[Additional reporting by Paul Carr]. Back in the heady days of 2007, flush with what was officially announced as $4.5m in funding from incubator Brightstation Ventures, UK Blog network Shiny Media held an event for advertising agencies to come and see how the new world of blogs would change their entire business strategy.
But in a scene straight from The Office, the company’s commercial manager stood up and dismissively told the assembled media luminaries that they were “all sheep [who] should stop following the big media herd and advertise with Shiny… the new wave of blogs”. “Bah!” said the sheep from major media agency Carat, and promptly walked out in disgust. Since then Shiny Media has been, many times over, lauded as the UK’s great new hope of blog publishing. But the shiny exterior of the operation appears to have been quite different to the reality.
Founded in 2004 by journalists Ashley Norris, Chris Price and Katie Lee, Shiny followed the Gawker/Weblogs Inc “blog network” model so fashionable at the time. The company was best known for its Shiny Shiny (girly gadgets), Tech Digest (technology) and Shoewawa (footwear) blogs. It had also expanded into other vertical titles, but attempts to break into the US market had been limited. Many have remarked that despite their efforts, Shiny Blogs had few stand-out publishing brands, that the blog designs had lurched from middling to worse, and that despite a few bright spots the company rarely attracted sufficient raw writing talent. Their passion for .tv domains also didn’t help.
Around the same time other UK entrepreneurs were trying their hands with blog networks like Mink Media and MessyMedia but none lasted – most citing the inability to scale to large traffic numbers in the UK. Shiny apparently thought they could buck the trend.
Sure enough, in January 2007 Shiny won its “$4.5 million” from Brightstation – headed by long-time UK entrepreneur Dan Wagner – for a 50pc stake. Or at least that’s what was said by the company at the time and consistently since. It appeared to be doing well; according to sources close to Brightstation, by November 2007 traffic to Shiny media was 3.5 millions uniques and revenues were in the hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum.
And yet, fast forward to 2009 and Shiny was limping. The company laid off half of its 17 staff in February, citing a tech advertising downturn. Norris, the original CEO, had departed in August 2008 to start experimenting in online video publishing and had become CEO of online men’s publisher Anorak Media. Katie Lee left in February 2009, at the same time as Shiny’s period of layoffs and cutbacks.
Recently, Anorak, under Norris, acquired a blog he founded, WhoAteAllThePies from Shiny, which then mothballed the title. Norris resumed blogging with Shiny.
Then on July 21, TechCrunch Europe folllowed up on a story broken by a former employee, that Shiny Media had gone into administration. Unknown to us at the time – but subsequently leaked – the day before, co-founder and director Chris Price had sent this email to all employees and freelancers.
From: Chris Price
Date: Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 7:33 PM
Subject: Shiny MediaHi Guys,
I am very sorry for the events of the last 24 hours. Unfortunately
Shiny Media has been unable to continue trading because of mounting
debts in the business and a decision was taken at a board meeting on
Friday afternoon to put the company into administration.Although the business received a cash injection of 80K through the
sale of Bag Lady and Shoewawa, the bank was unwilling to renew the
existing overdraft without imposing much more punitive terms on Ashley
and myself (including higher interest rates and our houses as
collateral) and general trading continued to be difficult.At the same time as the company went into administration on Friday the
assets of Shiny Media were sold to a new company, comprising the
majority shareholders of Brightstation Ventures and the founders of
Shiny Media.Unfortunately one of the former directors of Shiny Media who is a
small stakeholder in the business has taken it upon himself to indulge
in criminal activity including breaking and entering into the
premises, changing the locks without the landlord’s authority,
accessing emails and other passwords, deleting email accounts
(including mine), deleting users from the Movable Type network, moving
over Domain Names into his own name and switching off business mobile
phone numbers.Not only is this damaging any future for the business, it also reduces
any amount of money left for Shiny Media’s creditors – including
freelance journalists, some of whom are yet to be paid. I also
understand he has been intimidating staff.He has now received a letter from our lawyers in which we have asked
him to stop his disruptive and illegal behaviour and allow us access
to the building for which we have a licence to occupy. I am hoping he
will come to his senses tomorrow before we are forced to contact the
police, but unfortunately we have seen this irrational behaviour
before with other businesses he has been involved with.Once again please accept my apologies – I was hoping to get in touch
with everyone at 12pm today. I will now update you all with more
details tomorrow.Cheers, Chris
What publicly emerged, uncovered by TechCrunch Europe and sites like PaidContent UK, was that Shiny had indeed gone into administration the previous Friday, allegedly due to growing debts. Shortly afterward, the assets – including all websites with the exception of Bag Lady and Shoewawa – were bought by a new company, Shiny Digital. According to the Companies House registry in the UK, the equal shareholders in this new company were Shiny Trends (incorporated by Shiny co-founders Chris Price, Ashley Norris and Katie Lee last year) and Cansas Digital Ventures (a new registered name for Shiny Media’s venture funder Brightstation since August 2007).
