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News and features:

• Freelancers do not need ‘blanket employment benefits’, says PCG
• Help Me Investigate: How working collaboratively can benefit journalists
• Tom Burgis appointed West Africa correspondent for Financial Times

Ed’s picks:

• TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station
• Adam Westbrook’s guides and an antidote to media navel-gazing
• Editor&Publisher: DailyMe’s Newstogram follows readers’ ‘tastes’
• City A.M.: Capital Ideas group makes bid for Observer
• Hitwise: More traffic going to content websites than transactional sites
• paidContent.org: ‘The fallacy of the link economy’ for news sites
• DutchNews.nl: Regional press agency leaks thousands of telephone numbers

Tip of the day:

• Joining the conversation

#FollowJourn:

• @arunmarsh/content producer

On the Editors’ Blog:

• Lone Star defies downward trend in revised ABC results
• Skillset’s report digested: Is there a skills gap amongst new journalism recruits?
• Nestoria signs up NWN Media for property search
• Sunemployment: Sun turns free classified ads into campaign

Similar Posts:

• Journalism Daily: Academics boycott Observer, theblogpaper’s launch and AOP conference
• (Not) speaking Dutch: new English language website launches with a Netherlands theme
• Hitwise: More traffic going to content websites than transactional sites
• Journalism Daily: FT clippings, sticky news, journalists freed from North Korea
• Journalism Daily: PCC review, the Sky News intern, and blogging at the BBC

Shiny Media, the UK blog network that went into administration last month, has sold its fashion sites to Bright Station, an original backer of the company.

Catwalk Queen, Kiss and Make Up, Bag Lady, Shoewawa, Crafty Crafty, Dollymix, Trashionista, Shiny Gloss, Star Trip and Nollie have been bought up by Bright Station’s new vehicle Aigua Media Limited, reports TC UK.

The remaining Shiny titles remain with Shiny Digital Ltd, which bought Shiny Media straight after it was announced that it was going into administration.

Former Shiny Media title Who Ate All The Pies was bought by Anorak, but has experienced problems with the site, as it remained on Shiny Media’s server. (According to a tweet from editor Ollie Irish the site should be moved as of Monday)

Full post at this link…

Similar Posts:

• Former Shiny Media site Pies back in action
• The Blog Herald reports that Shiny Media has gone into administration
• Shiny Media reports October blog traffic boost
• The Shiny Media story: what’s going on?
• #FollowJourn: @shinyashley/social media entrepreneur

It was, then it wasn’t – now it is again.

Who Ate All the Pies the football news site, formerly part of the blog network Shiny Media and recently bought by publisher Anorak Media, is live again.

Editor Ollie Irish had been locked out from the site following ‘a dispute between Shiny Media, Pies’ former owners, and one of their more difficult shareholders’, he writes.

Former owner Shiny Media went into administration earlier this month, with questions raised about the level (and receipt) of venture capital funding for the company announced in 2007.

Similar Posts:

• TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station
• The Blog Herald reports that Shiny Media has gone into administration
• Paid Content: Ning raises 60m dollars – worth 500m
• Talking to (Shiny)Katie post-Shiny: ‘Shiny can turn things around’
• Cit-j site AllVoices plans to develop hyperlocal markets

Since news broke that Shiny Media had gone into adminstration, Journalism.co.uk has been trying to gather more information – especially in regards to the details of the new buyer. Unfortunately, calls and emails to its remaining founder Chris Price have gone unanswered. We’ve called the administrators, Wilson Field, and they promise to keep us posted if a statement is put out.

• PaidContent:UK has the most illuminating report – and it’s worth reading the comments accumulating below, with mixed views from Shiny’s contributors.

• Also at at Telegraph.co.uk: Why Brightstation Venture’s Dan Wagner is fighting the Shiny Media administration.

We have not been able to reach Price’s co-founder Ashley Norris, who left the company last year. The other co-founder, Katie Lee, has provided some information via her Twitter feed and in the comments on paidContent, and now she’s provided even fuller detail about her experiences at Shiny for a blog post on Telegraph.co.uk.

We hope to post more news soon.

Similar Posts:

• Shiny Media co-founder Ashley Norris steps down
• #FollowJourn: @shinyashley/social media entrepreneur
• paidContent:UK: Shiny maintains 30 active blogs despite staff lay-off
• The Blog Herald reports that Shiny Media has gone into administration
• TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station

Early this morning, Andy Merrett, who formerly worked for some of the Shiny network’s blog titles, reported on the Blog Herald that Shiny Media has gone into administration.

Journalism.co.uk is trying to obtain more information.

Merrett wrote:

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

Full story at this link…

Interestingly, Shiny’s co-founder,  Katie Lee claims today, via Twitter, that Shiny Media never received the reported $4.5m of funding from Bright Station Ventures in 2007, an amount confirmed here on Shiny’s own blog.

Lee, who left the company in February, wrote today:

“$4.5m was incorrectly reported in the press and we were told to stick with the story. Was mortified.”

Lee also said she thought the company had already been bought:

“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.”

Similar Posts:

• TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station
• Former Shiny Media site Pies back in action
• The Shiny Media story: what’s going on?
• Talking to (Shiny)Katie post-Shiny: ‘Shiny can turn things around’
• Reader’s Digest UK to file for administration

Last week saw co-founder Katie Lee aka ‘ShinyKatie’ leave Shiny Media, a departure she announced on Twitter.

