Tag Archives: Katie Lee

The Shiny Media story: what’s going on?

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.

  • 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.

The Blog Herald reports that Shiny Media has gone into administration

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.”



Talking to (Shiny)Katie post-Shiny: ‘Shiny can turn things around’

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

shinykatie

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!”

paidContent:UK: Shiny maintains 30 active blogs despite staff lay-off

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…

TechCrunch: Shiny Media slashes staff – last founder left

“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…