Good Worldwide

Good Worldwide Inc., is a United States-based company with offices in Los Angeles, CA, New York, NY, and Seattle, WA that promotes, connects, and reports on individuals, businesses, and non-profits.[1][2] Good produces a website, a quarterly magazine, online videos, and events. The content covers a variety of topics, including the environment, education, urban planning, design, food, politics, culture, lifestyle, technology, and health. Good Worldwide Inc. is the consolidation of originally separate brands: Reason Pictures, Good Magazine, and Good Digital, in partnership with Causes, a Facebook/MySpace app promoting donations of time and money to charities and non-profits; Goodrec and Govit, an application that connects US citizens with their elected representatives.[3] Good Worldwide Inc. is made up of three organizations: Good/Media, Good/Community and Good/Corps.[4]

Good Media

Good/Media produces an online news site, www.good.is quarterly print magazine, Good Magazine. The magazine was started in 2006.[5] The website receives about 10.1 MM unique visitors to its website each month. In December 2015 most of its editors were fired.[6] The firings were "for strategic reasons" to shift Good's focus to its social network.[6] Eight former Good Magazine editors and writers raised funds on Kickstarter to create the one-shot magazine Tomorrow before going their separate ways.[7]

Good resumed publication of the magazine in 2014, with a new design and format in March 2015.[8]

Goodcorps

Goodcorps is GOOD Worldwide Inc’s social impact consultancy, specializing in social impact strategy and programs that align performance goals.

In 2011, The New York Times covered Goodcorps in an article titled, “GOODcorps Aims to Help Business Meet Social Goals.[9]”

Goodcorps has also been recognized for its work on DICK’s Sporting Goods and their Sports Matter campaign, winning two Halo Cause-Marketing Awards in 2015 for Best Social Media Campaign and Best Message-Focused Campaign.[10]

Founding and business model

Good was founded in 2006 by Ben Goldhirsh (son of Inc. magazine founder Bernie Goldhirsh) who wanted to create a "free press for the critical idealist."[11] Eschewing experienced editors, he hired friends from college and high school, including Al Gore's son, Al Gore III, to create a media company characterized by "both bold graphic style and an unconventional approach to business." The team was initially criticized by some industry experts, such as magazine executive and publishing expert Chip Block, who said, "This sounds a lot to me like vanity publishing, a bunch of kids sitting around with something they think is a really good idea, and one of them has a lot of money."[11] Others in the industry praised the magazine's design and concept upon its launch.[11]

Good's unconventional business strategy included donating its magazine subscription fees entirely to charities,[11] offering subscribers the option of which organization their fee supported: Teach for America, Millennium Promise, Ashoka, City Year, UNICEF, etc.[12] Goldhirsh explained the reasoning behind the strategy in an interview with Inc.: "The idea was that we would incentivize consumers with the added benefit that their money goes to charity, incentivize these charities to reach their constituencies for the $20 donation, and enjoy the added marketing and public relations that would come from having an innovative strategy."[13] Goldhirsh's theory has been criticized for not being a viable business model.[14] However, the magazine has reached over 200,000 people and raised over a million dollars for partner organizations.[3][15]

Good has experimented with different practices over the years. Former Good CEO Jonathan Greenblatt implemented a number of innovations at the company, including the launch of the Good Sheet, a broadsheet product distributed exclusively at Starbucks and a name-your-own-pricing scheme that the company ran as an experiment. It is not clear whether this strategy was successful.[16][17]

Press coverage

Around launch time in the fall of 2006, GOOD was featured in the New York Times and mentioned by APM's Marketplace.[18] The magazine and its web presence[19] were covered by NPR[20][21] throughout late 2007, when the company celebrated its one-year anniversary. GOOD's listing of the 51 best magazines also received national press attention.[22]

Instead of traditional marketing strategies, GOOD used their marketing budget to throw launch parties[11] which have been reviewed and discussed by publications such as The Washington Post.[23]

On August 17, 2011, a joint announcement was made that social network service Jumo, a social engagement platform designed to connect users with causes and non-profits, founded by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes, would be merging with GOOD.[24][25]

In March 2015, GOOD relaunched its magazine with a new format and design. The magazine’s relaunch was covered by other industry media including Folio Magazine and Contently.[26]

References

  1. ↑ "About Us". Good. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  2. ↑ "Good Adds YouTube CEO Chad Hurley And Pepsi CMO Jill Beraud To Advisory Board". TechCrunch. 2010-03-30. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  3. 1 2 "Good Scores Funding, Strategic Partnerships To Help Improve The World". TechCrunch. 2009-10-14. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  4. ↑ "Good Corps". Good Corps. 2011-05-13. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  5. ↑ "Good. Launch of the Year". Mr. Magazines. Retrieved August 19, 2015.
  6. 1 2 Beaujon, Andrew. "Good magazine lays off most of its editorial staffers". Poynter. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
  7. ↑ Coscarelli, Joe. "Fired Good Staff Raises $20,000 for Tomorrow - Daily Intelligencer". NY Mag. Retrieved April 16, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Good Goes Back to Print". Folio. March 30, 2015. Retrieved May 30, 2015.
  9. ↑ Newman, Andrew Adam. "Good/Corps Aims to Help Business Meet Social Goals". NY Times. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  10. ↑ "2015 Cause Marketing Halo Awards". Cause Marketing Forum.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/fashion/17good.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1215065897-NpYAJlJjCmj23KSrNP48Vw
  12. ↑ Steel, Emily (2006-07-20). "Wealthy Son Aims to Build His Legacy". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  13. ↑ "Inheriting the 'Entrepreneurial Spirit' - Ben Goldhirsh - Good magazine". Inc. 2007-06-19. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  14. ↑ Rothkopf, David (2007-08-16). "Doing Well By Doing Good". Foreignpolicy.com. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  15. ↑ "Good | CrunchBase Profile". CrunchBase. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  16. ↑ Fell, Jason. "Good to Let Subscribers Name Their Own Price - Audience Development @ FolioMag.com". Test.foliomag.com. Retrieved 2014-04-16.
  17. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/business/media/08good.html?pagewanted=print&_r=0
  18. ↑ Marketplace: Smart (socially-conscious) business
  19. ↑ A Vision of 'GOOD' Works in Magazines, Web. NPR. December 8, 2007
  20. ↑ Magazine Aims to Be 'GOOD' for You NPR. October 10, 2007.
  21. ↑ Magazine Makes 'GOOD'. NPR. November 22, 2007
  22. ↑ Cheers and Jeers for Condé Nast. The New York Times. Maria Aspan. March 12, 2007
  23. ↑ Choose GOOD Anniversary Party, The Washington Post. Julia Beizer. Sept. 5, 2007.
  24. ↑ Two Groups That Help Nonprofits in a Merger, Stephanie Strom, The New York Times, August 17, 2011
  25. ↑ Jumo and GOOD Combine Forces to Create Content and Social Engagement Platform, Chris Hughes, Jumo blog, August 17, 2011
  26. ↑ Michael Rondon, "Good Goes Back to Print",Folio, March 30, 2015.

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, February 02, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.