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Exclusive: Shiny Media goes into administration

Exclusive: Shiny Media goes into administration

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.

In fact, there has been no official announcement from the directors at all. Chris Price sent a memo to staff and freelancers briefly explaining the situation, while access to Movable Type, on which most of Shiny Media’s blogs run, was lost/removed yesterday.

(Update: Katie Lee tweeted “Looks like everyone knows Shiny Media has gone into administration. Still not entirely sure what’s going on tbh. Sorry for all writers.”, followed by “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.” soon after this article was written.)

(Update 2: Paid Content reports that the cell phone and email of director Chris Price were switched off by a minority shareholder)

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We’ll let you know more as and when we hear it.

Disclosure: Author has worked on several of Shiny Media’s blogs.

View Comments (5)
  • What does going into “administration”, dont forget some Americans read this blog and are unfamiliar with this English phraseology. I’m lost. Is this a bad or a good thing I assume bad from the tone of the post.

  • Arghhhh. My day will never be the same if I can’t start it with a cup of coffee and the girls at Shiny Shiny.

  • Before I start, I’ll say this: It’s always easy to comment from up in the peanut gallery, and I’m sure there are plenty of aspects I’m not, and never will be, aware of.

    Having said that, I feel that the key area where Shiny failed to invest when the Bright Station dosh came in (whatever the real amount may have been, as I’ve heard a range of figures, all lower than the one above, but still very reasonable) was the technical aspects of the blog. The site templates were a hopeless wreck, the commenting system was broken 90% of the time, pages took a century to load and there was no truly skilled technical lead to maintain and really care for the blogs.

    There were some great talents and writers, namely Gemma, Stuart, Katie and yourself, but as far as I could tell, everyone was stretched to the very limits of their abilities, with unrealistic writing quotas to meet. Throwing more shit at the wall in the hope something sticks is never the answer.

    It’s a real shame that it’s happened, but as you said, Andy, it might be an opportunity to rise again, having learned from mistakes.

    That’s the key: Whoever carries on needs to learn from mistakes.

  • The founders were technology journalists according to their CVs. If technology was their undoing it does not say much about their core skills. According to a report in the Telegraph, a UK newspaper which hosts a blog by Shiny Media founder Katie Lee, the founders have refused to comment on reported disputes with shareholders.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/media/5888579/Dan-Wagner-to-fight-Shiny-Media-administration.html

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