I decided to start publishing a blog about the challenges and opportunities facing the media business because I think the subject is seriously interesting. I read almost everything and everybody, and there are some great resources (paidcontent.org; techcrunch; ReadWriteWeb; GigaOm; Henry Blodget’s blog; Jeff Jarvis, Don Dodge, various industry research analysts, the media itself, and many more). So, I thought, why not write about what I read? It will give me a great opportunity to begin to say what I think, and force me to be sufficiently disciplined to digest and evolve my views. If I am really fortunate others will enjoy reading it. So, welcome to seriouslymedia.

Press release for download

Product Description given to Gnomedex Attendees

News from the Web on this:

Digg – here Techmeme – here and here ReadWrite web – here TechCrunch – here Venturebeat – here Gnomedex – here Jeff Jarvis – here Dan Farber – ZDNet – here Rob Hof at BusinessWeek – here Bub.blicio.us – here Mashable – here Forecast Blog – here

It has been a great effort by the team at edgeio to get this launched. The company now has 6000 advertisers who will, by September, have 29 million classified ads in the system, and with the launch of “Classified Boards” in March recruited its first 1000 publishers. Now with “Transactional Classifieds” the number of publishers who can use edgeio will grow enormously. The vision of a Classified Ad Network for the Internet is one step closer.

Fred Vogelstein from Wired has written a really good profile of TechCrunch and Michael Arrington. It manages to capture the Mike that I know and love.

The profile starts out with the story of 3 Dutch entrepreneurs descending on Mikes house at 10am one Tuesday morning, wearing white suits and carrying a latte and a croissant.

They have posted their own version of events here and also a video embedded below:

Techmeme is following the discussion.

I have to own up to the fact that it was my suggestion that the guys go and wake Mike up (they had missed seeing him the previous evening). The latte and croissant was my idea too. But I was not foolish enough to accompany them. Waking Mike up before his body naturally rises is not my idea of a good thing to do.

Sorry guys

It seems like a long time ago that Jason Calcannis and Mike Arrington announced their intention to host a conference for startups in the fall. It was at the DEMO conference at the start of the year. Well ….. TechCrunch20 is now real and today the web site went live with more details of the event.

“The format is simple: Twenty of the hottest new startups from around the world will announce and demo their products over a two day period at TechCrunch20. And they don’t pay a cent to do this. They will be selected to participate based on merit alone.”

The venue is the prestigious Palace Hotel on New Montgomery Street in San Francisco.

Although free to companies the event is not free for attendees. 2-day ticket prices, based on availability, are $1,995 through July 15, 2007 and $2,495 through September 10, 2007. There will be a limit on the numbers attending so get yours now.

Om Malik has the scoop but this is something I have been keeping under my hat for several weeks. Heather Harde, former Fox Interactive Media executive, responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions, is to be the new CEO of TechCrunch.

UPDATE

Mike has now confirmed the news here.

Heather was a key figure in Fox’s strategy to acquire the key assets needed to turn itself into a major Internet presence. She is accomplished, charming and as sharp as a razor. It’s a major coup for Mike and TechCrunch to recruit her. I believe it augurs well for TechCrunch that Mike has decided that the continued growth of his amazing venture requires the services of a hands on senior operational executive.

Until now I was the only other shareholder in TechCrunch besides Mike (a fact that dates back to our 2005 collaboration in Archimedes Ventures and edgeio). I can’t say how thrilled I am to welcome Heather into the company. I got to know her in my role at edgeio and have found her to be a straightforward, highly observant, passionate and focused person. I don’t know anybody with a bad word to say about her. The potential of TechCrunch is being realised every day. RSS subscribers, unique visitors, advertising revenues, job listings (edgeio hosts CrunchBoard) and every other measure shows this. But the potential is far greater still. Heather and Mike will be the team to realize the vision and take it to a new level. Congratulations to both.

Links

PaidContent Techmeme

TechCrunch reports that Salim Ismail is to head the Yahoo Brickhouse project. Yahoo’s intention is to create an internal incubator – think Google Labs – and so encourage innovation and productizing akin to forming lots of internal startups.

Salim is a great choice for this role. Currently heading up Confabb (to be replaced by David Dell) Salim is a serial startup guy. His most recent stint was at PubSub where he served as co-founder and latterly CEO.

I have known Salim for quite a few years now. He has been a great thought partner during the gestation of edgeio and will do a great job in this new role. Yahoo are lucky (and smart) to get him.

My good friend Saul Klein has bullied and cajoled me into hosting an opencoffee meetup in Palo Alto. They will be on Tuesday mornings at 8.30am. We will meet in Deuce France (my favorite coffee and pastries place). It has great coffee and awesome pan au raison or pan au chocolat.

The goal is to provide a place to meet and greet entreprenuers from outside the US who are in the Valley looking for help/guidance/conversation or just great coffee and pastries.

It kicks off next Tuesday.

Deuce France is in Town and Country Village, on the corner of El Camino Real and Embarcadero in Palo Alto.

Map below.

As promised John Dowd – the product manager for edgeio marketplaces – opened up the beta of the Classified Boards product to the public today.TechCrunch France has already used the platform to launch Crunchboard France.

The announcement is here; Dan Farber has covered it here, and Robert Scoble has an exclusive video walkthrough on the Scobleshow.

I really believe John’s product will help create a classifieds ecosystem for the Internet in the same way Adsense created an advertising ecosystem. Now, just like newspapers and magazines, any web site can earn revenue by putting up a classifieds board and taking paid listings (free boards are also supported).

Congrats to the entire team.

TechMeme conversation here