FromeDome

I had a lot of crazy stuff in 2011, but there was a clear winner: I would eat these oysters — with salmon roe and yuzu-ponzu sauce — every day, forever. Served at 41 Degrees — the Adrià brothers’ (elBulli guys) bar — in Barcelona, on our honeymoon in May.

I recently bought this plastic “grass” plant to liven up the SplatF workspace. Ostensibly, it’s a gadget charging station, but I just like the way it adds some green to my desk. You can get one at Amazon and support SplatF in the process.

In May, I announced I was leaving Business Insider this summer to work on some new projects. Yesterday, I launched the first one: A new site called SplatF.

There, I’ll be covering tech news, including reporting, analysis, commentary, and reviews. Here’s my intro post and here’s where I explain what SplatF means. You can follow on Twitter at @splatf.

It’s an experiment in self-publishing as much as anything else. Is it a viable business online? I’ll try to find out.

Ben Popper at the New York Observer’s BetaBeat site wrote up a cool post about it yesterday.

Part of my going-solo mission is to spend more time doing cool projects for FromeDome.com, too. Stay tuned for those and some other new projects.

Pretty awesome Google Trends chart for “rapture.” Glad we got that one out of the way.

It’s weird to write this, but after spending the last four years at Business Insider / Silicon Alley Insider, I’ll be leaving at the end of June to focus on some new projects.

It has been a wild time. Since I joined, the company has grown from three guys in a loading dock — we had to move our chairs so the FreshDirect order could be delivered — to a staff of 50, with more than 10 million monthly readers and a cool new office.

But for me, now is the best time to try building some things of my own, so that’s what I’m going to do. And I’m very excited about it.

My first project, launching this summer, will involve writing about technology, much like I’ve been doing at Business Insider and at Forbes since 2005.

But other projects will be totally unrelated to tech and/or media. Some haven’t even been imagined yet. (And I’ll still be contributing to Business Insider on some special assignments.)

Special thanks to Henry Blodget, Julie Hansen, Kevin Ryan, and Peter Kafka for everything over the years.

Please follow me on Twitter at @fromedome or sign up for my new e-mail list below to get updates about what I’m working on.

And in the meantime, I’d love to hear from anyone who has anything to add — advice, ridicule, sponsorship, whatever. For now, please email fromedome@gmail.com.

Delancey Street Station, around midnight, the night before the Rapture.

The two mid-sized food brands I’ve been the most excited about over the last couple of years are Sabra, the hummus company, and Fage, which makes Greek yogurt.

But in Greek yogurt, it turns out the biggest winner has actually been Chobani, which has come out of nowhere to become the market leader in just a few years.

I learned that tonight in an amazing “deep dive” report into the Greek yogurt industry by UBS analyst David Palmer.

Here’s what else I learned:

1) Greek yogurt has been hugely disruptive to the yogurt industry. Non-Greek yogurt represented 98% of yogurt sales in 2008; Greek yogurt now represents 19% of the yogurt market.

Palmer writes, “Greek yogurt brands such as Chobani and Fage have captured market share more quickly than almost any segment in a major food category ever.” He adds, “To put this in perspective, this is more than energy drinks have captured of carbonated soft drinks in the last 6 years.”

2) Chobani and Fage are kicking Yoplait and Dannon’s butts, quickly growing to 13% of the overall yogurt market — and representing 70% of the market’s growth. Chobani, from upstate New York, has been particularly impressive, taking 48% of the Greek yogurt market in just 3 years.

Why is Chobani doing so well? It seems to be priced about $1 cheaper per 16 oz., according to a chart in the report. And, my guess: The branding seems to be fresher, and the product seems to be targeted more toward the American palate. Fage feels more European, which might be why I buy it.

3) Why are people buying Greek yogurt? It’s more filling, and is perceived as being healthier. It has twice as much protein. And while people aren’t crazy about its taste, high-end buyers are happy to spend almost twice as much money for it. I actually prefer it, but I’ve mostly eaten plain, unsweetened yogurt.

4) Greek yogurt seems to be getting its growth from “increasing popularity among upper-income, highly educated women.” According to NPD Group, via the UBS report, it over-indexes with people who don’t have kids, especially among college grads, and households with over $100,000 in income.

5) Yogurt has been getting more popular at breakfast, especially among men and children. Cereal consumption at breakfast has fallen to a 5-year low.

This chart does a good job showing the category’s growth in general, and especially Chobani’s:

Previously: Inside Frijoles, Tokyo’s Tribute To Chipotle

This about sums it up: