After a slower than expected start, Xconomy’s Seattle team hopes the next year will bring the tech news site closer to profitability.

In the chain’s Seattle office, recent changes could help the tech site make money. Veteran journalist Greg Huang, who co-founded the Seattle office two years ago with fellow reporter Luke Timmerman, is heading to the chain’s Boston office. Timmerman will remain behind and head up the Seattle office, with new hire Thea Chard joining him.

Luke Timmerman

Chard, a recent graduate of the University of Southern California, worked for a year at the Queen Anne View neighborhood blog – owned by Seattle-based Next Door Media — before taking the job with Xconomy. Timmerman acknowledged that the team chose Chard over other applicants with more experience and higher salary requirements. He added, though, that they selected her because they were impressed with her work at the Queen Anne View.

“In a year, she made it one of the best blogs in the city,” Timmerman said. “She impressed us.”

Timmerman said Xconomy looked at the hire as beneficial to the company in the long run, as they wanted staff members in various stages of their careers.

Xconomy’s Seattle team members are also hopeful that advertising revenue will continue its upward track. Timmerman said while the site is not yet profitable, the past nine months have brought an increasing number of sponsors to the Xconomy Seattle site, including law firms and other companies providing services to tech, biotech, and venture capital firms.

“Our revenue has made significant strides in the past six to nine months,” Timmerman said.

Robert Buderi, founder and editor-in-chief of Xconomy, would not say anything specific about the company’s profitability goals. He would only say that the company’s revenue and geographic reach are growing.

“We’ve found a great reception for what we do in the innovation communities we serve,” Buderi said.

Prior to the recent growth period, Xconomy’s Seattle branch found the advertising market sluggish and challenging. Early 2009, in particular, was a tough period, Timmerman said.

The larger company’s expansion efforts reflect market conditions. Xconomy, which started in Boston, opened Seattle and San Diego offices in 2008. Then, in 2009, when the economy bottomed out, the company did not bring on any new cities.

“The economy slowed our plans for expansion,” Timmerman said.

Late last year, Xconomy began to bounce back, and the company decided to start growing again in 2010. Xconomy opened a Detroit branch in April, in part due to a sponsorship from the Kauffman Foundation, a Kansas City organization invested in entrepreneurship. Both Xconomy and the Kauffman Foundation saw Detroit as an interesting location because the city is attempting to reposition itself away from the auto industry. Veteran journalist Howard Lovy is running the Detroit office on a less than full time basis.

In mid-June, Xconomy opened the San Francisco branch. Since the company views the market as a key expansion opportunity, they moved Xconomy Boston editor Wade Roush to San Francisco for his experience in the tech field, and then recruited Huang from Seattle to replace Roush.

“San Francisco is a really big expansion for us,” Timmerman said.

In addition to acting as editor of the Seattle office, Timmerman will continue his role as National Biotechnology Editor. He covers the biotech sector for all of the company’s web sites. Timmerman believes Chard’s interest in clean tech will result in more coverage of that sector on the Seattle site.