Clearly there was something going on. Why had Price’s email and mobile been “switched off by one of the minority shareholders in the business”? Was there a disagreement going on at board level about the new structure? At any rate, an administrator had been brought in and many Shiny blogs had stopped updating.
That same day co-founder Katie Lee (who had left Shiny in February but remained a shareholder) confirmed the story on Twitter, saying in a tweet that “Looks like everyone knows Shiny Media has gone into administration. Still not entirely sure what’s going on tbh. Sorry for all writers.”
Lee also Twittered: “Just to clarify, because it’s always bugged me, Bright Station did not put $4.5m into Shiny Media.” She went on: “It was incorrectly reported in the press and we were told to stick with the story. Was mortified.”
Of course, this itself wasn’t quite correct. The press had simply reported what Shiny had told them. For years. And what it was still saying on their corporate blog, i.e. “How to spend $4.5 million.” It also appears that Brightstation itself never attempted to correct the record. Bright Station’s founders were interviewed in The Times in January 2007, again mentioning the $4.5 million figure.
A day later on July 22, co-founder Chris Price gave a more accurate picture of the company’s investment to The Guardian, saying Shiny had received “under a million pounds”. Sources close to the deal have confirmed this to us.
Lee continued to Tweet on the matter. She said the status of Shiny was up in the air and that “[I] Don’t know who administrators were. All presented as fait accompli”.
She also said “As far as I know, Shiny Media has already been bought [before I even knew it had gone into administration]. So hopefully some jobs OK.”
This suggested that the company had been put into administration and then bought almost immediately in what is normally referred to as a Pre-packaged sale. In a nutshell, this means that a buyer is lined-up – often the company is selling to another company where the directors are similar, if not the same – and a sale is made almost immediately after administration. However, a legal requirement is that the company for sale is advertised somewhere (and we’re not talking in some disused basement here, we’re talking somewhere public and online).
So was Shiny Media advertised for sale? If it was we can’t find any evidence of this to date.
Moving on…
On July 22, The Daily Telegraph followed up. Dan Wagner, CEO of Brightstation told the newspaper he was disputing the administration order for Shiny Media, the UK blog publishing house. He said the company was performing well and the administration was not necessary.
He said: “Shaa Wasmund and I, as directors of Shiny Media Limited and representing over 50pc of the shareholding in the company, are currently contesting the appointment of the administrator and the alleged subsequent sale of the assets. We are firmly of the view that Shiny Media was a solvent company on Friday July 17, in good shape and trading well.”
However, the company appointed to the administration told a different story. Wilson Field in Sheffield said Shiny Media had been left with no option but administration and said “Legal advice shows the appointment is valid.” A spokesperson said “We are satisfied that the company was insolvent as defined by Section 123 of the Insolvency Act 1986, as it was unable to pay its debts as and when they fell due. HM Revenue and Customs had threatened… proceedings. The administrators are currently considering taking legal remedies against Dan Wagner.” Shiny Media refused to comment at that time.
