The ReadWriteWeb network has disbanded, jettisoning its AltSearchEngines and last100 blogs. According to RWW’s Richard McManus, the decision was made in order for RWW to focus on building and extending their core brand.

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

I will retain a personal stake in both AltSearchEngines and last100, but as of 1 November they are under the majority ownership of Charles Knight (AltSearchEngines) and Steve O’Hear (last100). I’d like to thank Charles and Steve for putting in so much effort to build up AltSearchEngines and last100 respectively. Both have done a great job covering their respective niches and we wish them all the best in continuing to grow the sites.

The popular Freelance Writing Jobs website/community has expanded from one blog to a network of six blogs. Quoting the newborn network’s press release:

“This is a natural progression for the site,” says Deborah Ng, who founded the site in May of 2005 to help work-at-home moms find better writing opportunities. “We have multiple contributors now. By providing six different blogs, we’re making it much more readable. Community members can subscribe to the different blogs rather than scrolling down deeper and deeper to find the content that interests them. This design will provide our readers with much more freedom.”

Shiny Media announced yesterday a record month for its network, with its total unique visits having grown by 7 per cent in October 2008 to reach 3.2.million. The network’s page impressions also improved by 6 per cent to 6.1 million.

Quoting their blog post:

Biggest rises were for craft site Crafty Crafty which reported a 40 per cent growth in uniques taking it to 89,000 and a 37 per cent rise in Coronation Street site CorrieBlog, taking it to 79,000 uniques. Other big rises were recorded for XBoxer.tv (34 per cent), US fashion site ShinyStyle.tv (28 per cent) and Kiss and Make Up (24 per cent).

We have added the BlogMedia.Asia network to our watchlist. Here’s part of the message we received from Althaf Ahmed, the network’s founder:

I am Althaf, an S.E.O Consultant and a Blogger from Bangalore, India. I am a regular reader of Performancing, and through the links landed here.

I recently launched a suite of educational blogs related to a multitude of topics like home improvement, car repair, cooking, travel and more. I have a team of about half a dozen writers who constantly churn out high quality content for the network.

I decided to unite them under the name BlogMedia.Asia. You can take a look at www.blogmedia.asia

Rest assured, this isn’t a cheap Made For Adsense Network. You can inspect the blogs individually.

Thanks a lot
Althaf Ahmed
BlogMedia.Asia

The Syntagma Media network recently celebrated its third anniversary, as commemorated by John Evans’ “birthday post”:

Three is a significant number in horse, dog and internet years. Horses get to run in the Derby, dogs are the equivalent of 21, and anything on the internet is a virtual centenarian.

When we started out 36 long months ago, this site was a pure technology and media play. It was also the cheerleader for the launch of new sites on a large sprinkling of topics. Now I write here only about politics, finance and technology, in that order of magnitude. You won’t need to ask why, discerning Reader.

Congrats to Syntagma for both!

Glam Media, the brains behind the women’s network Glam.com, has turned its attention to the male market with the launch of Brash.com.

Quoting the Glam press release:

With close to 10 million US unique visitors a month at launch, Brash.com is going to “Change the Game”, with its edgy, upscale vertical network that caters to men’s desires and needs focusing on lifestyle, entertainment, automotive and gadgets, and news both from a national perspective and with local influence.

We have added the Debt Bloggers Network to our watchlist. From their about blurb:

A group of personal finance bloggers who were inspired by our own debts and financial struggles to share our stories and lessons with you. we are involved with the personal finance blogging community, each of us participating in one or more carnivals and festivals, forums, and more !

Visit the Debt Bloggers Network here.

Blog network owners, you might get some of your writers from this pool. From a recent email we received:

Good Morning:

I’m the Project Manager at Smartoutsourcing. We are an international consulting firm that manages different BPO teams around the world. We have a team of journalist specialized in the generation of quality contents. Currently they are working on our blogs but we are expanding scope and that is why I’m writing to you. I would like to suggest you our journalists for your blog network. Our team is specialized in wordpress and they have a lot of experience. In addition, we offer good prices.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in our offer. I will be glad to help you.

Sincerely,

Rebeca Toribio, Project Manager
marketing@smartoutsourcing.es

Splashpress Media, owner of Blog Network Watch, has just launched Yurto, a “blog about living an eco-friendly life.”

From the announcement:

Yurto is a blog created for those who want to change their lifestyle into an eco-friendly one, but don’t quite know how to start. At Yurto we’ve found that the best way to start living green is from the most important place of all, our homes.

We received an anonymous tip last October 1 from a person claiming to be a “b5 Blogger.” Here’s the message he left on our Contact page:

b5 media is cutting our pay by at least half. They said it’s because our stats were wrong for the past three years and now they’re going to be right. The thing is the pay is lowering for most of us by 50% or more. A significant decrease. No one will talk about our base pay so we don’t know if that’s going down too but we’re going to be paid a lot less money now.

Everyones afraid to talk about it because they don’t want to be sued but one member of the team and a channel editor already left because of this and so did some bloggers.

Feel free to use this news but please don’t ask my name. I need my paltry pay until I find a new job. I don’t think I’ll sign the new contract.