FatDoor Take 2, With Dulski at Helm
FatDoor, the well-funded social network based on the privacy-cringing aspects of crawling neighbor information, is going to remain “social” but is likely to change many of its initial directions, perhaps focusing on more personal features. This is the word from Jennifer Dulski, who has just left as head of Yahoo! Marketplaces to take the company’s helm. Dulski says the company is also likely to change its name.
My advice: Keep the Fatdoor T-shirts you may have picked up at various conferences. They are going to be eBay-able.
Dulski was recruited by venture partners Norwest Venture Partners and KeyNote Ventures, which are committing $5.5 million to the company in a new round. She takes over from cofounder Raj Abhyanker, whose Facebook page notes that he is “working on new idea..stay tuned!” Chandu Thota, one of the tech whizzes behind Microsoft Virtual Earth, remains as CTO.
In other “local” personnel news — why not? — RHD business development person Chad Schott, who had previously been at AOL, recently joined Marchex as VP of business development. I’m working with Marchex CEO Russ Horowitz and CMO Bill Day to clearly explain what they do at the upcoming ILM show. They’ve got quite a compelling story.
And finally, Jeremy Woodlee has left LAtimes.com and The Recycler to join the Rubicon Project, a new online ad exchange that “intelligently” connects Web site publishers with advertising networks. After Yahoo!’s recent $680 million acquisition of Right Media, it seems like a good business to be in.
Hey Peter. I’m glad you’re intrigued by Russ and the Marchex story. Clearly I am as well… it’s a tremendous group of assets and talent. Correction though, re: my role in ChicagoB2b. While I touched a lot of things at RHD/Dex, that wasn’t actually one of them. When I represented RHD at the last ILM, discussing B2B, I was standing in for Jill Hammond and/or Jeff Grow who have done all the heavy lifting on ChicagoB2B. It will be interesting to see how that site evolves post-business.com though… see you in a few days. Happy turkey day.
Corrected! ChicagoB2B is one of the more interesting YP developments, and I am watching it.