My editor over at Worldgolf sent me a link to an interesting story. A group of investors teamed up to buy the Worldgolf network which includes many golf and travel websites with worldgolf itself as the flagship property. Here is the story on the”multi-million dollar” acquisition.
Buyouts usually bring big changes, but worldgolf already had some changes in the works. From their press release, it sounds like those same changes are still in progress.
In our e-mail exchange, William K Wolfrum was optimistic about what the sale will mean for the site (and optimism is not his specialty). He said he didn’t think there were going to be major changes in personnel, that they will be “moving forward, not cutting back… it’ll be like a surge around here,” and finally, that “the sale will be a very good thing overall.”
There are a few ways to look at his angle here. Perhaps:
- He’s using the “never say anything in an email you wouldn’t want published in the company newsletter” rule of thumb (and doesn’t trust me not to betray his confidence)
- He’s truly that professional
- He really believes this will be a positive thing
I think it might be all three. People don’t buy websites to run them into the ground – unless they’re a competitor. There are a few changes I know I’d like to see on worldgolf, but I think I’ll reserve those comments, at least for now.
I’m interested to know more about the new owners but a quick search on David Brittain didn’t come up with anything definitive, and the PR company’s website doesn’t even show “Worldgolf.com LLC” as one of their clients yet. I just contacted them via email so I hope they’ll have some more info for me.
March 12, 2007 at 12:18 pm
It’s ironic how you chide William for “using the ‘never say anything in an email you wouldn’t want published in the company newsletter’ rule of thumb,” and for not trusting you to not betray his confidence …… and then you go and write this blog (in essence betraying what little confidence he showed in you in the first place). Seems like he was right to be guarded in dealing with you.
March 12, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Donald:
Had he given me any dirt I would have sought his permission to use it or to quote him as a protected source. Since I only used excerpts that were sound bytes (he knows what I omitted and our “relationship” is in tact), I cited him and made him part of the story, casting him in what I believed to be a positive light.
Interesting that you look upon a compliment as a chide. Granted, being a blogger opens one up to essentially anonymous criticism.
Thanks for stopping by.