I've been holding this news for a while now - today we can announce that Chas Edwards has joined the team.

Before joining FM, Chas ran sales and market development for an important chunk of Cnet - News.com, ZDnet, and Tech Republic, to be specific. He's known in the industry for his integrity, his thoughtful analysis of major online marketing issues, and his passion for online media. Before Cnet he was at MySimon and also helped launch TechTV. Now he's joined Andre and I at FM. As he put it on his site:

For all the talk of "audience engagement" by Big Media, it's a handful of moonlight publishers who have actually pulled it off. They've created intimacy, authority and real live dialog with their readers. While three-fourths of PVR users skip commercials and everyone else has learned to tune them out, certain bloggers have convinced their constituencies to tune in.

Two big challenges remain, though. First, most of these bloggers haven't figured out how to quit their day-jobs and pay rent at the same time. Second, marketers--who are willing to kick in rent money for the opportunity to participate in this high-energy connection between blog publishers and their audiences--don't have a scalable mechanism for doing so.

I won't pretend that I know exactly how these issues will resolve, but I'm signing up--by way of FM Publishing--to work on the solution full-time.

Chas is a first class guy and I'm very, very excited he's coming on board to lead the conversation with our marketing partners. Welcome, Chas!