More Changes at B5Media: Chad Randall Fired? [Updated]

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b5mediaceoIn an unconfirmed lead Duncan Riley, Blog Herald founder and b5media co-founder, reports that Chad Randall and B5Media have parted company and Randall went MIA.

Chad Randall, Vice President (Sales) for b5media is no longer with the company, The Inquisitr has learned and confirmed through an online source.

The circumstances behind his departure though have not been disclosed. What we do know is that at the time of writing Randall has not been replaced, and we are unable to find the position advertised online either at the b5media blog, or through an extensive Google search.

Without 100% certainty, the evidence points to Randall being put off unexpectedly. He’s removed b5media as his current job on LinkedIn, he hasn’t replaced it with a new job. He’s also disappeared online, not updating his Twitter account or blogs since he left the company; that’s more significant than it sounds because one of Randall’s blogs is dedicated to Twitter marketing, and he’s a heavy Twitter user. If he was leaving the company for another position or on happy terms, he would have likely mentioned it somewhere publicly, but instead there is silence. [Read more…]

Jeremy Wright Steps Down, Elaine Kunda New CEO of b5media

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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…]

A Blog About a TV Network? Really?

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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.

b5media Goes Community

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We saw this coming, especially with the feature we did on the new b5media back in February. Mashing lots of blogs together and moving to WordPress MU, it all smelled forum integration with bbPress, and Facebook-ish social networking with BuddyPress from the start. And now they’re rolling it out, first on Splendicity and Blisstree, but the rest of the roster will get the community treatment too.

All of our bloggers will certainly play a key role in this. There are very few leaders in any given community; it is one of those miniscule percentages of total users, in the 1% range. We have a clear advantage because our bloggers are already our community leaders. […] Most importantly, it allows bloggers to interact with their readers outside of the author/commentor relationship and allow readers to start discussions about their favourite topics as well.

Read the full presentation, and the hopes and dreams of the b5ers, in the blog post.

B5media Unleashes The Vampires

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The b5media blog network has been busy, mashing all their blogs into supersites, like Splendicity which we’ve talked about before. That doesn’t stop them from launching new blogs, although it has been a while. The latest one is called TwilightGroupie.com and features everything Twilight, of course. I can’t tell if it is good or bad, I just know that I’m not the target audience here…

We’ve been wanting to start this site for a long time and are very excited to be launching new blogs once again! TwilightGroupie.com is written by b5media veteran writer Nikki Katz, who you may know from JuniorCelebs.com.

That’s from the Inside b5media blog post. It’ll probably do fine given the topic.

The New b5media Revealed

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The New b5media RevealedThe times are changing and so are the blog networks, something that appeared to be a solid business model a couple of years back, but now deemed a rough one if you want to succeed. One company above others are being mentioned whenever blog networks are branded as a failed idea, and that’s b5media. Not because they have failed or anything, but rather because they have all these blogs, and no real focus.

Well, that’s about to change, and starting today at that.

The first big change is Splendicity, something of a portal page for the beauty and style channel at b5media. It’s not a new site, but with the redesign, b5media not only aims to bring something new to the table, they’re also reshaping the logistics of their blog network.

Or, to put it frankly, they have taken their 32 blog strong beauty and style channel, and converted them all to one big site: the new Splendicity.

32 blogs, becomes 1 site. That brings a lot of questions, doesn’t it? [Read more…]

Shai Coggins Out of b5media. Tough Times Ahead For All of Us?

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I received an email tip via Performancing today about some key b5media personalities having to leave the network–one of the bigger blog/new media networks today, in terms of content and contributorship. Foremost of these is AboutWeblogs.com founder and b5media “co-founder” Shai Coggins. In a blog post today, Shai explains the circumstances behind her leaving b5.

Even with the fresh injection of funding, the economic times aren’t cooperating.

So, it all ended with another Skype chat. Well, sort of. On the 14th of January 2009, I used Skype to pay for the call to the b5 conference line – where the company COO and CEO broke the news to me.

Times are tough.

And that’s how it ends.

I’m not sure I am at liberty to quote or discuss the actual contents of the email, as it appears to be privileged communication between Jeremy Wright and his fellow b5’ers. But it appears that this move was due to some belt-tightening measures that the company has had to do in line with its trimming of costs, refocusing of strategies and exploring of new opportunities. [Read more…]

Blog Network b5media to Use Revolution in the Future

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Brian Gardner announced that b5media will use one of the Revolution themes as the base theme across the network, and CEO Jeremy Wright confirmed that it is indeed so. The theme will apparently roll out in a network redesign due next year, and not a moment too soon if you ask me.

While I have nothing against the Revolution Streamline theme, which will be the basis of the new design, I’m a bit surprised to see b5media going with something that is a premium theme available for all. Or is it? I can’t seem to find it on the Revolution Two website, so maybe b5media bought the rights to it? I’ve contacted Brian and Jeremy for a comment on this.

Check out the Revolution Streamline demo if you want to know what the basis of the new b5media base template will be in 2009.

Blog Networks Roundtable: What Do the Network Heads Say?

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There is no doubt that the current financial situation is hitting the web as well as the rest of the media industry. This is certainly one of the reasons why we’ve seen blog networks close, cut costs, or rationalize their portfolio. So is the blog network business model in trouble, and what does the established blog network hotshots thing about these things?

I decided to find out, in the first roundtable discussion here on the Blog Herald. That’s why I invited these fine blog network heavyweights to participate in the discussion.

  • Jeremy Wright, CEO of b5media
  • Collis Ta’eed, CEO of Envato
  • Mike Rundle, triad member of 9rules

So let’s get started and see what they have to say! [Read more…]