Like many news operations, Xconomy is going into hibernation for a well-deserved week off, starting December 24. We’ll fire up WordPress, Tweetdeck, and all of our other tools again on Monday, January 3 (which happens to be my birthday).
The only exception: a series of guests posts that we’ll be publishing in our Xconomist Forum section over the holiday break. These pieces, contributed by leading members of the technology and investment communities in each of Xconomy’s home cities, will take a look back at some of the most important and surprising developments of 2010, and hazard a few guesses about what’s coming in 2011. Keep an eye out for them starting Monday, December 27.
Before I sign off, I wanted to send out a personal thank-you to everyone who has shared their time, stories, and advice with me and my colleagues since we opened our Bay Area bureau in June. When we decided to expand our coverage of high-tech innovation and entrepreneurship to San Francisco and Silicon Valley, we knew that we’d face stiff competition from all of the existing new organizations covering the technology scene—great publications like Mashable, ReadWriteWeb, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury News, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, and others. But again and again, entrepreneurs and investors around the Bay Area have told us that they need and want Xconomy’s brand of in-depth, long-form journalism about both technology and life sciences.
As my colleague Luke Timmerman and I wrote on June 15, the day after we launched Xconomy San Francisco:
The Silicon Valley/San Francisco/Berkeley axis is arguably the only place on Earth that’s already oversaturated with technology bloggers. Every curt e-mail from Steve Jobs, every bead of sweat from Mark Zuckerberg, every hot gadget of the day is given ad nauseum coverage on the Web. Why would Bay Area readers want to add Xconomy to their mix of news sources? Well, the truth is that other technology publications are doing a great job of covering the constant stream of product releases, venture financings, and industry conferences (not to mention the rumors, gossip, and controversy) coming out of the Bay Area. What’s missing, we think, is a publication that puts entrepreneurs and innovators first: that looks underneath the daily news stream for original stories about the nuts-and-bolts challenges of turning great ideas into successful businesses.
That’s what we’ve been trying to build, with stories highlighting the most innovative companies across consumer and business software, cleantech and energy, and the life sciences, from pharmaceuticals to medical devices.
As we establish our presence here, we’re grateful to have the support of the Xconomists and of local underwriters and partners like Alexandria Real Estate Equities, ARCH Venture Partners, Avalon Ventures, BayBio, Fenwick & West, Goodwin Procter, HP Startup Central, Invest Northern Ireland, J. Robert Scott Executive Search, Jennifer Jones & Partners, the Kauffman Foundation, Latham & Watkins, Morrison Foerster Cleantech Group, Schwartz Communications, the Science and Technology Directorate of the Department of Homeland Security, and SRI International.
We’re also excited to be working with syndication partners like the Bay Citizen. And we are extremely grateful to everyone who helped with our inaugural Bay Area networking event, the November 30 fireside chat event with venture capitalist Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital. The event was a huge success, thanks to the support of KickLabs San Francisco, Neuro Drinks, Goodwin Procter, Silicon Valley Bank, HP Startup Central, media partner GigaOm, and Sequoia .
Happy holidays to all Xconomy readers—we’ll see you in 2011. (Oh, hey: If you’re looking for last-minute holiday gift ideas, check out The Xconomy 2010 Gadget Gift Guide and iStocking Stuffers: The Best Apps for that Pad Under the Tree.)
