Surprising the mom blogging world, Jill Asher co-founder of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog announced that the SV Moms Blog and business, known as SV Moms Group, is shutting down as of July 1.
The SV Moms Blog was one of 13 metro area blogging communities that included the Chicago Moms Blog, the Philly Moms Blog, and others across the United States and Canada.
The SV Moms Group boasts 450 mom bloggers who seem stunned and equally baffled by the news. Many are questioning the decision not to sell the company, or at least turn it over to others who can continue running the city blogs.
In addition, the company seemed to be picking up steam despite challenging life circumstances the founders had gone through. They had recently hosted several brand-blogger events across the country with major sponsors such as Chevrolet.
What's more puzzling is at the DC Metro event on June 5, Samantha Fein was announced as their first CEO - a move that clearly pointed to big plans for the company. The SV Moms Group was also going to host a luxury Recharge Suite at BlogHer '10, which now seems unlikely.
This is the email that was sent to contributors, announcing that the end of an era had come:
Dear SV Moms Group Contributors
In the past four years, we have had the great privilege of working with over 800 writers, hosting over 22,000 blog posts on thousands of topics. We've covered our lives as parents, as partners, as business people. We've talked tragedies like the earthquake in Haiti and love affairs with people, fashion and babies. We'd stood up for our schools, for politics for family. We have grown from one collective group of writers to a conglomerate national voice. We can only hope you have learned as much from us as we have from you.
SV Moms Group has continued to thrive, despite 2010 being challenging one for us, personally. After much consideration, we have decided to end this journey as a company and as a mom blogging community. The SV Moms team has decided that our last new post will go up July 1. We will no longer be accepting blog posts from June 30. We welcome you to copy your posts from SV Moms to your personal blogs; when you do so, however, make sure you make the copy from the site itself, not by opening the post on Typepad--when you open posts on typepad, you risk pulling them down into draft, and we're not going to be able to monitor this closely.
For now, the sites will remain live so that people can still read your posts.
At some point after July 1 we will be closing Big Tent communications, and shortly, we'll be inviting you to a SV Moms Alumni group on Yahoo! Groups to keep in touch with all the great things to come.
As for us, we'll be around, continuing our work as writers, bloggers, professionals.
Linsey Krolik will be continuing to use law as the basis for her work in business. She will be consulting, speaking at Bloggy Boot Camp San Francisco in August, writing at her personal blog Me Too You (http://www.metooyoublog.com) and pursuing her passion for yoga via teacher training in beginning in Jackson Hole, WY this summer.
Beth Blecherman will be focusing on tech (for families) blogging at TechMamas.com, speaking at Consumer Electronics Association and other tech events as well as joining in the fun over at Cool Mom Picks with their soon to launch site "Cool Mom Tech".
Tekla will be spend the next year catching up on all the household chores she ignored while she pursued this adventure in collaborative blogging. (When your youngest kid is turning 12 it really is time to get rid of the toddler clothes and baby-care books). Online, you'll eventually be able to find her at http://themommyzone.wordpress.com/.
As for myself... (Jill), I am going to be spending the summer with my family. Since the loss of my Mother, I need to spend time with our circle of family, friends and loved ones. In all that life throws us, I also have some blessed news. We are expecting our third child to arrive in December 2010. I am just coming of the REALLY SICK PREGNANCY stage, and figuring out how to resume life. Professionally, I do have a few ventures brewing, and I hope to announce them in the fall or winter 2010/2011.
Thank you for an extraordinary four years. We look forward to seeing you again soon.
With gratitude,
The SV Moms Group team
So far the only word coming from the SV Moms Group team is confirmation that it is indeed over.
UPDATE: There are more details on the decision to close in our interview with interim CEO Samantha Fein.
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