Wow times have changed. Once the world’s third largest blog network, b5media is certainly on a deathwatch now with today’s shuttering of the entire Entertainment Channel to launch Crushable.com—B5media To Launch New Celebrity Site Wednesday, Bathed In Fired Blogger Blood, Mass Firings At b5media: Entire Entertainment Network Shut, The end of b5media—and it isn’t the concentration of bloggers into a super channel that is the problem, it’s that b5 has lost vision and credibility in social media.

I worked at b5 as a blogger, channel editor, and then the training manager. I loved (most) of my time working at b5 and the one thing I could always count on was Jeremy shooting straight and telling people what he could when he could. Today I’ve checked the b5 site several times for some comment, anything, on a very public blogger bloodletting, there’s nothing there. The last news post: October 9, 2009 announcing the new CEO. The last blog post July 16, 2009! The fact that the woman who was critical to building the b5 entertainment channel Arieanna Schweber had no warning, no information, not even an idea if she still had a job, is just mind boggling.

The key people at b5 always knew what was coming ahead of time. Even by just a little, they knew. This is a sign that a company has lost heart and lost vision.

Now I’m afraid that b5media has just put the nail in the coffin of their own relevance within the blogosphere and social media. Not long ago working at b5 media meant that you knew your shit. From the developers to the bloggers, the people who were there were some of the people who helped shape not only b5, but social media over all. People who not only wrote about blogging, but helped to build the platform (WordPress) as well.

Now? Not so much.

Today b5media isn’t on the forefront, it’s a backwater. The saddest part is that it didn’t need to be. You see that I think that the plan to consolidate the individual channel blogs into super topic blogs was and is a smart one. The wheels were in motion to do this when I was still there in June 2008. It was smart then, but now b5 has lost momentum. I don’t think about b5 when I think about cutting edge commentary or content. I follow a lot of blogs and even more sources on Twitter and very rarely does a post from a b5 site ping up on the radar.

Yes, the drop in ad revenue hurt badly. Yes, there were structural issues that needed to be fixed. However, look at sites like GigaOm and ReadWriteWeb, niche players who tapped into the talent they had to launch subscription services. There was more than enough talent at b5 to do that not long ago.

Now? Not so much.

It’s really sad to see bungled communication that has now cast a pall over what might have been a great entertainment site. It’s a bungle that even if it happened during Jeremy’s watch, he would have owned up to it and talked about it. Even just to say sorry.

I think that it’s only a matter of time before b5media starts to fire sale it’s online assets and fades away. And I don’t think that time is very long from now.

I’m back from vacation, clearly, and funny how things can change in a short few days (or week, if you prefer). I started this post enroute to Jamaica. Leaving on my first real vacation in at least 4 years, but perhaps closer to 5.

It seems that I only post here for pretty big events. Not as many of my happy-go-lucky posts about tech or whatever as there used to be. As you might gather, this is no exception.

Before getting to the meat of the matter (that is if you haven’t started guessing or know already), let’s recap the past, oh, 8-9 months, shall we?

Let’s see, Marc Orchant passed away, blognation collapsed, I joined b5media as the Training Manager, I decided to move to Toronto, then I decided not to and move to Vancouver instead. Amongst all this there have been the usual (for me at least) ups and downs just to keep things interesting.

Let’s add to the list.

Shortly before I left for vacation, b5 and I parted ways.

It was an amicable parting. Just time to change gears.

Of course this means I’m also back down to, gasp, only one blog as I have given up both MapleLeaf 2.0 and Manscaping 101 (in case you hadn’t noticed). It was just better that way.

The "what’s next?" question is a really good one. For the first time in a very long time I’m in a position to take my time in finding where I’ll land next.

Yes, I’m still moving to Vancouver. I secured a nice bachelor apartment the day before I left for vacation.

Will I still be involved in social media? I’ve been doing the social media thing for a long time, so the chances of tossing that away are slim to none.

I can say that being the training manager for b5 was one of the best and most fulfilling jobs I’ve ever had. I truly enjoyed teaching people how to be better writers, bloggers, social media professionals, and even just computer users. My goal was to bring everyone up in their skill level no matter where they were.

If someone just even learned how to deal with images in posts better, then I was happy.

You might be thinking, "Gee Tris, why don’t you teach?" I haven’t ruled that out as yet. Right now I haven’t ruled out much at this point.

Beyond taking time to see what’s next, I have a couple pet projects and friend’s projects that I’ll be working on.

I am however, available for projects consulting, teaching, and writing.

According to the standard courtesies, this is the time I thank all the people I worked with at b5. There is more than a little irony to thanking everyone at b5, so without the whole making a list and such, I’m going to just say…if you know me, you know.

For those of you who were placing side bets, no, I didn’t go online during my vacation (the time from when I boarded the plane to Jamaica until I landed in Toronto–there are some practicalities of travel that required me to be online before and right after those times).

I think many of you will wonder what I did and thought about during my week of force e-exile. Now, that would be telling, but suffice to say I did have fun and have th sun burn to show for it. I’ll write about the trip at little, don’t worry).

So I’m back from vacation having pretty much put a nice cap on one phase of my life and ready to embark on another.

I’ll keep you posted on how that’s going.

One of the great things about coming back to b5 is that I am able to move this blog to their servers and get onto their ad program.

With this post, larixconsulting.com is going to be retired as my official URL.  Yep, I bought this domain something like five years ago when I started as a solo consultant.  I struggled with the name for a long time.  I haven’t really been pushing Larix Consulting for a while, so this is a good change for me.

If you have my old larixconsulting.com email addy … don’t worry it will still work (it had better cause I have a lot of things tied to it!).  I prefer Gmail now (so same beginning as you have, just gmail.com as the domain), but larixconsulting.com has been on gmail for domains since I moved this blog off blogware last summer.

In a bit I’ll be transferring the DNS of larixconsulting.com to b5 and all requests for larixconsulting.com will go to trishussey.com …

Cross your fingers.  I always hate DNS changes….

Oh and the blog will still be called “A View from the Isle” … good thing I switched that a long time ago!