According to a spate of tweets from its staffers and also confirmation from sources, iconic tech blog Gigaom is closing down.
‘Goodnight, Sweetheart’: Pioneering Tech Blog Gigaom Closes Down
The creation of the high-profile tech publication was the brainchild of Om Malik.
Om.co
I reached out to the online publication’s high-profile creator Om Malik and he declined comment for the present. “Not now dude,” he texted me.
Well, then, for now, here’s what I could glean:
The site, which was one of the first prominent tech blogs to launch in 2006, has recently hired new management, including an interim CEO. It has, in recent years, focused on its more lucrative research business more than its Web news operations. Gigaom also does events.
“Gigaom’s purpose is to humanize the impact of technology,” says its website. “More than 6.5 million monthly unique readers turn to Gigaom to better understand major technology disruptions and new business opportunities they are creating.”
Its executive editor, Tom Krazit, left at the end of February, likely signaling a change. Said one staffer to me: “They ran out of money.”
It seems so. A range of Gigaom writers have texted the closure, the first being Stacey Higginbotham:
https://twitter.com/gigastacey/status/575090440346542080
And now a note to the readers, noting an inability to pay creditors:
A brief note on our company
Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time. As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company’s assets as their collateral. All operations have ceased. We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets. The company does not currently intend to file bankruptcy. We would like to take a moment and thank our readers and our community for supporting us all along.
— Gigaom management
And Malik, who left the site a year ago, has also posted on his personal site:
Gigaom is winding down and its assets are now controlled by the company’s lenders. It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end.
Every founder starts on a path — hopeful and optimistic, full of desire to build something that helps change the world for the better, reshape an industry and hopefully become independent, both metaphorically and financially. Business, much like life, is not a movie and not everyone gets to have a story book ending.
There will be time for postmortems, but not today. Today, I want to thank all the people who make (and have helped make) Gigaom. Their role in this journey was what really made it all worth it. They are great people and they will all do great work wherever they go. I want to thank our investors who believed in the business long before it became fashionable. And most importantly, I want to thank you dear readers for coming along on this trip of a lifetime.
I might have left Gigaom, the company, over a year ago, but Gigaom, the idea still lives in my heart.
Goodnight sweetheart, I still love you!
He also tweeted his goodbye:
https://twitter.com/om/status/575100483271987201
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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