the SI Bob story from the WSJ on Feb 7th
Heard on the Net
Web Community Rallies
Around Enforcer, 'SI Bob'
By PETER EDMONSTON
WSJ.COM
So long, SI Bob.
Bob Zumbrunnen, well known in cyber circles for shepherding the often-fractious stock-discussion boards on Silicon Investor, was fired Tuesday amid across-the-board layoffs at
the Web site's parent company, InfoSpace Inc.
The ouster of Mr. Zumbrunnen, a 41-year-old computer consultant who liked to dabble in day trading, was a hot topic on the Silicon Investor boards. Members expressed near
unanimous support for SI Bob, as he is best known online.
Coming just a week after Silicon Investor's longtime rival, Raging Bull, was sold for a paltry sum, Mr. Zumbrunnen's departure also provides more evidence that online investing
communities -- which once seemed to embody the spirit of the Internet -- are now being viewed as albatrosses by profit-focused managers.
John Graves, director of Internet technology research at SG Cowen Securities Corp., says he thinks Silicon Investor will be "stripped down," with the focus shifting from
community-building to the licensing of discussion-board technology to third parties.
InfoSpace spokesman Steve Stratz said his company won't comment on individual personnel matters. But he said InfoSpace has no plans to give up on Silicon Investor. "It's not
going away," Mr. Stratz said. "It's definitely something that's important to us."
Working out of his home near Kansas City, Mo., Mr. Zumbrunnen was lead moderator for Silicon Investor, one of the Internet's oldest watering holes for investing enthusiasts. When
online, his persona was both confident and self-effacing, advising Silicon Investor members on proper etiquette even as he referred to his mid-Western hometown as a place called
"Boogerville." Offline, Mr. Zumbrunnen sports shoulder-length hair and drives a 1991 Mustang with a license plate that reads "PC GEEK."
At Silicon Investor, he juggled the roles of bouncer, diplomat and traffic cop, settling disputes between Silicon Investor's members and occasionally banishing message-posters to
the sidelines -- by terminating or suspending their accounts -- when they refused to adhere to the site's rules against spamming, personal attacks and copyright infringement.
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But this time, it was Mr. Zumbrunnen who was bounced, along with his boss, Shannon Callies, he said.
Several other designers and content managers also were fired, said SG Cowen's Mr. Graves.
InfoSpace said Monday it would lay off 250 employees, or about 21% of its work force, as it cuts back on its consumer-services divisions. At 4 p.m. Wednesday on the Nasdaq
Stock Market, shares of the Bellevue, Wash.-based company rose $1.34, or 37%, to $5.
"Words currently fail me, but I'll post more later," Mr. Zumbrunnen wrote on Silicon Investor's discussion boards Tuesday. "I am no longer employed by Silicon Investor."
By late Wednesday morning, discussion of Bob's ouster occupied the top spot on Silicon Investor's "Hot Stocktalk" list, beating out a message board devoted to
computer-networking giant Cisco Systems Inc., which rocked the markets late Tuesday by reporting lower-than-expected earnings.
"We are like a family, a community, a village," says Ilaine Upton, a member of Silicon Investor who is a lawyer in Fairfax, Va. "And SI Bob is the village elder." Ms. Upton, who uses
the screen name "CobaltBlue," started a campaign on Silicon Investor's message boards to have SI Bob reinstated. By late Wednesday morning, the topic had received 280
replies.
"Bob, very sorry to see you go," wrote a message-poster using the screen name "TIG." "Your departure is another indication the sorry state of SI or InfoSpace's management."
InfoSpace's Mr. Stratz defended the recent layoffs as an appropriate response to difficult market conditions. "With economic changes, we have to change as well," he said.
Meanwhile, Michael Coddington, InfoSpace's director of consumer sites, posted a message around midday Wednesday to Silicon Investor members, seeking to reassure them that
SI isn't going away. "Does InfoSpace plan to abandon, sell off or shut down SI?" Mr. Coddington wrote. "The answer is no. SI is an important part of InfoSpace and we are
continuing to enhance the site and the underlying technologies."
But Mr. Zumbrunnen remains skeptical. "InfoSpace is trying to rid themselves of consumer-related businesses," he says. "And Silicon Investor is completely a consumer business."
Like other investment-related Web sites, Silicon Investor has seen its popularity wane along with the Nasdaq Composite Index. In December 2000, users spent an average of 75
minutes a month at Silicon Investor, down 25% from the heady days in March, according to Internet measurement firm Nielsen/NetRatings.
Mr. Zumbrunnen says there are other reasons for Silicon Investor's decreased popularity. He says the site, which charges a membership fee of $60 for six months or $200 for a
lifetime account, has suffered from too many design changes and technical glitches that turned away members, even as Raging Bull launched new, more attractive features.
In June 2000, Silicon Investor agreed to offer members free, lifetime memberships to make up for a software error that resulted in the accidental displaying of members' personal
log-in identifications.
But Raging Bull has seen its fortunes sink as well. Founded in 1997 by a group of college students, Raging Bull was sold last week by CMGI Inc. to Terra Lycos for a reported $10
million -- well below the $163 million in AltaVista stock that CMGI originally paid for Raging Bull a year ago. CMGI said the deal was part of an effort to reduce its exposure to
online-advertising revenue, which has taken a nosedive in recent months.
InfoSpace acquired Silicon Investor as part of last year's acquisition of Go2Net Inc., a company backed by billionaire Paul Allen that ran online-gaming site Playsite.com and two
Web-search sites.
With Wall Street clamoring for profits, InfoSpace has decided to focus on providing other Internet companies and wireless providers with such services such as Web searching and
e-commerce capabilities. Silicon Investor already has licensing deals to provide stock-chat technology to Bloomberg, Forbes and TheStreet.com Inc.
SI Bob, for his part, is upbeat about the prospects for stock-discussion sites. He says he has already been "inundated" with requests to launch a new stock-chat site elsewhere on
the Web. Says Zumbrunnen: "There's always going to be a need for this."
Write to Peter Edmonston at peter.edmonston@wsj.com4 |
