Goodbye CMP, And Thank You…

CMP’s owner just announced plans to break up the company into four groups. As I hinted a few weeks ago, I have great memories of my time at CMP, where I launched my career at InformationWeek and took some fun steps forward at Windows Magazine before moving on to other enticing opportunities — including our efforts here at Nine Lives Media Inc.

Thank you to the Leeds family for creating a wonderful, entrepreneurial work environment for me at CMP in the 1990s. It will be interesting to see how the four new mini-CMPs — which won’t even carry the CMP brand — will perform on their own. Some skeptics think the breakup is a bad idea. But I’ll reserve judgment.

Our First International Blogger

A few weeks after Nine Lives Media Inc. launched MSPmentor and The VAR Guy, Amy managed to sign sponsors across the U.S., Canada and even India. Almost from the start, we were an international sales organization.

Impressive. But I soon learned our international reach also had an editorial component. Although the majority of our readers are located in North America, our media sites have attracted visitors from 108 countries in less than two months. Our following in Europe, Australia and India is growing particularly fast.

Oh, and did I mention our commitment to embracing international bloggers? Our first is from Lima, Peru.

Our Next Media Platform Is…

It has been nearly two months since Amy and I launched Nine Lives Media Inc. As we near our third month of business, we’re starting to piece together our third media site.

Let me recap the story for you so far. Amy and I incorporated Nine Lives Media Inc. in January 2008 … yada, yada, yada … and we now have two media platforms (MSPmentor and The VAR Guy) that are attracting highly targeted IT audiences and sponsors. I’ve skipped the gory details, because I’m saving those for my memoir.

There is one key detail I will share: To build a successful blog or social media business, you need to have passion for the topics and industries you’re covering/serving. And you need to unite an audience of readers and vendors that otherwise can’t find one another.

Our next media site certainly fits that description. It’s called…