The word is getting out in the blog world that we laid off 60 people yesterday.  Some bloggers seem to get joy in telling the story which is a pity.  These are rough and tough times.  Even Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, mentioned yesterday that Google was not immune to the economic mess we all face.  I certainly do not equate WebMediaBrands with Google, but very few if any businesses are not greatly effected by what certainly appears to be a depression.

There is a story behind the lay offs.  The economy is overall most responsible for the firings.  However our company just underwent a huge change.  We sold our images division on 23 February to Getty Images.  We were left with a great platform of BtoB networks.  Most of the changes we made were based on better integrating the operations and Web sites of our three main networks.  For example, we had two tradeshow teams.  Now we have one team for all three networks. 

I wrote a memo to our remaining employees.  It was supposed to be for employees only, but one of my colleagues decided to disseminate the letter.  I presumed it would be sent to the press and have nothing to hide.  I remain confident about our future.  We have no debt and now are structured to last out the depression.  I am not so sure that those who take joy in writing about our lay offs will have operational employers should the depression go on for two more years.  There are many blogs and news Web sites that thrived in the period 2003-2008 that were fooled into thinking that the high times would last.  This is not unlike what happened to the IPO high flyers of the late 1990s who got drunk on VC money only to see their cash burn rates destroy their aspirations.  There are dozens of high flying blogs out there today that will suffer the same fate if the depression drags on.