The Communities I Owned, 2012 to 2017

I grew up on WebmasterWorld and SEOChat... I learned most of what I know from the people in those forums. So when the chance came in 2012 I bought them. For five years I was the CEO of the Developer Shed communities and WebmasterWorld, and in 2017 I sold them back to Brett Tabke, who founded WebmasterWorld in the first place. Here's the whole story in links... what I said at the time, and what everyone else said.

WebmasterWorld Developer Shed / SEOChat Cre8asiteForums Threadwatch SEOROI Pubcon & SES

WebmasterWorld Oct 2012 to Nov 2017

Oct 17, 2012Announced from the stage at Pubcon Vegas. Search Engine Land | Search Engine Watch | ClickZ | Pubcon | WebProNews | Domain Name Wire | press release
Oct 17, 2012Brett's announcement thread on WMW, with the members' reactions: WebmasterWorld.com Acquired by Internet Marketing Ninjas
Oct 17, 2012What I wrote that day: I bought Webmaster World, and I'm building a better Ninja Dojo
2013Ted Ulle (tedster) passed away... Ted Ulle's Last Teachings on WebmasterWorld
Sep 2013WMW admins Bill Atchison and Frank Bauer joined the Ninjas... press release
2015WebmasterWorld: Announcing New Improved Responsive Design
Nov 2017Sold it back to Brett... SER: Brett Tabke Buys WebmasterWorld Back After 5 Years (includes my Facebook note about it)
AlwaysMy WMW username is jimsthoughts... profile. Threads I posted in are on the Mentions page. Search Engine Land's WebmasterWorld topic archive

Developer Shed Network: SEOChat, DevShed, Scripts.com and more Jun 2012 to Nov 2017

Jun 2012Bought the whole Developer Shed network from Ziff Davis... 20 sites and message boards including SEOChat, DevShed, Scripts.com and the tutorial sites. WMW thread, Internet Marketing Ninjas Acquires Developer Shed from Ziff Davis (Brett posted it, I answered in the thread, and Darrin Ward showed up too)
Jun 2012Barry Schwartz: Boykin Bought My First SEO Community, SEO Chat
Jun 2012What I wrote at the time: I bought the Developer Shed Network and Developer Shed News: Founder of SEO Chat, Darrin Ward, Returns
2017SEOChat and DevShed went back to Brett Tabke with WebmasterWorld... SER
2019An outside look back at the DevShed forums by a long time member: In Memoriam: Developer Shed Forums
BioMy old SEOChat bio (Wayback Machine)

Cre8asiteForums Oct 2012 onward

Oct 2012Bought Cre8asiteForums from Kim Krause Berg and brought Kim on to the Ninjas so she could keep running it full time... SER: Jim Boykin Also Bought Cre8asite Forums
Oct 2012My post: Kim Krause Berg Joins Ninjas & Jim Buys the Cre8asiteForums
2013Cre8asite's 15th year... press release

Threadwatch.org 2013

2013Relaunched Threadwatch.org... SER: Threadwatch Returns
Jan 8, 2013My post, with the press release and the 15 editors: Threadwatch.org is Back! Less Noise, More Signal
2013Ann launched the industry events calendar there... press release

SEOROI.com and the Advanced SEO Book Jan 2013

Jan 2013Bought SEOROI.com and the publishing rights to Gab Goldenberg's book, Advanced SEO's 7 Curiously Obvious Rules... IMN announcement
2014Gab joined the Ninjas... press release

Pubcon and SES sponsor, not owner

People sometimes think I bought Pubcon along with WebmasterWorld. I didn't... Brett kept Pubcon, and the Ninjas were a sponsor for years.

2011Gold sponsor, Pubcon Vegas 2011
2012Platinum sponsor, Pubcon Vegas 2012... Pubcon | Platinum sponsor, Pubcon New Orleans 2013
2010We Build Pages sponsored SES too... SES New York 2010 | SES San Francisco 2010

How it all fit together

Every bio from those years listed the same set: the Developer Shed Network, Webmasterworld.com, SEOChat.com, Cre8asiteForums.com, Scripts.com, DevShed.com, Threadwatch.org and SEOROI.com. Aaron Wall asked me about it in the 2013 SEO Book interview, Barry and I talked about buying them and selling them back in the 2020 Search Engine Land video, and the OM Report did an interview about it in 2013.

The people who made these communities work in those years: Brett Tabke, Neil Marshall, Bill Atchison, Frank Bauer, Kim Krause Berg, Darrin Ward, Ann Smarty, Chris Labatt-Simon... and every moderator who kept the lights on.