Jeff Pulver's resignation and the apparent demise of Pulvermedia and VON

In a short and direct statement yesterday, Jeff Pulver yesterday confirmed the fears many of us have had for some time:

A little while later, notes like this were showing up in his Twitter stream:
(Note: I am not PhoneBoy - that's Dameon Welch-Abernathy.)

Jeff's resignation was not unexpected, given the rumors swirling around since the end of March (chronicled here: Marc Robins blog, GigaOm) when Pulvermedia's primary investor, TICC, apparently shut all operations down. Regardless, it was sad to see the finality of this action. While Jeff had turned most of the Pulvermedia operations over to others and was no longer as directly involved with the company, I know given Jeff's passion for the company and this industry - as well as the fact that the company (Pulvermedia) includes his name - this was obviously a hard personal decision.

So what does this mean for Pulvermedia's various events and conferences, most importantly VON?

Good question... and one that we perhaps don't know the answers to yet. I'd held off writing about this whole saga in part because I hoped that Jeff and crew would be able to figure things out behind the scenes to continue operations. Perhaps they still will. In a crowded conference space, I always enjoyed going to (and speaking at) VON shows and enjoyed getting to know Jeff, Carl Ford and many of the others in the Pulvermedia circles. Jeff's shows brought many of us in the "VoIP blogging" circles together and through that some truly great friendships have formed. Obviously Jeff can't say much about what is going on... we'll have to stay tuned to see what does develop.

In the meantime, I just have to join Andy Abramson, PhoneBoy and I'm sure many others in thanking Jeff for all this passionate work promoting our industry, bringing people together to see what would happen next and his tireless efforts in evanglelizing his vision of how communication can be. Andy wrote in part:

As a Pulver Media advisory board member, I think I speak for all by saying "thank you" and "your contributions were endless in creating an industry around your beliefs and dreams. We, as a community THANK YOU and hope for your return in whatever form or fashion that may be."

Best wishes, Jeff, as you continue to "explore Life 3.0"... and we look forward to see what that might be!

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