Upworthy

Upworthy

Type	Private
Founded	March 2012 (2012-03)
Headquarters	New York City, New York, United States
Founder(s)	Eli Pariser and Peter Koechley
CEO	Eli Pariser
Key people	Sara Critchfield[1]
Slogan(s)	Things That Matter. Pass 'Em On.
Website	www.upworthy.com
Alexa rank	568 (Global, October 2014)
Type of site	News and entertainment
Advertising	Native
Available in	English
Current status	Active

Upworthy is a website for viral content started in March 2012 by Eli Pariser, the former executive director of MoveOn, and Peter Koechley, the former managing editor of The Onion. One of Facebook's co-founders, Chris Hughes, was an early investor.^[2][3][4]

Upworthy's stated mission is to host the intersection of the "awesome", the "meaningful" and the "visual."^[3] It uses virality to promote stories with a progressive bent on political and social issues.^[5]

History

In June 2013, an article in Fast Company called Upworthy "the fastest growing media site of all time".^[6]

In August 2013 Upworthy became the first "non-traditional" site to feature in NewsWhip's Top Ten Publisher Rankings, in fifth place.^[7] By November 2013 they were the third most social publisher on Facebook, despite their low article count.^[8]

Upworthy popularized a certain style of headline, particularly a style of two-phrase headline which is very recognizable, which has spread to many other websites.^[9] Examples of such Upworthy style headlines are:

• "We Don't Hear Enough From Native American Voices. Here's An Inspiring Message From One."^[10]
• "Someone Gave Some Kids Some Scissors. Here's What Happened Next."^[11]

It has been criticized for its use of overly sensationalized, emotionally manipulative, "click-bait" style, headlines as well as having a liberal bias, and being focused on issues that are controversial by nature.^{[5][12][13][14][15]}

Funding

Upworthy has been through two rounds of funding. In October 2012 it raise $4 million from New Enterprise Associates and other angel investors including: BuzzFeed co-founder John Johnson, Facebook co-founder and New Republic owner Chris Hughes, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.^[16][17] In September 2013 it raised $8 Million from investors Catamount Ventures, Spark Capital, Knight Foundation and Klee Irwin.^[18]

Upworthy’s functions

Upworthy draws massive amounts of attention to things that matter. Every day, their curators scour the web to find compelling, meaningful media — stories, information, videos, graphics, and ideas that reward you deeply for the time you spend with them. Upworthy shares the best stuff with the Upworthy community, and they share it on to their friends and families, engaging a total of about 50 million people each month on some of society's most important topics. They focus on content that educates and inspires while being as rich and compelling as the best viral videos on the web. And sometimes a piece of content goes even further, creating real, measurable impact.

Content

Upworthy produces daily stories, which it deems to be meaningful and of high quality.^[19] It aims to be “social media with a mission”.^[19] It achieves this by promoting progressive and liberal points of view through its choice of articles, without being overtly partisan.^[20] Upworthy does not necessarily strive to have a community of its own. There is no commenting on the site because Upworthy encourages its users to share its content in already existing social networks.

Their articles are rigorously tested for how effective they will be at getting clicked on. One way they do this is giving each article no fewer than 25 separate headlines, they then test which will attract the most hits.^[21]

Views

In November 2013 it hit a high of almost 18 million unique visitors for the month. However in the first half of 2014 it had fallen to roughly 10-12 million unique visitors.^[22] As of December 2014, Upworthy's mission statement says it engages a total of about 50 million people each month.^[23]

As of October 2014 Upworthy’s YouTube channel has acquired 135,467 subscribers and 4,197.541 views.^[24]

How Does Upworthy make its content become viral?

• At Upworthy, the team has tried to boil virality down to this quasi-scientific equation: "Virality = strength of the applicability of content and packaging x shareability of original content x size of distribution + luck."
• Upworthy team monitors posts after they go live to see how they are tracking, sometimes altering headlines for posts that aren’t taking off.
• "It’s the fault of people who do care about issues for not making them interesting," Koechley says. "Politics and social issues are boring and onerous. It’s our mission to take those issues and make them so funny, compelling, or interesting that you can’t look away."

Advertising

Upworthy has been labeled a "clickbait shop"; however, for two years Upworthy did not monetize clicks through display advertising. The company began making money in April 2014 with the announcement of Upworthy Collaborations.^[25]

Upworthy Collaborations is a name given to Upworthy's advertising partnerships with corporations. It includes native ads, and articles that its advertising partners underwrite.^[26][27] It is selective with the organisations it collaborates with and states that "We draw a line on greenwashing".^[28] Upworthy states that it wishes to work with corporations who have a common mission and similar values. Peter Koechley said on the topic "We won’t take an ad from Exxon claiming to be good for the environment, but Skype claiming they help people communicate—that seems about right".^[27][29] It has attracted prominent brands such as Unilever, Skype, CoverGirl and charities such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.^{[26][30][31][32]}

Events

Upworthy held many events to advertise itself as well as getting new ideas from the public about the new media and Internet. These events make more and more people pay attention to the new media and new computer tech. Holding these events can also raise the reputation of the Unworthy itself.

• Mar.10 2014 Upworthy Co-Founder Eli Pariser discuss viral content and robots with New York Times Columnist David Carr at SXSW! Austin Convention Center Ballroom D. Open to all SXSW attendees
• Jun.22 2013 NN13: 10 Secret Ways To Make Your Stuff Maybe Go Viral If You Are Really Lucky
• Apr.06 2013 The Title Of This Session Matters More Than My Talk

By 2016, nonprofits will create much of the best Internet content about stuff that matters. As traditional media declines, how will these nonprofits protect the role of the “fourth estate” as they rise to power?Join Eli Pariser, the board president of MoveOn.org and the co-founder of Upworthy, for a conversation about how advocates can use social media to ensure that millions of people get meaningful content amid all the LOL catz. Eli will be joined by Upworthy Deputy Editor Mansur Gidfar, and Viral Curator Adam Mordecai, both Denver natives, who will explore how to make meaningful content go viral with killer headlines.

References