Playbuzz

Playbuzz

Screenshot of Playbuzz website
Created by Shaul Olmert, CEO & Co-founder[1]
Tom Pachys, CPO & Co-founder[2]
Website www.playbuzz.com
Alexa rank 1,371 / 2,361 Increase Playbuzz (US/Global 05/2016)
Launched December 2013

Playbuzz is an online publishing platform for publishers, brand agencies and individual content creators to create content in interactive formats such as polls, quizzes, lists, video snippets, slideshows, and countdowns. Playbuzz generated content is generally associated with viral media, that can be shared via social media or embedded elsewhere on the web.[3] Founded in 2012, content generated from Playbuzz was the most shared on Facebook as of January 2015 with an estimated 10 million shares per month.[4][5]

History

Playbuzz was founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys. Olmert is the son of former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert[6] and has worked as an executive with Nickelodeon and also co-founded the social game app GameGround.[7] Pachys is a graduate of IDC and also the co-founder of Whimado.

Playbuzz was founded as PlayChanger in July 2012. PlayChanger worked with game developers and publishers to distribute crowd-sourced content games within verticals such as sports, music and fashion. Playbuzz was officially launched in December 2013 as a modified version of PlayChanger.[8]

By June 2014, Playbuzz broke the top 10 of Facebook's most shared publishers.[9] The website itself reached 70 million unique views the same month, half of which were referred from Facebook.[9] Within 10 months of the Playbuzz platform's launch, it surpassed 7.5 million monthly Facebook shares, making it the second most shared publisher on Facebook in September 2014.[10]

According to Forbes, seven of the 10 biggest stories on Facebook in September 2014 involved content that originated on Playbuzz.[11] The company took over the number one spot as the most shared publisher on Facebook in November 2014 with approximately 9 million shares, holding the spot through January 2015 with an estimated 10 million shares.[12] Playbuzz was listed by Inc. as one of the 15 Israeli Startups Getting Hot at the Turn of 2015[13] and also voted one of Europe's Hottest Startups the same year by Wired.[14]

Funding

Playbuzz originally raised $3 million in Series A funding from Carmel Ventures.[10] It surpassed $19 million in total funding in March 2015 when it received an additional $16 million led by Saban Capital and existing investors that include Carmel Ventures and FirstTime Ventures.[11]

In March 2016, Playbuzz announced that it had closed $15 million in new funding led by the Walt Disney Company and Saban Ventures, including participation from initial investors, bringing the company's total funding to $31 million.[15][16]

Content

Content is generated by individual content creators as well as brands, publishers and agencies.[9] Playbuzz formats are free to use for editorial purposes, with a cost associated for branded or sponsored content campaigns.[17] The website has ready-to-use formats for posts that have been used by publishers such as TheBlaze, The Huffington Post, MarthaStewart.com, AOL, and MTV to push content to social media.[9][3] The company launched its first video format in 2016.[18]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hirschauge, Orr (8 July 2014). "PlayBuzz Takes a Page (View) Out of BuzzFeed's Playbook". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  2. ↑ Caro, Mark (2 May 2014). "Why are social media quizzes so popular?". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
  3. 1 2 Dewey, Caitlin (9 October 2014). "Meet Playbuzz, the Israeli clickbait farm that just beat Buzzfeed - and is coming for you next". The Washington Post. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  4. ↑ Shapiro, Ariel (22 January 2015). "Playful Playbuzz". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  5. ↑ "The Biggest Facebook Publishers of January 2015". NewsWhip. February 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  6. ↑ "Interviews: Shaul Olmert". PBS. 28 March 2006. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  7. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (17 November 2010). "GameGround raises $5.3M for gamer social networking app". Venture Beat (Games Beat). Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  8. ↑ Nicholson, David (14 October 2014). "What Kind of Quiz Are You? 5 Ways That Playbuzz Out-Muscled BuzzFeed In The Social Content Sensation Of The Year". Forbes. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Kosoff, Maya (11 July 2014). "A Son of Israel's Ex-Prime Minister Created a BuzzFeed Clone, And It's Already Become Gigantic on Facebook". The Business Insider. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  10. 1 2 Kosoff, Maya (10 October 2014). "A BuzzFeed Clone Founded 10 Months Ago Is Crushing Other Websites On Facebook - Including BuzzFeed". The Business Insider. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  11. 1 2 O'Reilly, Lara (18 March 2015). "Playbuzz, the Israeli startup crushing all other publishers on Facebook, just raised $16 million". The Business Insider. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  12. ↑ "The Biggest Facebook Publishers of January 2015". News Whip. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  13. ↑ Newlands, Murray (16 December 2014). "15 Israeli Startups Getting Hot at the Turn of 2015". Shalom Life. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  14. ↑ "Europe's hottest startups 2015". Wired. 5 August 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  15. ↑ Spangler, Todd. "Disney Invests in Viral-Content Startup Playbuzz as Part of $15 Million Round". Variety. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
  16. ↑ Gallivan, Rory (31 March 2016). "Disney, Saban Invest in Content-Platform Maker Playbuzz". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  17. ↑ Frederick, Ben (1 April 2016). "Playbuzz Raises $15M To Grow Sponsored Content Business". Media Post. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  18. ↑ Ha, Anthony (8 March 2016). "Playbuzz makes it easier to skip the boring parts with Video Snaps". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
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