That day Price posted an early comment on PaidContent UK, reasserting his view that the company had gone into administration, saying “Every effort was made to continue trading, including selling of assets, redundancies, downsizing offices and, in the case of the directors, substantial pay cuts.”
The Guardian newspaper also reported that Price had emailed them, saying, again, that most of the assets of Shiny Media had been bought by a new venture, Shiny Digital. Again, this had shareholders including Norris and Lee, and Cansas Digital Ventures, the new vehicle for Brightstation.
In other words, it seems that Dan Wagner is contesting the fact that Shiny Media is not in administration, when a company he owns, Cansas Digital Ventures, is now part owner of all the old Shiny Media assets. Curiouser and curiouser.
The next day, July 23, Paidcontent reported that Ashley Norris had telephoned them to say “I’m completely heartbroken with the way it’s turned out. I’m disappointed we’re having to maintain radio silence and not comment – but it’s for legal reasons – we hope to be much more candid in the next few days.”
That day also, Katie Lee came out fighting. In a very long blog post (almost as long as this one) on The Daily Telegraph she said a number of things, including that the sale of the Shiny Media company’s assets to Shiny Digital had left her with less equity and some other early writers with none.
However, the most interesting part was this: “The pre-pack has certainly left a bad taste in my mouth and having any shares at all is making me uncomfortable.”
In other words she confirmed that this was a pre-packaged sale. Again, was it advertised in accordance with UK law? A UK government report has found that in 35% of pre-packed sales, the administrators breached the rules.
In addition, further information has been passed to us about what happened at Shiny.
TechCrunch has been told by inside sources that Price and Norris “voted another person onto the board” in order to pass through a motion of insolvency. This prompted the “shareholder”, referred to in Price’s email to employees, to start locking down the company offices. This shareholder is believed to be Brightstation.
In fact, our sources say staff turned up on Monday and were confronted by some angry representatives from Brightstation. We also understand one freelancer was given the phone number of Brightstation by someone at Shiny, only to be told by Brightstation that it would be bringing to bear “all the legal might they could muster”.
We’ve also been told that Brightstation told in-house Shiny staff to go to the offices, and take whatever make-up (they had blogs about fashion and beauty), gadgets and fashion samples they could get their hands on. Comedic scenes apparently ensued when Price and Norris appeared and police were called thinking there was some kind of break-in going on.
The questions that arise from this affair are innumerable.
Why does Dan Wagner of Brightstation call this an “alleged sale” if Brightstation already owns part of the company that the assets were sold to. Wagner has declined to comment further.
Was Brightstation given the option to buy the assets or to invest further money by Shiny Media prior to is pre-pack sale to Shiny Digital?
How much were the assets sold for?
What attempts were made by the administrators to find another buyer for the assets? Was there any advertising? We’ve called the administrators but they have not returned our calls.
Some freelance Shiny writers say they were still waiting for payments owed prior to Shiny entering administration. Some are owed at least £4,000. This could substantiate the administrator’s view that Shiny Media “was unable to pay its debts”.
Who is this mystery additional shareholder that voted for administration?
Was Brightstation aware of the whole process?
We’ve spoken to Ashley Norris. He told us “We can’t speak because of various ongoing legal situations.” But he did say the administrators had been happy with the process to date and will be issuing a press release in due course.
We have another, well placed source that suggests a further twist. They tell us that Brightstation themselves didn’t put the money into Shiny Media, but in fact acted as a middleman between Shiny and another company (as yet unnamed) which provided the money to power Brightstation. That company made most of its money from sub-prime mortgages so when the market tanked last year, so did their financial muscle. As a result they weren’t able to give Shiny Media all the money they were promised, which may have further exacerbated the company’s woes.
The source suggests that it was these financial problems which caused a breakdown in relations and communication between all parties, leading to the chaos we’ve witnessed this week.
