For the last few months, we here at Xconomy have been extremely busy planning XSITE, the Xconomy Summit on Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship, which packed the auditorium at the Boston University School of Management on Wednesday. At some point in the hullabaloo, we remembered we had another important event fast approaching—tomorrow, in fact—the second anniversary of Xconomy’s launch.
Yow! What a two years it has been. We went live on June 27, 2007, in Kendall Square here in Cambridge, MA. Our lead story that day was a scoop about roboticist (and Xconomist) Rod Brooks stepping down as head of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to go back to pursuing science—and we haven’t let up since.
Indeed, our Boston site has rapidly grown into a leading—dare I say the leading—source of news about innovation in New England. And we have held many events here in Boston as well, from private parties to forums on cloud computing, how to build a biotech company, energy innovation, and more—not to mention our annual Battle of the Tech Bands, and, now, XSITE, our first full-day event.
And, thanks to a truly amazing set of colleagues, we’ve brought our brand of hyperlocal coverage—including such top-quality events—to two other innovation clusters. We launched in Seattle on June 16, 2008, and last October 6, we went live in San Diego. These days, we count some 170,000 unique visitors each month to the growing Xconomy network.
We couldn’t have done it without a fantastic set of colleagues—thank you all!—and a tremendous amount of support from our readers, investors, and underwriters, and venture members.
I’d like to take just a moment to thank these pioneering groups who have supported us since our launch, or even before: Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Biogen Idec, EMC, the Science & Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Advanced Technology Ventures, Atlas Venture, and Flagship Ventures.
And thanks as well to all those who have joined us since: ATT Wireless, ARCH Venture Partners, Avalon Ventures, Bit Group, CCR, Charles River Ventures, Cooley Godward Kronish, Enterprise Partners Venture Group, Fama Public Relations, Fenwick & West, Flybridge Capital Partners, Invest Northern Ireland, J. Robert Scott Executive Search, Jones Lang LaSalle, Latham & Watkins, McCarter and English, MFA: Moody, Famiglietti & Andronico, North Bridge Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, Schwartz Communications, UK Trade & Investment, Wilmer Hale
And all our partners: Alliance of Angels, BIOCOM, CleanTECH San Diego, CommNexus San Diego, CONNECT, San Diego Software Industry Council, San Diego Venture Group, Sun Microsystems, Technology Alliance, Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association, Washington Technology Industry Association.
And, of course, a heartfelt thank you to you, our readers. Your support has meant everything to us. We enjoy not just your readership, but your comments, whether on the site or at our events, through e-mail, or on the phone. You help us do our jobs better.
As Greg and Luke wrote when we celebrated the first anniversary of our Seattle site: We hope you’ll keep us on our toes, and stick around for many more anniversaries to come.
