b5media

October 6th,2006

Welcome to Mark Evans, VP, Operations

By Administrator

b5media is very, very proud to welcome Mark Evans, formerly the Senior Technology Writer at the National Post (one of Canada’s largest national daily newspapers). Mark will be joining us as VP, Operations. Mark is our first external hire since our funding announcement.

Mark wrote his official goodbye (to the National Post) and hello (to b5media) post last night. Here is what Mark had to say about his reasons for joining b5:

To be honest, the decision to join was easy. For someone who believes blogs have a bright future and blog networks are going to become important entities, b5 has all the right ingredients for success: a growing portfolio of blogs that cover a wide variety of topics from technology and sports to entertainment and health. And it has a group of engaged bloggers, which I see as b5’s most valuable asset. Most important, b5 has barely scratched its potential in terms of what it can do from a content, technology and business perspective. Now, that’s exciting.

Rick, one of our new VC’s, also chimed in. Rick has seen Mark work before and has seen his dedication, willingness to squeeze water out of a rock and talent. Rick has nothing but praise for Mark:

Fourth. Mark can be trusted. Jeremy and the other co-founders of b5 remember rule one above all else. Hire people smarter than you and get out of the way. I wanted Mark to be involved with b5 and would have been all over Jeremy on this but, see rule one. Jeremy got to Mark and, along the way, Jeremy learned that Mark can be trusted. Titles and egos were left at the door. These two will be excellent together.

Mark Evans is a rare commodity; a combination of raw talent, experience, trust, and a great dad, hubby and person.

Welcome Aboard. Buckle up, it might get a little bumpy but it will be fun.

We are very, very happy to have Mark on board. We really view b5 as much more than a “blog network”, and Mark’s undeniable expertise and experience will only help bring our vision to fruition. That’s not to say that we aren’t extremely proud of what we’ve built in the last year - because we are! We just see a bright future for b5, our bloggers, our partners and our advertisers - as well as the industry as a whole.

We’d like to thank everyone for their support and constructive criticism. I know as well as anyone that the question of why a blog network would need money is an interesting one. I’d just rather show you why we’re taking money instead of just telling you why we did.

For anyone who’s new to b5, I did a brief interview with Allen from Center Networks yesterday via cellphone (apologies for the background noise). It’s fairly basic, and doesn’t go into a lot of detail, but that’s mainly because we really believe in showing instead of telling - and doing the work instead of just talking about it.

Anyways, a huge thanks to our bloggers. You guys are the absolute best, and any bit of magic that b5 has is entirely thanks to each of you. I applaud you individually and as a community for what you’ve accomplished in the last year, as well as for your excitement for the future. And I thank you for the confidence you’ve placed in b5, the management team, myself, Mark and our VC’s.

As Rick is fond of saying, it’s going to be a bumpy road, but it’ll also be a crazy amount of fun!