I am live at PubCon and there is an "historic" announcement going to be made here at the event as part of the "Tribute To WebmasterWorld."
Update: Jim Boykin has bought WebmasterWorld. Here is Jim's release and here is the forum thread at WebmasterWorld. I also have a more official write up at Search Engine Land.
Here is my live coverage of the event.
Stay tuned! Live updates will begin momentarily.
11:10:08 AM Barry Schwartz: Brett takes the stage...
11:10:34 AM Barry Schwartz: He starts talking about webmasterworld, he started it on the dot com in 1999 and on his ISP in 1997.
11:11:03 AM Barry Schwartz: He has been running WebmasterWorld for a long long time. We've reached some milestones... And I want to talk about stuff.
11:11:17 AM Barry Schwartz: We now have Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks.
11:11:48 AM Barry Schwartz: I wanted to take time out to tell you who makes WebmasterWorld possible and asks them all to stand up at the event.
11:12:12 AM Barry Schwartz: He thanks them all for their hard and devoted work
11:12:35 AM Barry Schwartz: This is the 10th anniversary of PubCon III where he met his wife
11:12:51 AM Barry Schwartz: It has been a good 10 year run
11:13:31 AM Barry Schwartz: He points out Tedster, Ted Ulle, who has contributed hour after hour. Crowd cheers Tedster.
11:13:58 AM Barry Schwartz: Ted has touched on almost every web site here. He has been the admin of the Google forum for the past 5+ years,a tough forum.
11:14:38 AM Barry Schwartz: He has done almost 37,000 posts on the public site and over 20,000 posts on the private site. Been involved in WMW for 13 years.
11:14:51 AM Barry Schwartz: They are giving Ted an award for his community service
11:15:41 AM
Barry Schwartz:
He takes the award and says thank you and he has been a bit sick
11:17:29 AM Barry Schwartz: He talks about his dad passed away two years ago
11:17:36 AM Barry Schwartz: He talks about how he turned 50 recently
11:17:42 AM Barry Schwartz: He loves running PubCon...
11:18:19 AM Barry Schwartz: Brett said to continue running WMW he has to continue to make huge financial and time obligations and he doesn't have it to do it.
11:18:45 AM Barry Schwartz: He had some offers but they would kill the community
11:18:53 AM Barry Schwartz: so he couldn't accept those offers.
11:19:18 AM Barry Schwartz: A man offered him to buy WMW and he threw out a number.
11:19:28 AM Barry Schwartz: Jim Boykin bought WebmasterWorl
11:19:55 AM Barry Schwartz: Jim will have his team build out WMW and support it. He made the offer, and Brett accepted.
11:20:34 AM Barry Schwartz: Jim is on stage, he looks very emotional
11:21:02 AM Barry Schwartz: He grew up at WMW, respects it, loves it...
11:21:55 AM Barry Schwartz: He is so happy to be able to be a part of it and is humbled to be a part of it.
11:22:13 AM Barry Schwartz: Jim says he is here to listen to everyone... Tell me what you want the future of WMW should be.
11:23:16 AM Barry Schwartz: He thanks Brett for trusting him and is excited.
11:23:20 AM Barry Schwartz: See http://www.webmasterworld.com/webmasterworld/4508916.htm
11:24:48 AM
Barry Schwartz:
http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/blog/marketing/webmasterworld
That is all for the announcement