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GigaOm, a well-known and respected online IT trade publication and analysis firm has ceased operations for financial reasons, according to a March 9 note on its website.
Founder and publisher Om Malik, a former Forbes columnist who started GigaOm as a blog in December 2001, posted this note on the site’s home page:
“A brief note on our company:
“Gigaom recently became unable to pay its creditors in full at this time. As a result, the company is working with its creditors that have rights to all of the company’s assets as their collateral. All operations have ceased. We do not know at this time what the lenders intend to do with the assets or if there will be any future operations using those assets. The company does not currently intend to file bankruptcy. We would like to take a moment and thank our readers and our community for supporting us all along.
— Gigaom management”
A short while later, Malik posted the following personal note:
A statement about Gigaom
“Gigaom is winding down and its assets are now controlled by the company’s lenders. It is not how you want the story of a company you founded to end.
“Every founder starts on a path — hopeful and optimistic, full of desire to build something that helps change the world for the better, reshape an industry and hopefully become independent, both metaphorically and financially. Business, much like life, is not a movie and not everyone gets to have a story book ending.
“There will be time for postmortems, but not today. Today, I want to thank all the people who make (and have helped make) Gigaom. Their role in this journey was what really made it all worth it. They are great people and they will all do great work wherever they go. I want to thank our investors who believed in the business long before it became fashionable. And most importantly, I want to thank you dear readers for coming along on this trip of a lifetime.
“I might have left Gigaom, the company, over a year ago, but Gigaom, the idea still lives in my heart.
“Goodnight sweetheart, I still love you!”
Malik left the daily working environment of GigaOm about a year ago to join True Ventures, a venture capital firm, but he has remained on the board of directors and had represented the company at events until now.
Malik also posted this notice on his Facebook page: “Hardest day of my life. But also the greatest journey. Thank you everyone for everything. Each one of you got us here. And you will get me through it. I deeply appreciate the team I worked with. The finest. It will be my one true achievement — the people who worked to make a lot of it a reality.”
Events also closing down
GigaOm stages several events a year, all of which are popular. But because the website, analysis firm and events production are all combined in the same company, the events also will be discontinued. GigaOm Structure Data is scheduled for March 18-19 in New York City; GigaOm Structure is set for June 17 and 18 in San Francisco; Structure Intelligence is on the calendar for Sept. 22-24 in San Francisco; and Structure Connect is planned for Nov. 9 and 10, also in San Francisco.
GigaOm staff members immediately tweeted their reactions.
Editor Stacey Higginbotham: “Gigaom is shutting down. The site. And the company. But @om built something amazing and it changed my life. I love him and my colleagues.”
Mathew Ingram: “This hurts more than I can say: I was just told Gigaom is shutting down — it has run out of money. We tried our best, but it wasn’t enough.”
Biz Carson: “Sad smiles leaving the office for the last time. This is why I came to work. Going to miss my @gigaom colleagues.”