Verizon and Hearst Team Up To Buy Complex Media (techcrunch.com) 22
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Verizon Wireless and Hearst Corp. are set to jointly acquire Complex Media. The "video-first" lifestyle site, focused on pop-culture trends and general entertainment, will continue to operate independently, albeit with Verizon and Hearst now each owning 50 percent stakes in the company. Complex CEO and co-founder Rich Antoniello will continue to lead the company. The WSJ reports that the deal values Complex Media between $250 million and $300 million. "The decision to acquire Complex is certainly a continuation of our media strategy, which is focused on disruption that is occurring in digital media and content distribution, and involves building a portfolio of the emerging digital brands of the future for the millennial and Gen-Z audience," said Brian Angiolet, Verizon's senior vice president of consumer product and marketing.
BUZZWORD BINGO (Score:5, Funny)
That Verizon guy is a champion.
Complex is certainly a continuation of our media strategy, which is focused on disruption that is occurring in digital media and content distribution, and involves building a portfolio of the emerging digital brands of the future for the millennial and Gen-Z audience
Days like this I feel like the Amish are onto something
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The best business to be in would be selling whatever it is they're smoking.
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I think you just won the internet for today, just having the stamina to quote that.... scuse me while I go scrub my eyes out
Video is such an awful value proposition for consu (Score:2, Interesting)
For a given amount of content, video is easier to produce and insert interstitial advertising than text plus maybe graphics, but takes much longer for a person to digest or to retrieve bits of information from. If a web site wants to disengage me, the easiest way is to hide content behind a "play" button.
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Spot on. I typically don't "see" video content out there. Much more so when the video comes with some "player" which forces upon me its crippled version of uh... "user experience".
Weren' it for clive and youtube-dl I wouldn't watch any videos off the internet (except those providing a plain old link to a straight video file).
Want my eyeballs? Cater for them. You don't care? Nor do I.
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On top of the video on every story, they all autoplay, with no way to stop it. If I wanted something making my computer talk and show video, I would click on the links with the camera on them, but every story having an autoplay video? What are they thinking?
Part of VZW FreeBee ? (Score:2)
How timely - Last night I logged onto vzw to check on my account status and saw a link for "reduce your network usage via FreeBee" - a Verizon version of "Binge On"
Intrigued I poked around and noticed that Hearst media and AOL are the primary companies offering content (Just look for the Bee). But I couldn't figure out how it worked - was VZW inserting the "bee" into my web stream - was it an ad on the websites. It isn't offered if you are on Wifi for instance.
Then in the FAQ I saw this strange comment: