To my dearest Gerbils,
As you know, The Tech Report has a long and vaunted history of technology journalism going back to the previous millennia (sounds super long if you say it like that). Online journalism has struggled and many organizations have been hit hard over the last few years. This site has not been profitable for a long time, and Adam (Inkling) continued to run it out of his own pocket to keep the digital lights on. Obviously that isn’t sustainable. For those of you attending the BBQ this Saturday August 10th, please give Adam some well-deserved hurrah’s for his sacrifice for us. Some of you have heard numerous stories about how TR was founded, and some people (well, one) have even claimed I helped Scott start it. I’m not here to say what’s true or isn’t true, but we do need to talk about the site’s next evolution.
New Blood
The Tech Report now has new owners and with their help we will grow all that’s wonderful about the site: the incredible community of people who come here to read the best darn tech journalism available anywhere. The high quality of our work will remain the same. The new owners have repeatedly stated that they’ll going to invest in making sure that the site produces them same excellent material it always has. Nobody wants the Tech Report to go under and without serious changes insolvency is the inevitable outcome. They don’t want that. They bought the site, they want it to prosper.
I’d like to introduce you all to Renee Johnson, our new Editor-in-Chief. Residing in the Bay Area of California, she’s close to many of the companies we regularly write about (and enjoys weather that’s a hell of a lot nicer than Calgary, Alberta where I live). She’s been a writer for a long time and has skills and experience in improving web site traffic and publication profitability. These specific skills will be needed if we want TR to survive. Since Jeff departed we have badly needed a new boss, and I’m glad to have her on board. So welcome, Renee, I look forward to working alongside you and helping grow TR into a sustainable and growing business.
New Site
There is also the new site redesign, which has moved the back-end to WordPress and has an increased focus on search engine optimization and getting more users to the site. The new system was a shock to all of us, myself included. There are obviously still things we need to sort out, and I have been told they’re being looked at, including the currently non-functional mobile comments and comment editing. I realize how frustrating these are, but I ask that you all have patience. If you see a bug post it in the following thread or shoot me or Colton (drfish) a message in the forum.
Other changes are afoot as well. The content you know and love will continue to be produced. Hopefully you’ve seen them continuing since the changes started. There will be increased coverage of software and other technologies. We need to attract more advertisers or we won’t survive. New kinds of stories will be written to develop new forms of revenue, and they’ll get better as we get more comfortable with how to produce them. It’s necessary if we want to keep the lights on. Click on an ad once in a while for us. Help us help TR.
Subscriptions
For those of you with subscriptions, I know that there has been some frustration with the disappearance of the applet for managing your account. It’s on its way back very soon, but it was apparently more complicated than initially thought. However, you can manage your account through the emails you received when you signed up. Watch the site for news as there are new features coming for those who are subscribed. If there are any serious issues you can email [email protected] to resolve them.
In Closing
There will be more new writers joining the team, and I hope we can treat all of them with kindness and respect going forward, as that has been sadly lacking up to this point in some of the recent comments. This truly is a personal appeal by me, your long time all-caps friend, SWEATSHOPKING. I’ve assured our new owners that you’re an intelligent, educated, and generally respectful group, and I hope that you’ll all continue to be the best damn community online. We’ve all made real friendships here and I hope that we can help new readers do the same.
I know some of you have been frustrated over the last few weeks. I remember my shock when my co-founder Scott (this may or may not be true, who knows anymore. Well, obviously I do) sold it, but Jeff and Adam did a great job keeping the content going as long as they could. That content is due to increase and we need your patience and support with the changes coming to the site to make that successful. I promise that I’ll continue to produce the same quality content I’ve written in the past (laugh away). So will others. We just need The Tech Report and you all to stick around to read it.