On 14 December 2011, ReadWriteWeb – the company I founded – was acquired by San Francisco firm SAY Media.
The news received a lot of coverage, including being the top story on Techmeme that day. Here is a selection of stories and interviews about the sale. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of some of the external coverage, but at least they spelled my name right.
Announcement
ReadWriteWeb announcement post: ReadWriteWeb Acquired by SAY Media
SAY Media press release and announcement post
SAY: Welcomes ReadWriteWeb from SAY Media on Vimeo.
External Coverage
Reuters: SAY Media Acquires Prominent Tech Blog Read Write Web
Forbes: Say Media Eyes IPO, Buys ReadWriteWeb
TechCrunch: SAY Media Acquires ReadWriteWeb
ClickZ: Say Media Buys ReadWriteWeb to Anchor Tech Vertical
National Business Review: San Francisco’s Say Media buys NZ’s ReadWriteWeb
Fairfax NZ: Wellington blog scooped up by US company
Hometown Newspaper Article
The Dominion Post, one of New Zealand’s leading daily newspapers, ran a frontpage story on me. It was entitled Petone’s millionaire blogger. I was a bit uncomfortable with the angle of the story, but overall I was pleased to get on the frontpage of my city’s newspaper. I don’t typically get up at 3.30am either, I was only up at that time because of the announcement in the U.S. that morning.
As part of its coverage, The Dominion Post also did a video interview with me at my house in Petone. As I’d been up since 3.30am, I was bleary-eyed at the time of the interview. Even so, it turned out well.
Radio Interviews & Podcasts
Radio New Zealand, the national radio service in my country, did two separate audio interviews with me.
On Thursday 22 December, I was interviewed by Radio NZ’s Kathryn Ryan on the Nine To Noon show. I went into their studio and the resulting interview lasted over 30 minutes. It features some good background about how I started ReadWriteWeb and how it evolved. Kathryn also asked me about the latest web technology trends.
Earlier, on Friday 16 December, I spoke for about 10 minutes with Radio NZ’s Jim Mora. That was a more light-hearted discussion.
Finally, MediaShift commentators Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali mentioned the sale in their regular podcast show (starting at about 22 minute mark).