NowThis News

NowThis
Industry Online News and Media
Founded September 2012 (2012-09)
Founder Kenneth Lerer
Eric Hippeau
Brian Bedol
Fred Harman
Headquarters New York City, New York, U.S.
Parent Group Nine Media
Website nowthisnews.com

NowThis News is a left-leaning digital news company that primarily distributes its content to mobile devices and social platforms.[1] It was founded by Huffington Post co-founder and former chairman Kenneth Lerer and former Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau. Bedrocket founder Brian Bedol, Oak Investment Partners Managing Partner Fred Harman and Nikhil Kalghatgi are investors and board members.[2] Co-Founder Hippeau said, "The idea came as Ken and I were tossing around thoughts in mobile news. It was evident that there was no video news, breaking news, that was created in video format just for mobile devices".[3][4]

On December 8, 2015, NowThis News raised $16.2m in Series D funding led by Axel Springer. By this time, the company has said that 68% of its audience were millennials between the ages of 18–34. It was announced that this funding would be used to launch more focused channels.[5]

On March 17, 2017, NowThis News took over the YouTube channel Seeker Daily (previously known as TestTube) as a campaign to launch the network on YouTube.[6] As of April 1, the channel has stopped posting videos to the channel with no official statement as to why, however the channel did receive a highly critical response from subscribers following the announcement to take over the channel.

On May 4, 2017, NowThis News relaunched the YouTube channel SourceFed Nerd as NowThis Nerd,[7] having acquired and subsequently terminated it previously. The relaunch received a highly critical reception from fans of the previous channel, and the company was widely condemned by fans for claiming the channel would stay the same despite their dismissal of the entire existing staff. The channel lost over 20,000 subscribers within the first five hours of the rebrand's announcement video.

On July 3, 2017 NowThisNerd released a video confirming that they are reverting the channel back to SourceFedNerd and deleting the content they had made since the change, SourceFed Nerd will now live as an archive of the original content and NowThisNerd has become its own separate channel.[8]

Leadership

The NowThis News executive team includes Steven Belser, former Head of Production of VICE Media as VP Production + Creative; Athan Stephanopoulos, Founder and CEO Cliptamatic, as SVP of Partnerships; Ashish Patel, former Head of Social Media at VICE Media, as VP of Social Media; Yosef Johnson, former Account Executive at Wieden + Kennedy, as VP NowThis Studios and Sarah Frank, former Head of Video at New York Magazine, as Executive Producer.[9]

Advisory board members have included Stephen Colvin, former CEO of The Newsweek Daily Beast Company and Judy McGrath, former Chairman and CEO of MTV Networks.

The company has around 130 employees based in New York.

Awards

In March 2013, Digital Trends listed NowThis News as one of the best apps of the week.[10] This award was for the company's Android app, launched that same year.[10] In 2013, Business Insider ranked NowThis News as a start up to watch in New York City.[11] NowThis News is a Webby Award nominee.[12] NowThis News was the winner in the Breaking News category at the first ever Vine Awards held in New York City on October 2, 2013.[13]

References

  1. ↑ "MSN appoints NowThis News as video content partner". Indian Television. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  2. ↑ Jessi Hempel (December 5, 2012). "Will news bites for digital natives work?". Tech Fortune. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  3. ↑ Sheila Shayon (September 11, 2012). "NowThis News: Not Your Father's CNN or Mother's Huffington Post". Brand Channel. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  4. ↑ Josh Sternberg (November 9, 2012). "Can NowThis News Crack Mobile Video?". Digiday. Retrieved 3 April 2013. The title, "Now This," is a construction popularized by late twentieth century broadcast news articles, as observed by Media Critic Neil Postman in his 1985 book, "Amusing Ourselves To Death."
  5. ↑ Ha, Anthony. "Video News Startup NowThis Raises $16.2M Led By Axel Springer". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2015-12-08.
  6. ↑ NowThis (2017-03-17), Seeker Daily Is Becoming NowThis, retrieved 2017-04-09
  7. ↑ "Welcome to NowThis Nerd". youtube.com. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  8. ↑ "Sourcefednerd's Real-Time Subscriber Count – Social Blade YouTube Stats | YouTube Statistics". socialblade.com. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
  9. ↑ "Sarah Frank". NY Mag. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  10. 1 2 AJ Dellinger (March 17, 2013). "Best apps of the week: Tumblr, NowThis News, Ridiculous Fishing and more". Digital Trends. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  11. ↑ Megan Rose Dickey (February 20, 2013). "New York's Next Big Startups". Business Insider. Retrieved 3 April 2013.
  12. ↑ http://winners.webbyawards.com/2013/mobile-apps/handheld-devices/news
  13. ↑ Lauren Crabbe (October 11, 2013). "Vine Journalism Awards showcases the best examples of 6-second news".
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.