Rojo: Six Apart Buys Rojo; Tech Froth; Apple iPhone

Six Apart Acquires Rojo!

It’s true! Rojo Networks, Inc. has been acquired by Six Apart, Ltd. Read the full press release here. Six Apart has been a leader in the blogosphere and one of the most important Web 2.0 innovators – we’re thrilled to be joining forces.

What does this mean for for your favorite feed reader? Rojo.com will still be here - and will soon get better than ever. The Rojo leadership team will continue to be involved with Rojo.com, NooZ.com, and The Week in Rojo newsletter and several of the core Rojo team members are continuing to work on the service. Six Apart plans to spin out Rojo – so we will continue to improve your favorite feed reader. Stay tuned in September for a very significant new release of Rojo as we migrate to a new architecture – one that we built when we launched NooZ.com. All of this means a faster and better Rojo service is on the way. More details soon!

Got a question about the merger or a suggestion for making Rojo even better? Let us know in our forums.

Top Stories for the Week of September 4 - September 8

Word of the week: frothy. The tech industry is spewing companies and Web doohickeys and blog amalgamizers and Internet contraptions like video social-networking wiki cooking sites says Kevin Maney. Translation: It’s out of control. The inventor of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee tried putting some brakes on the hype, calling Web 2.0 “a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means.” Blogger reaction was not what you’d call subdued: Web 2.0 launched a lengthy defense of Web 2.0’s architectures of participation. Um right. Dead 2.0 agreed with Berners-Lee that hype has outstripped 2.0 technology, while Scobleizer says of course it’s a bubble—a froth bubble—and here’s how to step outside it.

Back inside the reality distortion field, Apple announced an event September 12 to showcase what’s rumored to be the iTunes Movie Store, (via CrunchGear) although Cult of Mac said don’t count on it; the timing’s all wrong and where are the invitations, anyway? Oh, here they are—it’s real, alright. But paidContent.org blogs that there’s no demand for full-length video downloads anyway. Gizmodo thinks a long-awaited iPhone intro will happen soon, to the point where brokers are recommending an AAPL “buy” before the phone’s release.

Facebook launched its redesign but it’s visibly tracking users’ movements—and telling their friends what some of them are, reports Mashable! Plenty of users are creeped out. Meanwhile, SiliconBeat blogged that YouTube is now on Facebook’s turf with YouTube Colleges, while ProHipHop is upbeat about MySpace selling indie music through Snocap’s back end. This is no iTunes competitor since the songs are unrestricted MP3s, writes Go Big Blog Network, but NetFamily News says it’s yet more bad news for Tower Records .

And Rojo (that’s this service, folks) was bought by Six Apart this weekblogs TechCrunch and calls it one of his favorite web sites (thanks, Mike!). There are getting to be fewer and fewer feed readers say GigaOm (note on that link: Rojo is not being rolled into Vox) as feed reading becomes a feature on other sites. Instead Six Apart will continue to focus on its core business while Rojo.com and its newsreader will be spun off with the goal of selling a majority interest (see paidContent.org for more). We're going to see lots of these kind of deals blogs Mark Evans as Web 2.0 start-ups scramble into the arms of well-financed Web 2.0 players.

In other major media news, the Audit Bureau of Circulation will start combining print and online audience numbers to determine readership, blogs BuzzMachine, but the model’s flawed since it only takes a one-day snapshot and doesn’t count people who read both the online and paper versions of a publication. It may not matter, writes Don Dodge, since newspapers and magazines are dying off anyway.

In entertainment news, Rosie O’Donnell is about to join Barbara Walters on The View, but not before blogging her complaints bout the show’s promotion. Walters asked her to stop, according to Micro Persuasion, but that’s not the week’s only rocky beginning. Katie Couric finally tried her hand at journalism, with mixed results, writes Gothamist: decent Afghanistan coverage but a bit Entertainment Tonight with the Suri Cruise “coverage.” Of course Suri is beautiful, writes Blogging Baby, but that’s what you get from a super-secret Annie Liebovitz photo shoot. Suri aside, TV Squad liked the Free Speech segment where well-known personalities like Bill Clinton, Rush Limbaugh and Bill Maher will get to say what’s on their minds, and recommended that Katie sign off by saying “I’m Katie Couric, and I like asparagus.” The show generated big ratings for Katie and CBS, giving the network its highest ratings in that time slot since 1998.

Finally and sadly, bloggers mourned the death of TV’s Crocodile Hunter and famed conservationist Steve Irwin after he was stabbed through the heart by a stingray in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Crikey! The whole thing was caught on film but the tape will likely be destroyed writes Gothamist. Animal Planet plans an all-day tribute September 10, and Irwin’s father will take over his son’s conservation work reports Blogcritics. A video tribute to Irwin is here.

To see the top stories on Rojo every week, subscribe to the Rojo Blog feed.

Direct Links 

New Web Conference: Frothy and no women
Tech industry spews Web companies, doohickeys so fast we can't keep up
All We Got Was Web 1.0, When Tim Berners-Lee Actually Gave Us Web 2.0
Tim Berners-Lee thinks I’m cool
Getting outside the frothy bubble

Apple Says, “It’s Showtime;” Everyone Freaks Out
Apple Confirms "Showtime" for Sept. 12
Online Video Users Prefer Ad-Supported Sites And Short Format
Apple Cellphone Is Real and Coming Soon?

Facebook’s Facelift - An Invasion of Privacy?
Facebook launches “News Feed” and “Mini Feed” — as YouTube invades turf
More On The MySpace/Snocap Music Store Plans
Mini music stores at MySpace

Six Apart Acquires Rojo
Six Apart Buys Rojo
Six Apart Acquires Rojo Networks, Acq-Hires Co-Founder; Will Spin Off Newsreader
Time to Eat Your (Web 2.0) Own

Stand up and be counted… and counted
Are newspapers and magazines dying?

Rosie Mad at Oprah, Still Loves Cruise
Barbara Walters to Rosie: Don't Blog Our Show
Katie Couric's Big Night
Suri Cruise unveiled on CBS News with Katie Couric
So, how did Katie Couric do on the CBS Evening News?
Big ratings for Katie's first night

The Crocodile Hunter dominates the blogosphere
Crocodile Hunter's Death Investigated
Steve Irwin's Father, Wife, and Coworkers Speak Out
Steve Irwin's Career 1962-2006 (Photo Gallery)



 

Comments

[Robyn Tippins]

Wow, congrats. Six Apart is a great company and Rojo's going places :) I love the email newsletter. It's probably the best one I've seen and the only one I read consistently from top to bottom. I still haven't tried the feed reader though, I really need to do that...