Maroon Ventures - In the News

April 18, 2008

Crested Butte, Colorado – Two more local media experts are joining Maroon Ventures, a partnership focused on helping local media companies craft revenue strategies and identify key partnership opportunities in the interactive space.

Mike Higgins and Heather Lamm join Christopher W. Tippie, Charity Huff, Wesley A. Jackson and Bob Benz in Maroon Ventures. The addition of Higgins and Lamm brings key skills to the partnership that will help it better serve its clients.

“One of the things that attracted me to Maroon Ventures was the opportunity to facilitate the evolution of local media across multiple companies and disciplines,” Lamm said. “Maroon Ventures can make the critical difference in our clients’ ability to develop and execute successful new media strategies. I am thrilled to be a part of this vision.”

Lamm’s strategic vision and analytical skills were honed in key roles at the Industry Standard magazine, where she was vice president of strategic planning, and MediaNews Group, where she served as executive vice president in the interactive division. During her time at MNG, the fourth largest newspaper publisher in the U.S. , interactive revenue grew from $14 million in 2003 to $130 million in 2008.

Higgins, who served as executive vice president alongside Lamm at MediaNews Group, has extensive experience in entrepreneurial businesses. Before joining MNG, Higgins was co-founder and executive vice president of Indigio Group, Inc., where he successfully ran point on four key ventures:

1. The opening of Indigio Europe to serve VNU from offices in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

2. Excito Marketing

3. StreamingCity

4. SavingStreet Realty

Before his work at Indigio, Higgins was an officer and VP sales at Digital Courier Technologies (NASDAQ: DCTI). In that role, he oversaw the business operations of their weather subsidiary, WeatherLabs, before the business was sold to Landmark Communications in 1999.

“Maroon Ventures is uniquely positioned to drive innovation in online media by indentifying revenue and growth opportunities from inside and outside the industry, ” Higgins said. “We will partner with those in the industry and ensure their long-term success through jointly indentifying and execution strategy and see that strategy through to the results.”

Those partnerships will take many forms including professional services engagements, joint venture business models, equity-growth opportunities, as well and new lines of business.

About Maroon Ventures

Maroon Ventures is a professional services firm that connects emerging business opportunities with media companies to help them execute in local markets. Its members draw on extensive operational and strategic experience to drive innovation throughout the business lifecycle

April 1, 2008

This New Facebook Widget is No Joke...

Crested Butte, Colorado – Have you heard the one about the kid with a multicolored Mohawk who sits
down on a park bench next to an old man reading a newspaper?

The old man looks up from his paper to take in the spectacle in front of him.

“What’s the matter, old man,” the kid sneers. “Never done anything daring?”

“I once got drunk and had sex with a parrot,” the old man says. “I was just wondering if you were my
son.”

Love it? Hate it? Have a better one? Welcome to OpenMic, a new widget that debuts today on Facebook. The widget, developed by Maroon Gadgeteering, is designed to allow people on social networks to tell jokes, applaud the ones they like and heckle the ones they don’t.

OpenMic is the first of a series of widgets that Maroon Gadgeteering, a subsidiary of Maroon Ventures, plans to launch for social networks and mobile platforms.

“Maroon Gadgeteering isn’t meant to be all things to all people,” said Charity Huff, Maroon Ventures partner. “Gadgeteering aims to bring like-minded people together from across the web. Interaction doesn’t have to take place in traditional media. Widgets allow users to develop a community based on where and how they want to interact.”

To download Open Mic on to your Facebook profile, click Application in the right nav. In the Edit My Applications screen, click the browse more applications button. From the Application Directory, search Open Mic.

About Maroon Ventures

February 6, 2008

Maroon Ventures Announces New Partners from Across the Local Media Industry

Crested Butte, Colorado - Maroon Ventures, a professional services firm that is playing a key role in helping 21 newspaper companies leverage their relationship with Yahoo! and HotJobs, announced Wednesday the addition of new partners with diverse local media backgrounds. Wesley A. Jackson and Robert Benz will join existing partners Christopher W. Tippie and Charity J. Huff in Maroon Ventures. The new partners each will be responsible for strategic ventures focused on identifying and building new technology and businesses.

Jackson joins Maroon Ventures after having served as corporate senior vice president for Belo Corp. and president/general manager of Belo Interactive Media. He was responsible for P&L, operations, strategy, national sales and product development for more than 30 Web sites. In addition, Jackson has represented Belo in the newspaper consortium’s strategic partnership with Yahoo!

Benz previously served as vice president of interactive media for E.W. Scripps Company’s newspaper division. Key achievements in his role at Scripps included the installation of content management systems, implementing extensive financial benchmarking, establishing an innovation fund and managing an interactive staff of 40 that handles ad serving, sales, operations, product management, search engine marketing and programming.

“Maroon Ventures was founded in 2006 to take venture capital and new technology development beyond the ideation phase to operational execution,” founding partner, Tippie said. “By bringing our deep, local media industry knowledge and operational expertise to bear on new opportunities, Maroon Ventures will create businesses that produce a high return for our partners and clients. Adding Wes and Bob to our team provides us with invaluable operational experience from corporate development to business execution.”