BlogMedia, the parent company of BlogHerald, a blog that I also blog at (ah, using “blog” as a noun and a verb leads to all kinds of grammatical fun) is currently under a repositioning effort that has seen Head Honcho Matt Craven divest BlogMedia of quite a few blogs of late. With BlogMedia transforming into ProBlogging.com, I pinned down Matt for a few words during the middle of a particularly bloody divestiture (is that a word?) for a few words on ProBlogging’s plans for its future, its focus and scope, and above all the burning question on my mind — is the BlogHerald safe from its bloody axe?

Tony Hung: So, how long have you been planning these changes?
Matt Craven: I think any good businessman/woman takes time to sit down and think about where their business is and where their focus should be. This is something that we’ve always done regularly. Our recent discussions have led us to believe that we’ve made our focus overly broad and our recent steps have been to narrow that focus.

TH: It seems like BlogMedia has divested itself of many different blogs in pursuit of that focus; where does that leave the BlogHerald?
MC: The Blog Herald is a key part of Problogging, Inc. and the cornerstone of our coverage of the blogosphere.

TH: Can you expand a little on what your focus will be on — from a blogging point of view?
MC: We’ll always be covering the blogosphere in some way, shape, or form. We’ll be talking more about professional blogging over at problogging.com - and launching a new podcast only site in the near future.

TH: You’ve divested yourself of quite a few blogs; will you be looking to acquire any blogs at this point to hone your focus?
MC: While we would never rule out an acquisition of the right site for the right price, we’re not currently seeking to acquire a blog, or any other website for that matter

TH: It sounds like ProBlogging is meant to be a “full service” firm for bloggers, including consulting work. Have you done any consulting work with bloggers, and can you tell us about any successes you may have had? (more…)

Megite is another news aggregator like Techmeme. Unlike Techmeme, however, it features different channels, and quite often it picks up on news items that I’ve missed on different feeds and aggregators. From time to time, I also notice it sends me a barrage of traffic when I get listed on the site as well. So, I thought it would be interesting to chat with the only name that is associated with the site, Matthew Chen, on what Megite is all about, how to pronounce the name, and where its going.

Tony Hung: I noticed your site some time ago as I started to get listed on Megite, but there’s not a whole lot to find on Megite about what it’s about and who the people behind the scenes are. Can you tell us a little bit about what Megite is, where you guys are located and a little bit about yourself?

Matthew Chen: We have been working on Megite related technology and algorithm for a long time for the other applications. But we’ve found that our algorithm is good at meme tracking, so we started to port our system and algorithm at the beginning of this year. We launched our site in February to test the waters. We’ve gotten lots of feedback, both in terms of suggestions and complaints. So we continue to improve it, and recently we’ve made significant improvements on the algorithm, software and infrastructure.

We want Megite to be an intelligent RSS reader. We create and develop the main verticals, such as technology, politics, business, entertainment, science, etc. And users can create their own Megite by feeding their reading list. The personalization service is costly and we are in the process of securing resources before we can launch it to the public.

We are located in Silicon Valley. Currently we have two people working on this project, both with computer science degree and many years of working experience.

TH: Does this mean you might be searching for external (i.e. VC) funding?
MC: Yes. We are going to approach VC’s for that purpose. If we don’t expand to personal version, we are ok to self funding.

TH: Where did you come up with the name “Megite” — and how do you pronounce it?
MC: This is a funny name originally for our other product.

Me - Mega(byte)
Gi - Giga(byte)
Te - Tera(byte)

me ‘gi te

me as in melissa
gi as in giga
te as t

TH: Can you talk a little bit about the most recent improvements? How will they make the experience better for your users?
MC: Sure. (more…)