At first glance, today is like any other day for The VAR Guy. Our anonymous blogger is seated at Starbucks, sipping a Venti Mocha Latte, and tapping into free WiFi. But if you check the news wires you’ll notice one big difference today: Nine Lives Media Inc., the company behind The VAR Guy, has been acquired by Penton Media. So, how will the deal impact The VAR Guy’s unique voice? In short, The VAR Guy’s voice is about to grow even louder. A lot louder. Here’s why.
Penton Media is the largest privately held, independent B2B publisher in the United States. Led by CEO Sharon Rowlands, Penton reaches 6 million professionals every month with critical business information. And the Penton websites generated 276 million page views last year. Terms like “scalability” and “reach” — within highly targeted audiences, of course — come to The VAR Guy’s mind.
Nine Lives Media is now a business unit of Penton Media, reporting into Penton’s Technology Group — which includes powerful brands like the Windows IT Pro community and Paul Thurrott’s Windows SuperSite. The Nine Lives Media team and its leading IT Channel communities — The VAR Guy, MSPmentor and Talkin’ Cloud — report into Peg Miller, Penton’s Technology Group Market Leader.
So how does The VAR Guy feel about the deal? Let’s put it this way: Our anonymous blogger has a wide smile on his face today. After launching in 2008, The VAR Guy quickly emerged as the IT Channel’s top blog. Our resident blogger’s unique voice and quick-hit perspectives have attracted more than 15,000 reader comments.
Now, The VAR Guy and his sister sites gain a powerful B2B parent in Penton Media. In a prepared statement, Penton’s Miller said:
“Nine Lives is the perfect complement to our leading IT and developer brands, enabling us to provide both business and technology acumen to the entire technology ecosystem of IT professionals and developers, channel providers, and independent software vendors and hardware vendors. We’ve already seen strong growth in the IT channel with adoption of our newly launched Penton Marketing Services — helping them to run their businesses more effectively.”
The VAR Guy’s existing leadership — Nine Lives President Amy Katz and Executive VP/Editorial Director Joe Panettieri — remain in place, as do The VAR Guy’s sales and editorial teams. You’ll continue to read unique insights from folks like Charlene O’Hanlon, David Courbanou, Christopher Tozzi and more.
Hmmm… Now that you know the news, you can understand why The VAR Guy’s latte tastes a little sweeter this morning.
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Congrats to the whole team at Nine Lives Media — if you’re smiling, that’s what matters.
To continued success!
Dave,
The VAR Guy and the Nine Lives team thank you for your readership, insights and guidance over the years. Yes, The VAR Guy is smiling and feeling a bit wired… And it ain’t just the latte talking.
-TVG
Congratulations, Joe! Very exciting news for you and your team this morning!
Three cheers – well done sir!
Regina, Harry: The VAR Guy thanks you for the notes. But our resident blogger can’t take any credit for this one.
Behind the scenes, Nine Lives co-founders Amy Katz and Joe Panettieri were on the same page in terms of company direction — grow baby grow. Working from that blueprint, Katz and some key advisors to Nine Lives hammered out the deal with Penton’s executive leadership. The VAR Guy will certainly enjoy the opportunities ahead.
-TVG
Congratulations to my Nine Lives friends and best wishes for continued success with Penton!
Mike,
It’s always good to hear from a true Market Expert like you. The VAR Guy thanks you for sharing some of the finer points on event moderation all those years ago. And thanks for the note.
All the best,
-TVG
So VAR Guy: I thought blogs were the death of journalism? Did you prove the world wrong?
James@8: A few thoughts…
1. Good journalism isn’t dead.
2. The commodity news market (“Acme Announces Widget”) is dead.
3. Trusted insights blended with true journalism is the new model. Full disclosures about conflicts of interests, opinions and biases are critical.
4. But you still need a great team of journalists (Charlene O’Hanlon, David Courbanou, Christopher Tozzi) to make it all work on the editorial side.
5. And most of all, you need a business leader who understands how to build media platforms. That’s where Amy Katz’s vision for the company enters the picture.
Still, The VAR Guy doesn’t want to sound arrogant. There are multiple media models marching forward. And Penton is massive compared to Nine Lives, proving that the Nine Lives team still has a lot to learn… And we look forward to doing so while working with Penton.
-TVG
Congratulations on the new adventure and here’s to incredible growth.
But I wonder, will this mean less comments about Pink Floyd concerts and so forth. I hope the spirit and fun of the VAR Guy get to stay as well.
Congrats and I hope the smile keeps getting bigger.
Ben,
Shine On You Crazy Diamond.
-TVG
mazel tov!
Insightful, well written articles.
Consistent message.
Incredible work ethic.
Two founders who “get it”.
A good team to back you up.
Hmmm. Seems like a key to success. Congrats buddy.
Unicorn@12: Thanks for your readership and for that great voicemail discussion.
Brett@13: Thanks for all of your help; keep The VAR Guy posted as you achieve new milestones with Exigo Group.
-TVG
Congrats and well deserved. VARGuy is one of my must reads each day. While I don’t always agree with some of the opinions, the range of topics covered, and the balance between realistic buying and selling of current technologies and the future exciting stuff is second to none.
Bill Bickel
Bill@15: The VAR Guy and his team intend to remain on your must-read list. Thanks for stopping by so frequently.
-TVG
Joe and Amy, congratulations on the acqusition of your company. Couldn’t happen to a nicer couple of people. As someone who was there when you started your blog and watched it grow in popularity, it doesn’t surprise me that someone saw the value in your brand. Your writing was always fresh and informative.
Continued success, I’m sure you won’t go corporate on us…
Ron
Ron@18:
The VAR Guy will make sure Amy and Joe see your note. They have big-time respect for CompTIA and your contributions to that organization. The open-door approach at CompTIA, engaging all media companies, is refreshing.
-TVG
Congratulations to the whole team!
Scott
From the operations team: Welcome aboard!
Scott@19: The VAR Guy thanks you for the congrats. And he appreciates your readership in a big way.
Travis@20: An operations team? Yet another reason The VAR Guy is thrilled Penton Media acquired Nine Lives Media. Our resident blogger thanks you for the warm welcome.
-TVG