Finally, it is worth recalling who Dan Wagner is. This is a tough entrepreneur and investor who is best known for running the Maid online information business in the 1990s, and turning down an opportunity to invest $1m (£510,000) for 30% of the fledgling Ebay — a stake that would now be worth many billions. He also bought the assets of Boo.com for a reported $375,000 back during the dotcom crash and turned it into the successful ecommerce player Venda. And his Wikipedia page suggests that he is not one to take things lying down.
Perhaps it would be generous however to end on a lighter note. The shiny, flock wallpaper in Shiny’s Central London office (which they shared with fellow-Brightstation-backed OSOYOU) cost £80 a sheet. Isn’t it shiny?
Picture of Shiny founders: The Guardian
What an interesting story. Why does nobody comment?
Lots of fireworks, to be sure, but I just can’t get excited about this. I’m sure many of us who are more than a couple years into the workforce have lived this before and so it falls as a “dog bites man” story.
Frankly, I’m pretty sure all of the people mentioned in the story are douchebags, so what’s the loss? Good riddance, perhaps.
Lots of fireworks to be sure, but I just can’t get excited over this. I’m sure many of us who are more than a couple years into the dotcom workforce have experienced something like this. And really, all this over a <5MM company?
Furthermore, it appears possible that everybody mentioned in this story is a douchebag, so perhaps a hearty “good riddance” is in order.
something appears to be broken, commentwise.
‘Under the SIP 16 rules, insolvency advisers must provide a host of details to justify to creditors their decision to use a pre-pack. These include an assurance that advisers have exhausted alternative avenues of selling the company solvently or re-financing it.’
If I was a creditor I’d be very interested in their explanation on how they exhausted alternative avenues.
If you are a creditor, the adminstrators are required by law to release to you on request a pre-pack report detailing a number of things including:
- The source of the administrator’s initial introduction
- Any marketing activities conducted by the company and/or the administrator
- The extent of the administrator’s involvement prior to appointment
- The consideration for the transaction, terms of payment, and any condition of the contract that could materially affect the consideration
- Whether efforts were made to consult with major creditors
- The names of any directors, or former directors, of the company who are involved in the management or ownership of the purchaser, or of any other entity into which any of the assets are transferred
- Whether any directors had given guarantees for amounts due from the company to a prior financier, and whether that financier is financing the new business
- Any options, buy-back arrangements or similar conditions attached to the contract of sale.
My guess is that it will make very interesting reading.
I have been told (by an “inside source”
) that initial correspondence is to be sent out to Shiny Media’s listed creditors on Monday 27th July.
UK based news perhaps not appealing to your audiences
Sigh. This is all getting pretty tiresome now. Make of this story what you will, given that it originates from Carr and TCE hasn’t acknowledged here who actually broke this story (TCE was second, in fact, after they were tipped).
What we have here is a load more speculative questions and rumour, none of which help anyone actually involved in Shiny Media’s current predicament. The only organisation it boosts is TCE.
Why don’t we wait for something official now, from either tge administrators (Wilson Field), Brightstation (or whatever they or a subsidiary are called now), or legal representation?
What an odd comment. The story “originates” from the facts and from sources on all sides.
The purpose of the story isn’t to “help” anyone involved with Shiny but to try to understand what is going on, and what went wrong. Waiting for official statements is not really how journalism works.
Also, you need to declare your interest as a former Shiny freelancer.
Not an odd comment at all, Paul. OK, the article originates from you — so we can all be pedantic.
I wasn’t suggesting that you’d in any way want to help anyone from Shiny Media — your prose so far makes that blindingly obvious. Please don’t take a high and mighty attitude to how journalism works.
The first part of this article simply strings together all the articles that I think we’ve all read already (or can find very quickly with a search for ‘Shiny Media’ on Google or Twitter)
The second is based on “sources” — I’m sure we know how ultra-reliable insider sources always are. Directors allegedly turning up with protection, supposed advice from Brightstation for (ex)-employees to take stock, etc…
(Yes, I’m aware this is what TechCrunch “does”).
The third is simply putting down a load of questions that we may well be asking yet have no way of answering.
