TORONTO -- 05/05/08 --
NetShelter Technology Media, which pioneered the
concept of the vertical media network by assembling the largest
technology-oriented audience in the world, today announced that Patrick
Houston, with more than 30 years of media experience, the past dozen of
them exclusively focused on the Web at leading Internet companies including
Yahoo!, CNET, and ZDNet, has joined the company in the newly created
position of Senior Vice President, Media and Chief Publisher. Mr. Houston
will be based out of NetShelter's newly opening San Francisco office.
"I have seen a lot of the commercial Internet, back to just a few years
beyond its dawning, and I have watched business models evolve," Mr. Houston
says. "NetShelter's vertical network represents an approach whose time has
come -- I have no doubt about it. Embracing independent publishers and
bloggers though alliance, not acquisition, is the only way to keep up with
the dynamism of the Web. There's no way any one 'closed' company can
solely create and distribute content on its own anymore. No matter how
big, how pioneering, or how prescient you are, no single entity can keep up
with the creative ferment of the Web.
"What attracted me to NetShelter is the opportunity to turn the
increasingly fragmented nature of the landscape into an opportunity for
synergies where they are natural and needed," concludes Mr. Houston. "If I
were building Yahoo Tech or CNET today this is how I'd do it. Both would
look more like NetShelter."
"We have made a great many hires since our strategically important January
rebranding as NetShelter Technology Media. None has been more important to
our future than having Patrick Houston join our team," says Peyman
Nilforoush, Co-Founder and CEO of NetShelter Technology Media. "Patrick has
spent the better part of the past two decades helping media companies build
the world's largest technology media brands. He will bring that experience
and expertise to NetShelter Technology Media's 150 independent publishers,
helping them to improve, innovate, extend, and grow."
Adds Pirouz Nilforoush, Co-Founder and President of NetShelter Technology
Media to whom Patrick will report, "We are becoming more than an 'ad'
network. Instead, we are building a new kind of media platform that will
forever change the economics of tech publishing online. Our approach is
less about creating content ourselves and more about helping expert content
creators distribute, manage, and monetize. Patrick will be the founding
promoter of the new platform for technology publishing and the editorial
face of our company."
Just prior to joining NetShelter, Mr. Houston was Vice President of Content
and Programming at Yahoo! Inc., for three years working on the company's
portfolio of Lifestyle sites, including Y! Health, Y! Tech, Y! Food, and Y!
Kids. He joined Yahoo! in May 2005 as the General Manager who oversaw the
building and launch of Yahoo! Tech, one of the company's first Web 2.0
media sites. During his two-year tenure as Y! Tech founding executive, the
property quickly became a leader in the category, attracting more unique
users than similar offerings from long-established players in the tech
category.
Prior to joining Yahoo!, Mr. Houston served as editor in chief at
CNET.com., where he oversaw the staff of editors dedicated to providing
buying-advice across a wide range of product categories including
computers, software, printers, mobile devices, and home entertainment
systems. Before becoming editor in chief of CNET, Mr. Houston served as
vice president of editorial development for CNET Networks.
Mr. Houston joined CNET Networks in 2000 when the company acquired ZDNet.
At ZDNet, he served as Executive Producer and General Manager of news,
where his leadership helped shape ZDNet News into one of the Web's top
sources for tech news. Three years later, he assumed management
responsibilities for AnchorDesk, a newsletter with one of the biggest and
most highly engaged audiences in all of technology media.
Beginning his career in tech journalism in the mid-80s, Mr. Houston
reported on mainframe and supercomputers as a BusinessWeek Bureau Chief in
Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1991, he co-authored "The Silverlake
Project: Transformation at IBM" for Oxford University Press about IBM's
case-study effort to create its AS400 mini-computer. As a top editor at
the technology magazine PC Week (now eWeek), he turned an industry insider
section into one of the industry's must-reads.
Mr. Houston is a graduate of Allegheny College, where he earned a B.A. in
American Studies in Journalism.
Launched in 1999 as NetShelter, Inc., NetShelter Technology Media
(www.netshelter.net) first pioneered the concept of the vertical media
network, assembling one of the largest technology-oriented audiences in the
world via the NetShelter Branded Network (NSBN) and helping leading
interactive advertising agencies and marketers engage with their core
target audience of technology, IT buyers and influencers. NetShelter
Technology Media reaches over 30 million unique visitors worldwide
according to comScore and is ranked 2nd in reaching technology audiences
online (closely trailing CNET). In a fragmented online media landscape,
NetShelter Technology Media is the new platform for technology publishing
online. It partners with the top independent voices in the technology
industry and helps them grow their media business. NetShelter's goal is to
become the global leader in digital marketing services for the technology
sector.
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