Shiny Media, the new media company which provided content for a number of websites and launched a series of football blogs around the Who Ate All the Pies brand, has gone into administration, according to one of the company’s founders.

Katie Lee, who herself left Shiny Media earlier this year, related the company’s administration in her Twitter feed today. There has been no official confirmation from Shiny Media.

Staff had been leaving the company and it had been shedding properties in recent months, although Shiny hired some new editors for its lifestyle blogs in June. Most of its football sites - including unofficial Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Spurs blogs - have been inactive for almost a year. According to reports today, the last entries on the company’s other blogs are dated July 19.

Last September, Lee and her Shiny colleague Chris Price distanced themselves from reports suggesting that the company was then struggling: “Revenue is going up month on month and traffic has increased 26 per cent over the last 12 months. So it seems ‘rumours of our death’ - to paraphrase Mark Twain - have been greatly exaggerated.”

Lee left the company in March this year, while another of the company’s co-founders, Ashley Norris, moved on last August, just before Who Ate All the Pies was closed down by Shiny.

Shiny Media was founded five years ago as the UK’s first blog network, a business model which has worked well in the United States, running lifestyle sites and supplying content in specialist areas for portals.

At one point ran at least seven sports-related websites, including the specialist women’s football site, kickster.tv .

Earlier this year, Who Ate All the Pies was acquired by Anorak Publishing - described in the technology trade titles as a “male-centric nanopublishing outfit” - and which is now run by Norris.

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