Finally, anyone who has followed this story will have seen that I have made it perfectly clear that I have freelanced for Shiny Media. You seem very good at taking a single paragraph and making a judgement on it — so I failed to disclose this on one comment? Perhaps if you’d linked to the Blog Herald article that I wrote (when I broke the story and *then* informed TCE) you would see my disclosure.
Merret: I have never heard of you, wouldn’t realize your bias by your comment, and have never read anything about this topic. Your assumptions are insulting and indicate your belief that happenings of your world are the center of the universe. Please get a grip.
Merret>Merrett. Sorry.
“Your assumptions are insulting and indicate your belief that happenings of your world are the center of the universe.”
Why don’t _you_ get a grip? I said that if the article had cited its sources correctly (it’s now been edited) people would’ve seen my interests in SM.
And for the record, I’ve never heard of you, mainly because you’re too cowardly to use your real name. I think you need to go and get a coldbrew.
“Also, you need to declare your interest as a former Shiny freelancer.”
Oh….. snap!
Ditto. Ditto. Yawn.
Remarkable! Is that all fact or is someone pitching for a follow on to the BBC2 drama series set in a London internet startup – ‘Attachments’. It could easily be a follow-up plot line to that end.
But you really should have worked in a topical twist and injected Sam Sethi somewhere.
No truth in the rumour the London internet business scene is full of bullshitters then! Splendid.
I did wonder when that was coming back…
Not so shiny after all. The writers should not let this distract them from writing, they should move on and write for themselves. What a disaster ….
Many of us have. Did you not follow other people’s comments?
amazing story.
It is an amazing story for several reasons. One big one though is how could an apparently ‘legitimate’ VC let one of their investments go so delinquent? Sure, Shiny Media in their current form are finished but so too must be Brightstation Ventures.
Businesses like Shiny are part of the Darwinian detritus of all new industries. Its a sad, but not uncommon story. Be interested to know if it was the business model, or the execution, that failed here.
Sounds like execution to me, plus the standard joys of incubators (do people remember/learn nothing of the dotcom crashes).
Views?
OMG, I am going to comment, not becaz I read this article, but becaz I could not read it. You guys need an editor bad, stop writing novels.
There should be a size restriction at the least.
Their website sucks anyway. The writers and editors don’t know their arse from their elbows.
No tech prowess = fail.
Did that apply to the fashion sites? Or the lifestyle ones? Or the ones about ethical consumerism? Oh I forgot, many people still think _Shiny Media_ is a web site.
I’ve read it twice and still can’t work out who the baddies are.
Basically a bunch of people sold assets under administration back to themselves. Is that correct?
How about a rewrite for an Oprah audience, like me?
It is a tradition in the UK that if you are going to go down, do so in style and surrounded by controversy. It help you to get a better book deal. The best example of this is Boo Hoo written about the life and death of boo.com. It is a classic.
This is a confusing story, mainly because it is so unusual. It is not normal for an CEO to put a company into administration against the will of the investors, especially when the investors don’t think that the company needs to go into administration.
Then for the assets to be sold, to a company co-owned by the founders and the investment company, but for the investment company to describe the sale as an alleged sale, only adds to the confusion.
The tragedies here are:
1. There wasn’t an absolute need to put the company into administration. I’m sure if the CEO and investors were on better terms they would have found another way forward.
2. The assets of the company could almost certainly have been sold for much more to another entity, than the likely nominal amount that they were sold for to the founders company. In this instance, I’d suggest that a pre-pack sale was totally inappropriate and self-servicing for Chris Price. It is very likely that an open sale of the assets or company would have realised a far far higher price. The administrators will soon be releasing a pre-pack report that will detail the amount that Shiny Media’s assets were sold for, so watch this space to find out if I’m right.
3. The writers and other creditors are the victims of this fallout.
If you are looking for a baddie, look for who has done best out of this.
What an interesting story of what happens when a startup really badly fails.
It would be interesting to find out how the equity was divided in the company. Does Companies House have a record?
Andy Merrett no, what you have here is a very well put together explanation of what’s happened thus far, what the situation currently is, and a list of questions that remain unanswered.
