggest conflicts — ones so big that they’d obviously have to be disclosed — that they’ll be a bastion of integrity in the editorial landscape. What a bunch of horse shit. The conflicts we need to worry about are the ones not disclosed. They’re far more prevalent and they do actually deceive readers because they’re far more subtle. But that’s an impossible task. AOL can’t fix that — no one can. So instead they’ll slaughter the lamb everyone can see to gain puffery amongst the old media peers who also live to die another day.”
Read more here.