In October 2008, the Puget Sound Business Journal hired two tech reporters from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and let them start a standalone tech site called TechFlash.
But in March 2011, the two journalists left the American City Business Journals newspaper and started a tech news site of their own called GeekWire. Since then the Business Journal has been keeping TechFlash going with its own staff.
Now, TechFlash is being folded into the Business Journals’ site and will no longer be standalone, writes George Erb, the editor of the paper.
Erb writes, “We decided to change TechFlash from a freestanding website to a Business Journal blog because we wanted to return tech news to the Business Journal’s bread-and-butter business coverage, instead of presenting it as an isolated subject. Technology is an integral part of the Puget Sound economy, and we want to approach and deliver our coverage in ways that reflect that reality.
“Rather than split our TechFlash and Business Journal audiences, we decided to integrate the two for a better reader experience. Readers will benefit from an integrated search that includes both tech and general-business stories.
“We kept the TechFlash name because of its strong brand identity. Readers clearly value TechFlash content. Many features on the new TechFlash blog will be familiar to readers. The blog will continue to post breaking tech news from the central Puget Sound region and beyond, written by Business Journal staffers and journalists at affiliated newspapers nationwide. The blog also will continue to include more in-depth stories and analysis, profiles, and Q&As with tech leaders. Increasingly, readers should see stories that originate with other Business Journal beats — aerospace or commercial real estate, for example — but have a tech component.”
Read more here.