This article also highlights that the sale was done as a pre-pack sale, and worse a ‘phoenix’ pre-pack sales, where assets are sold to a new company with the same, or similar shareholders. That is something that creditors may not have been fully aware of and it is something that is very much in their interest to understand.
I wonder whether the unpaid writers, suppliers etc. fully understand what a ‘phoenix’ pre-pack sale it and who it benefits.
Chris Price ends up with assets, normally bought at a nominal price, transfered to his other company.
The creditors don’t tend to do as well:
‘MPs on the Business and Enterprise Committee said in May that pre-packs were damaging confidence in Britain’s insolvency regime. The MPs found that unsecured creditors such as customers, suppliers and shareholders recovered an average of only 1 per cent of their debts during a pre-pack administration.’
Phoenix pre-pack are legal, on the occassion that they are done within the rules. It is interesting to note that the no. of directors who have been banned for improperly creating phoenix companies has risen by 67% in the last 12 months.
I don’t have full information but my reading of this is that the company was unnecessarily put into administration, that all options for selling it or re-financing it were not properly explored, and that creditors and staff have lost out accordingly.
It appears, and I happy to be corrected on this, that Chris Price went on a self-serving mission, fueled by a cocktail of ego and business naivety.
For all your knowledge and insight regarding this topic, I can’t figure out why the ‘Reply’ function w/in the comments escapes you.
Someone’s forgotten how to write content for the web… what a fucking long article!
That guy may be comment spamming, but he’s right – appaling writing. I gave up trying to get any info out of this article.
Less is more.
This is ACE! I’m prepared to knock £50 off what I’m owed by Shiny as payment for all the entertainment I’ve had this week.
As someone who’s been part of the London 2.0 scene and experienced the tail end of it, I have to say I feel sorry for the people owed money by shiny media.
This pre-packaged sale to Shiny Digital is a little bit concerning, and I speak from experience.
When I was working at the social networking startup Naked last year, the financier of the startup told us (after announcing that Naked would be going into administration) that he would setup a “NewCo, with fresh financing”, and simply move everyone and the assets over. Business as usual.
In the same way that Robo (the financier of Naked) proposed his NewCo, it seems that Shiny Media have done something similar with the pre-packaged sale to Shiny Digital. In short, it looks like a phoenix. I can understand the desperate desire to rescue a business on its knees, but to cut creditors short is in my opinion immoral, and that was why I resigned from Naked the next day after that meeting.
Resigned from Naked and put your clothes back on?
Well this story certainly doesn’t originate on TCE, it’s a summary
Reading this I was transported back to FC and the good ol days.
When I was living in the UK 4-5 years ago, their sites were getting a lot of attention. I followed them over the years and realized there was no way they could even be close to making money. Their content was weak and generic, they didn’t have a clue about monetizing and they never evolved the look and feel of their sites over the years. On top of that, they’re still using Movable Type. They should have migrated to Wordpress years ago and kept a modern to feel to their web design. For years now, the Shiny Media sites have all looked like they belong in a museum for ancient blogging technology.
On top of all that, I could tell from outward appearances that they spent way more than they could hope to earn.
Incidentally, I also remember the guy from Mink Media spouting off on the BBC about how most blogs were crap and only a few like his professional blogs would survive. I remember thinking how clueless he was.
Agree – the real reason they went bust is that the sites were rubbish! Dated appearance, weak content – they obviously couldn’t afford a decent designer or developer. Shame that they were touted as among the best that the UK web scene has to offer. I do think Brightstation and its investment companies have a history of bigging themselves up.
I doubt Six Apart would agree that blogs run on Movable Type belong in a “blogging museum”. MT per se wasn’t the issue – hosting it reliably would have helped.
Disclosure: I used to write for Shiny Media as a freelancer.
Good advice to grab the swag. Shiny was only ever about freebies, living off press trips and fooling readers that it was authentic first hand blogging. Lee, Norris & Price knew the cash cow that old media used to be having worked in trade magazine publishing but they lacked the talent to rise to the top. Shiny was their attempt at old media when old media was already dying. They just called it blogging, and it never made sense.
