The bad news first: we’ve lost a very talented journalist, a TV host, a conference chair, a panel moderator, a guy with a good sense of humor, and with a funny (for Americans) British accent, a person with the rich English vocabulary, and a charming man.

British born and Cambridge-educated, his “all-media rdquo; career spanned 29 years and two continents, beginning with prime time program-making for BBC TV and BBC Radio, side by side with writing for the UK “s Daily Mail newspaper, followed by an international book publishing career. An inveterate traveler and father of four, he divided his time between the USA and Europe, and most recently resided in Tallinn, where his wife is the Danish Ambassador to Estonia. He’s lost his battle to Web 2.0. During the last year he tried all possible medications to resist this enormous pressure that Web 2.0 buzz puts on all of us… He did not survive the pressure.

Now the good news: as Mark Twain famously said: ‘The report of my death is an exaggeration.’ Jeremy Geelan is physically alive and healthy, but he’s left Sys-Con to pursue a new career as a president of a Web 2.0 startup called neXplore Technologies. He’s announced his departure over here, but I strongly suggest you to get this fat Oxford Thesaurus, otherwise you won’t understand everything he wrote. If you do not have the thesaurus, I’ll translate it for you. Jeremy wanted to say that after years of promoting Web 2.0/social computing, he decided to put his money where his mouth was.

I’ve enjoyed all these years working with Jeremy, I’ve learned a lot from him, and I wish Jeremy and his new start-up all the best. But I miss him already (or as they say it in London, “Darling, I’ll miss you dearly! Indeed! “)

I hope that Sys-Con management will invite Jeremy to sing his swan song at the upcoming Rich Internet Applications Conference in October.