Hit Google News.

Hit Google Blog Search.

Over 50 bloggers were fired from what was once the third largest blog network, a network that has taken $8m in funding, and hardly anyone wrote about it.

They’ve also launched a new site today. The interwebs are silent.

A couple of people who did write about it
Tyme White: b5media, Crushable, and protecting yourself as a writer
Roberta Ferguson: b5Media opens fire on the entire entertainment channel, fires 50 bloggers
Meida Bistro: B5Media Terminates Entire Entertainment Network; 50 Freelance & Full-Time Bloggers Gone
Trus Hussey: How the Mighty Have Fallen: b5media Shutters a Prime Channel
Gary Conn: B5media Fires 50 Entertainment Bloggers

Mass Firings At b5media: Entire Entertainment Network Shut

I’m not happy about it. I’ve settled my differences with the other founders (well, the actual founders, not the interloper), and although there is the odd person who has been fired today I’m happy about, mostly I find the news sad.

The thing is though: b5media is now terminally fucked.

It has to be.

Alexa rank:
Bizzia 12,949
Splendicity 16,648
Blisstree: 12, 949
Everyjoe: 13,282

vs: Inquisitr: 7511
Oh, and I did it on the smell of an oily rag vs $8m.

Yeah yeah, Alexa isn’t accurate. But if there’s one thing former b5media CEO Jeremy Wright and I’ll both agree on, it’s that a high trafficked site will have a sub 10k Alexa rank. None of b5media’s sites do.

And now, zero entertainment blogs. Problogger and Digital Photography School don’t count even if listed on the b5 front page; they are Darren Rowse’s blogs and I’d be highly surprised if they are owned by b5media today.

I’m sure there’s a saying here about orgies in brothels and the ability to organize them…it will come to me 🙂

As we reported on The Inquisitr earlier today, b5media CEO Jeremy Wright has left the company (although he still sits on the board.)

Although Darren Rowse is still officially there, his bio on the b5media employee list states only that he’s a founder, and having spoken to him previously, and watched him build a brilliant network of his own sites, I’d think that he has little to no involvement in the everyday running of the company.

On that basis, it’s the end of the original b5media era, at least as the company Jeremy, Darren and I originally founded.

To some degree I’m a little sad. Certainly having read Jeremy’s reasons for leaving I’m sympathetic to his plight. The three of us (well, there was 5 originally, hence the b5, one of the 5 was Paul Short, who I’m happy to say works with me at The Inquisitr now) started the company with the best of intentions. Individually we had all achieved, but together we thought we could do better. b5media looks nothing like it once was today, but along the way it has done some great things, and enabled and funded some great writers as well.

I’m still legally restrained on talking about the early days, but there’s nothing in that paperwork that says that I can’t speculate on the company today. I don’t know the new CEO at all, but I’ve done some reasonable background reading, and I can come to only one conclusion: she was parachuted in by the VC’s to prep the company for sale. Whether she’s up to the task I don’t know, but with the three year anniversary of the first funding round coming up, both investors will undoubetedly be starting to look for an exit in the next 12-24 months.

For a long time I wasn’t particularly a happy camper about the circumstance under which I left b5media, but that’s a long time ago now. It was a stepping stone to something better for me, and in many ways today I’m happy that things worked out the way it did.

Farewell b5media, we loved you so.