I started writing for Gigaom in June 2009. Back then it was still The Apple Blog. While we were part of the Gigaom media empire, it didn’t feel completely assimilated. This naturally changed over the years. Eventually, the entire Apple channel went away and was replaced by the Mobile channel. I kept writing and they kept publishing.
When I started almost all of us were freelancers. We’d have a Gigaom employee as our editor but I remember days of 5–6 writers dividing up the content especially around Apple event time. We’d lose freelancers and never really replace them as more Gigaom employees wrote posts. Finally, it was just Geoffrey and I holding the fort on weekend duty.
The gig ended when Gigaom shut down Monday. I’m going to miss it.
Looking back, it’s amazing that it lasted so long. In this day and age, a 6-year freelance gig at a tech place is an amazing run. My editors left us alone. I came up with all my own story ideas. Most of the stories were based on my personal experiences and how I used tech. I’d receive great feedback from readers and it was the rare site where I didn’t mind wading into the comments.
I’d actually expected the gig to end soon, and in a lot of ways I think it went about a year longer than I thought. I wasn’t, however, expecting the site to shut down. I just expected with only two real freelancers (that I knew of, anyway) on the Mobile beat one day I’d get the email they were done with freelancers.
In terms of what I’ll be doing, I don’t know. Gigaom was my only major freelancing client. I’ll start looking for more. I also have an unused domain name thats perfect for my tech writing so I’ll be launching that Real Soon Now(TM).
Mark Crump 