Shiny Media co-founder Ashley Norris has retaken control of his WhoAteAllThePies football blog from the blog house for his new publishing enterprise. Shiny shut the site in September during cutbacks following Norris’ departure a month earlier.

Anorak Publishing, the male-centric nanopublishing outfit Norris became CEO of in November, has acquired the site from Shiny. Actually, it took over back in May, but it seemed to pass everyone (or at least us) by. Norris tells J.co.uk: “It didn’t really fit with what they were doing. It just needed to be galvanised. We’re a much smaller operation.” Norris is now hoping to launch a Fantasy Football contest.

Anorak Publishing was formed out of the eponymous Anorak irreverent news site and has the Pop Junkie site, too. MessyMedia and Mink Media weren’t able to make a success of being the UK’s answer to Gawker and, as we reported last week, another outfit, Handpicked Media, is trying its chances.

Responding to our report, Norris wrote: “There are lots of indie UK websites that are thriving like Unreality TV, Hecklerspray and UK Fabsugar, some of which are part of networks. I don’t really think these sites are blogs any more, not as we understood blogs back in 2007, anyhow. There’s very little difference between these sites, Anorak’s sites and Shiny’s sites and much of the web output of newspapers and magazine publishers these days. Time for a rethink on the name.”

• Shiny Shuts Football Blog; More Changes To Come?
• Handpicked Tries Its Luck At Being Another Indie Blog Network
• New Web Show ‘The Money Shot’ Aims At Male Financial Audience
• Shiny Co-Founder Norris Starts Rival Men’s Publisher Anorak