The fascinating transition from AllThingsD to Re/code
As had been announced, Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg are no longer working with the Dow Jones group and have accordingly dismantled their successful AllThingsD online publication (which will now find a home in the technology section of The Wall Street Journal under the name WSJ.D. The pair has since launched their latest initiative, Re/code.
The Re/code website was kept going for a day with an invitation for users to create a user profile for a newsletter, along with a link to its Twitter account where the pair had logged a number of ideas about what they hope their new publication will be:
“a home for smart, fair, and independent tech journalism on the Web”
that will include news, technology reviews, and of course conferences. Some readers might remember that it was after attending a conference in 2007 that the pair decided to begin publishing a daily. When AllThingsD closed, along with Kara and Walt it had a staff of seven journalists, , the majority of whom will continue working on the new publication, along with another five, according to the number of Re/code Twitter accounts.
An article on the Re/code website announced the creation of Revere Digital with “respected investors” NBC Universal News Group and Windsor Media, which is owned by for Yahoo’s former CEO Terry Semel. This is a project that will doubtless be watched closely to see to what degree the success of the pair is due to their own talents or their backing by a powerful news group such as Dow Jones.
Needless to say, belonging to such a group had its advantages, not the least of which was being able to direct two-way traffic (many articles in AllThingsD were redirected to WSJ pages), along with advertising potential. The challenge for Kara and Walt will be not just to establish a position of influence for their publication to match that offered by belonging to Dow Jones, but to make it commercially viable, something near impossible if they play by the rules of print journalism.
This is without doubt an interesting move: taking the spirit of a publication, along with its team of journalists, and setting up camp as an independent outfit. They may have lost the resources of an upscale newsroom, but Kara and Walt are free to come and go as they see fit, and to choose new partners.
For my part, I wish them every success, and will be signing up to a Re/code RSS feed. Dow Jones is unlikely to surprise anybody any time soon, whereas I will be looking forward to what Kara, Walt and their team have to offer as an independent outfit. I’m pretty certain I’m not alone in saying that.
(En español, aquí)