As TechCrunch reported, only one of the three original staff members is left, Chris Price. Shiny Media first launched in 2003, with its site TechDigest and then rapidly expanded and in 2007 received $4.5 million VC funding from Brightstation. By 2008 they had six main Shiny categories which split into different sites – 30 in total.

Things didn’t look so bleak for Lee in September last year when Lee discussed her plans for redesign with Journalism.co.uk. But even without Lee, Shiny is still going ahead with plans. This week saw the launch of TechDigest’s new look -  with a ‘new user friendly format’, Chris Price told Journalism.co.uk.

Last Friday, was Lee’s last day as ShinyKatie. She spoke to Journalism.co.uk about Shiny and her plans for the future.

What is the situation for the company now? It seems the 30 blog titles are being maintained, but is this realistic?
[KL] “Many of the sites in our network are key to the deal we have with Glam, and they certainly won’t be closing. In terms of other sites, all I know is that traffic is Shiny Media’s biggest success story and Chris and his team will be working hard to make sure sites aren’t shut down unless they absolutely have to be.”

How do you feel about it? Did things get resolved amicably? Or will you be speaking out like [other co-founder] Ashley Norris?
“Obviously I’m absolutely gutted not to be working with such a talented, brilliant and (most importantly) funny editorial team. I have no plans on ’speaking out because’ my team left behind in Shiny Media deserve to do well, deserve my respect and deserve the chance to continue doing their job without hindrance from me.

“It’s important to say that Ashley wasn’t in our office working full time for a very long time before that article was written. In fact, while he was working as a freelancer up until it was announced he’d left, we hadn’t seen in him in the office for months and as far as most of the staff were concerned, he hadn’t been a part of Shiny for some considerable time. I think the impression was that he’d been CEO up until it was announced he’d left, but that isn’t the case.”

It’s obviously sad to read about the plight an independent venture that seemed to be going so well: looking back can you see where some things went wrong?
“It’s still a successful network with some good advertising deals in place – such as the Vodafone Live Guy campaign we recently worked on, and a brilliant partnership with the Gadget Show Live.

“In terms of where we went wrong, we’ve certainly made some pretty big mistakes over the years, but with no model to follow over here, I think Shiny is still a pretty impressive success story. I wish we’d sorted out the commercial side of the business from the beginning rather than relying on advertising agencies to sell what are very bespoke advertising campaigns, but we finally have a sales team in house and they’re already making great strides forward.”

You’re still a shareholder – do you still have hope the company can turn things around?
“I certainly do still hope the company can turn things around, yes! I love Shiny Media, love the sites, and love the people that work there. It’s really important to me that the sites keep going. Shiny Shiny was my site that I started when I was 25, and the thought of it not existing anymore is something I can’t ever imagine. I know that Gemma feels the same about the fashion sites, especially Catwalk Queen. And if there was no TV Scoop I wouldn’t be able to geekout on Being Human reviews and the like!”

What are your plans now?
“I’ve got some ideas that have been bubbling away quietly in the back of my mind for some time now. I’m going to take a bit of time to work out which to focus on and where to take it and while I’m doing that I’ll keep myself ticking over with a bit of freelance consultancy and some journalism. I won’t be looking for venture capital funding – I’m more interested in starting small, keeping things simple and satisfying a few creative urges along the way. One idea in particular I’ve been dying to work on for a while now, so I’ve got plenty to think about!”

Similar Posts:

• Shiny Media co-founder Ashley Norris steps down
• TechCrunch UK: Shiny Media’s fashion blogs go to Bright Station
• The Blog Herald reports that Shiny Media has gone into administration
• The Shiny Media story: what’s going on?
• Former Shiny Media site Pies back in action

The last remaining co-founder of Shiny Media, Chris Price, spoke to paidContent:UK, following the announcement that Katie Lee would be taking redundancy from the company.

“When it got $4.5 million VC funding from Brightstation in January 2007, [Shiny] had decided to employ writers on staff but, faced with the economic climate, it will now shift to more of a freelance arrangement over time. The company has 30 active blogs; none is scheduled for immediate closure…” paidContent:UK reports.

Full story at this link…

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• Demand Media to accept UK and Canadian freelancers

“Of the three main [Shiny Media] founders only one now remains, Chris Price. Katie Lee leaves today, as do staff on several of their blog titles,” TechCrunch reports.

TechCrunch’s Mike Butcher is ‘trying to confirm numbers and which titles will suffer.’

Full story here…

Similar Posts:

• #followjourn: Mike Butcher/editor
• Shiny Media: Shiny Media responds to TechCrunch article on the future of UK blog publishing
• paidContent:UK: Shiny maintains 30 active blogs despite staff lay-off
• Talking to (Shiny)Katie post-Shiny: ‘Shiny can turn things around’
• The Blog Herald reports that Shiny Media has gone into administration

Blog publisher Shiny Media recorded a 7 per cent increase in unique users to its network of sites in October, according to Google Analytics figures posted to the company’s blog.

Unique users to the blogs grew to 3.2 million for the month with 6.1 million page impressions.

Figures for individual titles for October included:

Crafty Crafty – a 40 per cent rise in unique users to 89,000
CorrieBlog – a 37 per cent rise in unique users to 79,000
Xboxer.tv – rise of 34 per cent
ShinyStyle.tv – rise of 28 per cent
Kiss and Make Up – rise of 24 per cent

In the blog post, Shiny co-founder Chris Price said the figures might be prompted in part by the economic downturn, as more people turn to lifestyle and home-based interest sites.

Similar Posts:

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