Gawker: valleywag, silicon alley media

Henry Blodget's family feud

Owen Thomas — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:20:00 EDT

Why did disgraced stock analyst Henry Blodget post a long email by Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis to Silicon Alley Insider, and then take it down? There's the obvious reason: Calacanis hadn't given permission for it to be republished. But Silicon Alley Insider has reprinted Calacanis's emails before. We think it more has to do with the fight that broke out in the comments between Calacanis and Howard Lindzon, a Phoenix, Ariz. hedge-fund manager who owns a piece of Blodget's blog. Could it be that Calacanis's copyright gave Blodget a convenient excuse to unpublish the piece — an item that was generating ill will between one of his investors and a startup CEO whom Blodget thought it expedient to suck up to?

If so, the peacemaking attempt failed. Lindzon has made no secret of his dislike for Calacanis, on his blog and on Twitter after Twitter after Twitter. In a post discussing the bailout, Lindzon gratuitously dissed Calacanis as someone who "started a bad business (Mahalo.ugh) at the top and now is scared and panicking to his e-mail list." Calacanis extended an olive branch:

Actually, we agree that value is built in the down market. There is less competition for talent, customers and market share in down markets, so it is the ideal time to start. However, many of the A/B round Web 2.0 companies are going to run out of cash before they get to the promised land, and my email newsletter was a to try and help those folks who are struggling.

Lindzon replied:

Actually, stay off my blog.

Does staying off Lindzon's blog include Silicon Alley Insider? No wonder Blodget, always eager to please, would just as soon stay out of this fight.

Henry Blodget taps Forbes survivor to edit tabloid business-news site

Owen Thomas — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:00:00 EDT

Does Henry Blodget, the disgraced former Wall Street stock analyst, have a Forbes fetish? We ask because his latest hire, Caroline Waxler, has the business fortnightly on her resume — as does soon-to-depart Blodget employee Peter Kafka. Blodget, best known for his Silicon Alley Insider site, seems to fancy himself a business-blog mogul, running two other sites — Clusterstock and the Business Sheet. Waxler will edit the latter which, in a refreshing piece of honesty, explains, "We’re still in beta, which means we still suck."

At present, the Business Sheet's headlines read like Rupert Murdoch had reassigned the editors of the New York Post to man the Wall Street Journal's copydesk. I trust Waxler, with whom I worked at a now-forgotten business magazine, will liven things up. Most recently, she attempted to bring a dash of celebrity to an overserious TheStreet.com. And besides working at VH1 on shows like Best Week Ever, she has comedy running in her veins: Joan Rivers is her aunt. If anyone can find the funny in a market meltdown, she can.

Silicon Alley Insider publisher raises money

Owen Thomas — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:40:00 EDT

Silicon Alley Media, disgraced tech-stocks analyst Henry Blodget's recently formed blog collective, has raised a modest $1 million from wealthy investors, Tech Confidential reports. The A round's A list included Tacoda cofounder Dave Morgan and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz. With the proceeds, Blodget is hiring editors for two new sites: Clusterstock, a spreadsheet-heavy analysis site, and Business Sheet, a tabloidy take on business personalities.

Those sites seem inspired by the best ideas to come out of Silicon Alley Insider, Blodget's first blog effort. But they also seem a nod to Blodget's failed ambitions. Originally conceiving of Silicon Alley Insider as a look at New York's supposedly burgeoning technology scene, Blodget and his New York-based editors quickly realized there was no there there. They shifted gears to start covering large, publicly traded technology companies — most of which were based a continent away in California. (They even hired a Silicon Valley correspondent.) A wise move, but one that left their flagship publication with puzzling branding.

No matter. We do not hope Alley Insider fails, since we find the site a must-read, odd name and all. But if it does, or ends up merely a middling success, Blodget will have other publications to rely on. That talent for shapeshifting is one rarely seen in the entrepreneur-hostile realm of Manhattan.