Surprise! Envato Launches Another Blog!

by

Blog network Envato keep on rolling out blogs, and as always they look great and sound promising. The latest one is WorkAwesome, announced like this by Envato head honcho Collis Ta’eed:

The best way to make work feel like not work is to do something you enjoy, and do it damn well. That’s why we’ve created WorkAwesome, a blog for people who want to be awesome at work. After all, if you’re going to spend eight hours a day doing something, you may as well put some heart into it!

Check out WorkAwesome if you want to make your work awesome. Or maybe you’re just curious on Envato’s latest venture. Either way.

Music Blog Network MOG Raises More Money

by

California-based music blog network MOG has raised another $5 million says VentureBeat. MOG is one of those blog networks that focuses on selling ads on blogs in a certain niche, much like Glam and SB Nation.

“We’ve seen super-rapid growth,” said founder David Hyman in an interview. “We sell ads across the top 700 music blogs and signed up all of them over the last 11 months.”

More on VentureBeat, nothing on MOG yet.

Envato Launches Web.AppStorm

by

Envato continues to expand, this time it is the AppStorm brand that gets an addition. The new blog is called Web.AppStorm and is all about web apps, obviously, intending to dig deeper says the launch post. Envato head honcho Collis Ta’eed explains:

These days you can do everything from Photoshop-grade image editing to reasonably heavy duty spreadsheet manipulation all from your browser. With mobile devices finally starting to mature, the advent of netbooks and widespread broadband coverage the trend to web applications is only set to continue.

Check out Web.AppStorm if you’re into webapps.

Envato Rolls Out Eight Tuts Site: Phototuts

by

There’s no stopping Envato it seems. The latest addition to the tutorial site network is Phototuts (yeah, I’m cutting out the +, looks bad in text after all), focusing on photography. Tuts manage Skellie announced it, and AppStorm editor David Appleyard will edit it. Makes sense to add photography to the network obviously, but one has to wonder where it will end.

From 55 Blogs to 4 Local Websites: An Interview with John Evans

by

John Evans’ blog network Syntagma Media always stood out a bit from the blog networks of the early days. First it was because of the hacked Kubrick blog template with the rainbow headers (which I remedied in one of my first design gigs in the blogosphere), and then because of Evans leaving the term blog behind, rebranding as a network of sites, web magazines, and other ideas aimed to make them more accessible and easy to understand.

Earlier this week Syntagma Media launched its most recent venture, the first in a series of “hyper-local” websites. So how do you go from blog network to local websites? That’s what this interview is about. [Read more…]

Jeremy Wright Steps Down, Elaine Kunda New CEO of b5media

by

Jeremy Wright is stepping down as CEO of blog network b5media, effective immediately, according to a press release. The new CEO is Elaine Kunda, presented as an “experienced entrepreneur”.

“Elaine is exactly the right leader for b5media, with her strong leadership and proven ability to lead top performing teams,” said John Albright, managing partner of JLA Ventures.

Kunda herself said this in the press release:

“I believe there is an extraordinary opportunity to create additional value and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees. The Company has accomplished a great deal in its relatively short history and I look forward to working together to take it to the next level.

Wright will stay on the board of directors, but why do this now, and make it effective immediately? [Read more…]

Exclusive: Shiny Media goes into administration

by

I’ve just had word that UK new media/blogging network Shiny Media has gone into administration.

Despite this year’s cutbacks and new additions, it doesn’t seem to have been enough to save the company.

Bright Station Ventures ploughed $4.5m of funding into the company in 2007 (Update: apparently the self-reported news that Shiny Media received $4.5m in funding was incorrect but was never retracted.). There’s no official word yet on how the relationship between the two companies stands, but I’m sure you can speculate on that. [Read more…]

Sports Blog Network Secures Another $7 Million in Funding

by

Former AOL executive Jim Bankoff has raised another $7 million in funding for sports blog network SB Nation, according to Kara Swisher’s blog. The valuation after this cash flow is reported to be around some $30 million. SB Nation is the kind of blog network who recruits bloggers, and they are aiming to give fan coverage for just about any sport out there. With more than 200 blogs under the SB Nation banner, I’d say they’re giving it a serious shot at least.

A Blog About a TV Network? Really?

by

Blog network b5media announced the launch of TNT Report, a blog focusing solely on the TNT TV network. I’m having a hard time wrapping my hear around that one, why blog about a specific TV network? Sure, they focus on drama series, but why not blog about the series themselves, and not limit to just the TNT network? Ah well, someone obviously did some market research and found this to be a good idea.

I have an easier time grasping the potential of Miley Cyrus blog Miley Report, announced a while back. This is after all one of those teen heavyweights.