Moving on: Cleveland.com exec moving (to) Sideways

Advance
Internet

Adventure is calling an Advance Internet executive who enjoys creating new experiences online. She'll move from the news business to the book business. Or is it she's moving back to a familiar place.

Eliza Wing, president and CEO of Cleveland.com, is the new president and COO of Sideways, a software company based in Cleveland that wants to convert books into multimedia experiences to take advantage of the iPad and other mobile devices.

New look at books

Launch of Sideways, founded by the founder of books.com, is 27 days away, according to a company web site.  Wing gave cleveland.com  more details, saying the new company would formally launch at the BookExpo America conference in New York City on May 25.

It must be hard for Wing to leave Cleveland.com, a site that she helped form after moving from The Cleveland Plain Dealer's editorial department. She was named editor-in-chief for Plain Dealer New Media in 1996 to work on the development of a news and information site for Cleveland and named president and CEO in 1997.

Sweet reunion

But, in some ways, it must be a comfortable move. Wing was editorial director for book.com, the first Internet book store, from June 1995 until February 1996.

No successor was named, according to a cleveland.com article where she also said:

"I think cleveland.com is at a place in its history when its ready to take the next step and I'm excited for the company. We're exceeding our revenue goals and our audience is continuing to grow. There's just so much more to do. That was part of what made the decision so hard."

In the past

Wing worked at Rolling Stone and New York Woman before following her then-husband to Cleveland for his new job at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That's when the mother of two started in the editorial department of the Ohio newspaper. That soon led to what became cleveland.com, the online affliate of the Plain Dealer.

Learn more about Eliza Wing, including the first time she lived in Ohio, how she started in the news business, and the fine art of "juggling the workplace as a hockey mom" in a 2005 profile on Clevelandwomen.com.

Online and active

We've met through the years at Newhouse events, new media conventions and, of course, online.  She tweets. has a Google profile and she blogs (just not lately.) She graduated from the University of Michigan, but let's not hold that against her.