High profile advertising network Federated Media’s Chief Revenue Officer Chas Edwards has resigned, we’ve confirmed, and will shortly be taking a job at Digg with the same title. Thomas Shin, who Digg stole from Yahoo earlier this year, will report to Edwards.
Mike Maser, currently Digg’s Chief Revenue and Strategy Officer, will change his title to Chief Strategy Officer. He controls Digg’s marketing, business development, corporate development and community management groups.
This is a big blow for Federated Media. Founder and CEO John Battelle recently announced that he’ll be looking for a replacement to run the company, although he’ll remain active with the business. And Edwards, I know from personal experience, is the kind of guy who can sell ice to eskimos and get a sincere “thanks” as he takes their money.
Federated Media raised a big round of financing last year that valued the company at $200 million. Oak Investment Partners, which led the round, must be wondering what exactly they invested in.
Many of Federated Media’s partners have left the network. Digg left in 2007, followed by GigaOm last year. TechCrunch parted ways with Federated Media earlier this month.
Edwards will have responsibility for all revenue streams at Digg, which include some revenue from Microsoft (although that deal is largely over) as well as direct sales. The company is making a push towards profitability, they’ve said in past months. That will likely require about twice the reported $8.5 million in revenue that Digg generated in 2008. Edwards will certainly help them get there.
Update: The Digg blog post.
what exactly does a chief revenue officer do? honest question here and not trying to take a jab. curious to know how this role differs from the other c-level positions (aren’t they all focused on revenue?)
the sales team reports into a CRO. And they usually oversee products related to sales, like self service stuff, etc. In this case, I’d expect him to oversee the Microsoft relationship, manage Shin who has direct sales, and deal with future revenue streams. See, for example:
http://www.tech...tal-ad-product/
The Digg Thomas Shinn isn’t this guy I hope
http://www.yout...h?v=nvysdk9CyLI
Sure look eerily similar though
I am the Chief Trading Officer at
Stock Traders Blog dot Com
SPAMM
Rhet -
More traditional title would be VP Sales, Senior VP Sales. Other non-traditional: Chief Rainmaker, Chief Revenue Generator or Master Revgen
Big Big win here, no secret that Digg is buckling down. Will be really interesting to see how creative their revenue models will get.
http://www.deci...om/Default.html
Bing video
Unless he’s the Moshiach Digg is finished.
Karen your way off.
Digg is going to be fine. It’s not going to be anything huge, but Digg is going to continue to be a major play both a financially and culturally.
The real story is FM crumbling. There is whole lot more employee churn going on behind the scenes here. It’s a grenade with the pin pulled out at this point.
i think Digg may still end up “huge.” It depends on how they execute in the next 18 months.
I concur, Digg is not going to be huge. It is going to face a stiff competition from many real-time search engine players like http://www.boilingpage.com. Digg should either do the real-time stuff or acquire one of these companies. I read in one of the earlier posts that Digg was in talks with http://www.boilingpage.com for acquisition. Not sure if that’s true, if it is, they are gearing up in the right direction.
Can I take a guess where you work, “Ashley”?
Ha ha .. may be Digg?
Can’t be …. http://www.boilingpage.com/
Her point is valid though. When I think of Digg these days I’m reminded of Yahoo links. Great for when it started, but drowning in stagnation….
Forget where I work. Seriously, talk to digg about buying
Do you digg it? http://digg.com/d1sQ4t
Electronics and communication companies do really well by just splitting standards, products and services, thus confusing and legally over-charging honest, mainly non-geek people. Check “The Devil in the Mobile Phone” article on the 1rst Moko Blog (currently published ex-New Zealand on angle.co.nz.) to see how many bils one may have to pay just to cover things that cannot be provided by a single source.
i think digg has already past its point of being big, and is on the down end of the slope. If the best ideas they have are the digg bar, voting on ads, and cloning twitter.. even the best cro can’t save them
Just trying this out to see how it works.
This is now a very interesting situation Federated Media is in. I have spoken to Chase a few time and he seems like a very switched on guy. It will now be very interesting if he can increase the advertising deal they have with Digg, make sure direct advertising sales are up to scratch and implement new revenue streams which will actually make digg profitable.
John Battelle now has a lot to think about. They are a profitable company, but have lost some major clients recently and now he has no right hand man, plus also he wants to move out himself. I think they really need some more innovation quickly or they will be in average land forever.
Very interesting development for the social media ad biz
FM is a sinking ship!
Thanks for the kind words, Mike! I’m excited to be joining up with the Digg crew. I wouldn’t worry too much about FM, though. Whether or not I like to admit this, I hired some superstars over there — and they don’t need me anymore!
Hey thanks Chas. We’ll miss you man!
And Mike – I know everyone loves the dirt on stuff like this, but there’s just not much here. We’re all pals. More to come via FM blog. Give me a call if you’re interested to chat.
“Things change, people change, hairstyles change… interest rates fluctuate…”
Congrats on the move Chas. Best of luck with Digg- seems like a nice place to land!
You had a few (is it 4 already?) very productive years at FM so it will be great to see what you can do at Digg.
Federated IS finished. I hear its a complete black hole.
The problem is that FM NEVER really was anything. That is why these investors have always been fools, and that is why taking big money off the table during finance rounds is absurd. Good for Chas, and good for Digg. I hope they find some interesting routes to profitability. FM FTL
Where can we bet on whether Digg goes down or not? I know there are sites out there – this would be a good one. I vote Digg is Dunn.
Congratulations Digg!
I’m betting Digg and FM both have exciting futures in store. Keep your eyes on FM for some big announcements that are about to make it a big player in the food, cooking and home categories, in addition to its current positions in tech, business and men’s lifestyle. And for all the chatter regarding FM’s failure, it’s a business that’s gone from a whiteboard to a $50MM run rate in 4 years. Not bad. That a nice foundation from which to build a $200MM/year business. And as for Digg, obviously, I have lots of confidence regarding that one.:)
Battelle screwed this one up big time. First off they are a rep firm so they actually own nothing. Secondly with the decline in ad $ in the last 9 months their revenue must have dropped 50% if not more.
How Battelle could have thought that his ad sales company without any proprietary technology or other IP would have been worth more than the 100m they were offered is beyond me. And makes him the fool
First he misses selling the Industry Standard during the first bubble and then he misses selling FM during the second bubble.
Note to John,
Next time take the F*^king money.
Note to VC’s:
Are you guys all sheep? WTF were you thinking investing in a company that is nothing more than a glorified rep firm. 52m!!!!!! WOW good work Oak, you guys are brilliant
Battelle took $20M off the table already in FM..he has done very well, personally!!!
Best of luck Chas, I am excited to see what you do with such a great platform.
Am I the only one who finds DIGGing to be a little less than easy? verifying it’s not a duplicate, typing in the captcha, etc. I hope DIGG does well because it’s a great product but I want DIGGing to be easier.
A few more changes made at FM reported here including Justin Nesci, SVP Sales leaving and Pete Spande taking over the same role:
http://www.exec....com/c/r/87/84/
This is a big win for Digg–Chas is a talented guy.
I know that Federated has some good traction as Chas notes above, but clearly the many rumored departures are not good news. My wife worked at the Industry Standard for it’s last 2 years of life and watched the walls come crumbling down–hopefully the same isn’t happening here.