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Hey everyone,
The big news broke this morning via IndustryGamers: Silicon Valley tech/business/games blog VentureBeat has acquired Bitmob. Go read the announcement first...then head back over here for more details. (Anyone catch my now-ancient movie reference in my quote?)
(Update: VentureBeat's post on this.)
First off, I want to say that this is fantastic news for Bitmob. We've been looking for support and investors for a while now, but it's tough doing this as an independent site with no sales or marketing teams, no full-time development, and no real resources besides the cash co-founder Demian Linn and I have personally put into this venture...plus the occasional donation from you fine folks (and almost all ad revenue we have received has gone right back into Bitmob).
It's been a fun and nerve-wracking ride, but we really weren't sure how much longer it could've lasted. The content's been terrific, the community's been fantastic, and our traffic has been climbing (despite the devastating, server-destroying tech issues we had about a year ago that really zapped our momentum). Editorially, we're doing great. But a business needs so much more than that.
Luckily, VentureBeat swooped in to save the day. In late December (like, really late -- we were discussing this over Christmas weekend), the company offered to hire me and take over Bitmob. That means not only will this "community meets the press" idea (professional journalism joining forces with user-generated content) live on, but we can make a proper business out of it, too.
We'll have sales support. We'll have full-time development support. And we'll have a heckuva lot more traffic to work with, too. That means if one of your stories makes it to the front page of VentureBeat, you'll probably get more than 20 times the eyeballs compared to what you're used to around here.
It's going to take a couple of months for the full transition -- we're aiming for March to have all the tools built at VentureBeat to become Bitmob 2.0 (well, technically, 3.0 since we're already in phase two over here). In the meantime:
1. It'll still be business as usual over here. We hope that you guys will keep on reading Bitmob and posting articles yourself to the Mobfeed, from which we cherry-pick stories to vet and edit for the main front page. Don't be afraid to keep building up your portfolio and readership here, because we'll eventually move it all over to VentureBeat (all under the GamesBeat label/division).
2. You will actually see a few Bitmob posts here and there show up on GamesBeat and VentureBeat starting as early as next week. We want to give their audiences a sneak peek of what's to come, and we want to give you guys that extra exposure, too.
Just think: Soon, some of you will be able to brag that you've had a story published on GamesBeat or VentureBeat. That's great for resumes or just egos in general. I'm extremely excited about this, and I'm incredibly thankful that this opportunity came along for all of us. I hope that you'll join me in this new chapter.
Stay tuned for more updates, especially once we move everyone over (because with these new tech resources, we'll be able to build much more over at GamesBeat than we ever could over here). And if you have any questions about any of this, please comment below, and I'll do my best to answer them.
Thank you!
