Publish2 acquires Wired Journalists

In January 2008, Howard Owens, Zac Echola, and I launched a social network with self-motivated, eager-to-learn reporters, editors, executives, students and faculty in mind.

Wired Journalists was born with the mission of connecting the knowledgeable, expert innovators in online news with journalists of all stripes hoping to learn something new about their evolving craft.

Today we’re proud to announce that Publish2 has acquired Wired Journalists.

At Publish2, the mission of connecting journalists based on common goals and interests will continue and — we hope — grow exponentially as the Wired Journalists network becomes a space for collaboration on real-world reporting as well as conversations about craft.

Publish2 builds online tools for news organizations looking to bring the best of the Web to their readers — and to each other.  Those of you who know me personally are likely aware that I joined Publish2 earlier this year as Director of News Innovation.  In one of my early conversations with Publish2 CEO Scott Karp, we started sketching out what Wired Journalists might look like if it had the funding, attention, and staff that we’d always wanted.

Out of those conversations came a rock-solid proposal to give Wired Journalists a new home under the Publish2 banner, where I could personally devote time to it as a part of my role at Publish2.

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Wired Journalists has been a labor of love — and love only — for Howard, Zac, and I, with some help from Pat Thornton of BeatBlogging more recently, but we always saw the potential of the 3,000-plus-strong membership, if only we had the time to manage the community and help to make a few connections and guide a few conversations.

With Publish2, we’re going to get that opportunity, and a lot more.  I’m looking forward to jumping into conversations on Wired Journalists as part of my day job, and I’m psyched to get Greg Linch involved as soon as he hits the ground at Publish2.

In short, it’s been great, and it’s going to be excellent.

A personal thank you to everyone who showed up in early 2008 when Howard, Zac, and I told you about the vision for Wired Journalists, and thank you to those of you that I’ve learned more about over the last year and a half through the network.

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Here are a few key links from the beginning of Wired Journalists:

2008 objectives for today’s non-wired journalist
howardowens.com | December 27, 2007
At the end of 2007, when I had been working for Howard Owens for about three months, he posted this checklist of goals for journalists new to online tools and media platforms. It sparked enough interest, and inquiries from journalists within GateHouse and other organizations, including Forum Communications, where Zac Echola fielded requests from reporters asking how they could get involved. So this is the blog post that started Wired Journalists.

Introducing WiredJournalists.com, a place people looking for new knowledge to get help
howardowens.com | January 22, 2008
Here’s the January 2008 announcement post from Howard Owens, calling Wired Journalists a place “…for journalists just starting down the path of transforming their careers and doing the hard work of saving journalism…”

Zac Echola’s original message about Wired Journalists
blog-o-blog.com | January 22, 2008
This page has been standing on Zac’s blog since the launch of Wired Journalists in January 2008. It starts off with a call to action: “Now is the time to be that catalyst for change in your news organization. No more talking about it. We’re doing it. And we want you to do it too.”

Introducing WiredJournalists.com
Invisible Inkling | January 22, 2008
Here’s my first post introducing Wired Journalists in January 2008: “So please, come join this new community, but more than that, pass the link along to the guy in the next cubicle who doesn’t read blogs. Pass it along to the photographer who hasn’t built a slideshow. Pass it along to your editors, your teachers, and your students.”