Will lessons be learnt? I doubt it. These are not self aware characters. Listen to where London ‘bloggers’ are today, still playing the game including Shiny editorial director Lee. Swag has become sway, but the game is the same.
http://thesway....ebates/#respond
The harm Shiny did went further than not paying writers. Anyone writing for it was playing the swag game that so annoys people like Arrington.
The harm it did was it used its sub-prime money in a crude attempt to dominate and define blogging, with a lot of help from Ashley Norris’s friends at the Guardian, which gave ridiculous commentary throughout. The odd piece surfaced, like this from the BBC on Shiny at CES and whether blogging had sold out. Norris didn’t see the gravy train in the same way:
‘Our crack team, myself included, had an amazing time in Vegas and are already arguing about which hotel we are going to stay in next year.
Our coverage was amazing.’
http://www.bbc....f_blogging.html
http://www.shin...2008-shiny.html
http://www.guar...usedofshoddytre
http://www.guar...hmaxroamtackles
http://blogs.gu...rious_with.html
(a) I didn’t write for Shiny for “swag” — I think maybe I accidentally kept a next-to-useless portable scanner because I couldn’t get the PR company to collect it. Anything else went back (sometimes at my own expense, thank you)
(OK, scratch that, I’m about to send back the Flip Mino HD sitting on my desk — that’s all that remains)
(b) even if I did, I couldn’t care less what Michael Arrington thinks;
(c) I *never* went on any press trips organised by Shiny Media. The only press events I went to, I bought my own London Transport Travelcard. OK, perhaps I eat a few too many sandwiches at the LG press event — so shoot me.
…but thanks for the continued blanket statements about “people who write / work for Shiny Media”.
The only thing more boring than watching this story being rehashed is seeing that troll Andy Merrett rear his pre-pubescent avatar yet again.
Presume he’s got more time on his ‘hands’ after the great porn scam of 2008? http://www.guar...ity.hitechcrime
I’m not a troll, unlike some. I’m as calmly as possible (which is difficult when idiots like you make sarcastic comments in an attempt to be humorous) replying to people (many of whom are too cowardly to use real names/avatars) who see fit to tarnish everyone who worked at Shiny Media with the same brush.
A storm in a teacup. Utterly uninteresting.
Interesting round up (albeit not breif).
I always wondered how they could afford to send half the company to vegas every year, not to mention other yearly conferences. I guess here’s the answer: they couldn’t.
I also don’t hold a hope for any of the writers getting paid, even in their heyday freelancers always complained of non-payment, remarks of “You’ll get paid when our advertisers pay”, “Most companies pay their writers on 90 days terms” and the classic: “Didn’t we already pay you for that invoice?”
Not sure if it still exists, but there were a few facebook groups set up by ex-shiny writers that provided a good source of entertainment.
For press trips to Vegas – or other trade shows – it’s very common to accept a trip from a large electronics company.
The truth is, without such trips, most UK companies simply couldn’t afford to cover trade shows. It’s not especially hard for a half-decent journalist to understand that this shouldn’t give the host an easy time in the resulting coverage.
photo credit above to the guardian is incorrect, the pic was from a shiny photo shoot, can’t find a credit though for who the photographer was.
http://www.shin..._away_day_.html
Is there a point to this? It’s so badly written I gave up trying to read it.
Is basic journalism training available for Paul Carr?
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Please do not confused Dan wagner or brightstation with a ‘legitimate’ VC.
They are not VCs and this is story is consistent with his awful reputation in the market.
Maybe shiny media should have done more investor reference calls. or maybe everyone else has passed….
Chris Price bought the remaining assets for £50,000 and only had to make a downpayment of £5,000 to the administrators to take possession of everything. If anyone still cares.
Even if Shiny Digital rise from the ashes, will anyone trust them after all of this? And does the country really need more adverts on blogs anyway?
Excellent reporting.
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