Pre-show discussion, Covent Garden – Photo by Josh Russell

Last week Ewan Macleod, Owner and Editor-in-Chief at MIR, announced that all future content had been bought (in the name of research and analysis), and as part of the bargain, the site in its current iteration would be discontinued.

As of March 27th 2009, any and all content created by Ewan will only be available for corporate clients via a new subscription-based model. Details of which are below, from the man himself:

“[The] new client is unwilling to subsidise our existing audience of readers (300-400k last month) so the content that I’ll be creating – reports, video interviews and day-to-day industry news and analysis – will become proprietary from 27th of March. After this date, the public version of MIR will no longer be updated.

The nature of the agreement allows for corporate subscriptions to [MIR] content at £12,000 per annum, plus applicable taxes. I’m able to offer the first 10 subscriptions at half price until the end of the month…”

Sad times.

I joined MIR (previously known as SMS Text News) way back in November 2007; I had just posted my initial teaser post regarding that year’s Future of Mobile event and Ewan called me up asking if he could have the full write up for his site.

Needless to say I agreed. The post was written and both Ewan and I were pleased with the response. Between us, building on that that initial conversation, a new weekly column – ‘Whatley on Wednesday‘ – was born.

- Whatley Wednesday -

Later on, when we moved into the realms of ‘other’ media; starting with audio then later moving into video, the site really started to develop and, by the time the weekly videocast developed into a fully-fledged show, the format was in the bag along a brand new name: Mobile Industry Review.

Along with the infinitely knowledgeable Ben Smith and the always engaging Dan Lane, I really felt that the Mobile Industry Review was going places.

We were able to provide an entertaining look into the global mobile industry and maintain a credible voice by incorporating various sources from both inside and outside the microcosm of mobile.

The informed, editorial opinion was well respected and it will be missed greatly.

Through MIR I’ve established some great contacts, played with some awesome phones (some not so awesome) and last but by no means least, made some real friends.

Filming the show @ Mobile Monday, London - Photo by Rebecca Cottrell

Ewan has given me an export of all my work to date and I will be importing all of it into http://whatleydude.com later on today. Apologies if this clogs up your RSS.

Also, any fans of the MIR Show should save the MIR Vimeo channel in their favourites. Although there will be no new episodes in the future, I’m told that the MIR TV back catalogue will remain online for posterity.

Finally have no fear, I’m still very much a Mobile Geek and I’ll still be keeping my eye on what’s coming next in the world of all things Mobile.

All that’s changed is where that output will live.

Until next time,

James.