PUBLISHERS
Female-oriented digital media company Refinery29 recently laid of 34 staffers 7.5% of its total workforce. The news was first reported by Business Insider. “As dozens of content companies have been funded over the past 48 months, we’re seeing a correction in the digital media space,” wrote co-CEOs Justin Stefano and Philippe von Borries in an internal company memo. Refinery29 isn’t the first high-profile publisher to undergo mass layoffs in the past couple months; BuzzFeed sacked 7 percent of its workforce last month, and Mashable laid off a whopping 30% of workers shortly after its recent sale to Ziff Davis.
SHORT FORM VIDEO
Dear Basketball, a five-minute animated short focused on Kobe Bryant’s retirement from the NBA, is now available on Verizon’s Go90 mobile video service. The film is available on several other Verizon properties as well, including AOL, Yahoo Sports, and Complex. Dear Basketball was produced in partnership between Believe Entertainment Group and Granity Studios. Bryant himself also served as an executive producer. The film was short-listed for the Best Animated Short Film Oscar earlier this month.
APPS + PLATFORMS
The founders of HQ, the surprisingly popular trivia app that debuted earlier this year, appear to be facing some major fundraising hurdles – and they may have themselves to blame. Recode reports that at least three high-profile investors have bowed out of the company’s current funding round. According to Recode’s sources, the investors were concerned that HQ founder Colin Kroll has been developing a reputation for poor management skills – and for treating women inappropriately. HQ had reportedly been hoping to secure a valuation as high as $100 million; that may be a very tough hill to climb.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook doesn’t want you to unfriend people, but it also doesn’t mind if you ignore them for a while. The social giant just introduced “Snooze,” a new feature that let’s you mute friends, groups, or pages for a period of 30 days. During that time period, no posts from the muted people or pages in will appear in a user’s News Feed. Users will get a notification shortly before the muting expires, along with an option to re-up for an additional 30 days. And you don’t have to worry about being found out: Friends and pages won’t be notified that they’ve been muted.
In other Facebook news, the platform has begun clamping down on posts that specifically ask for “Likes,” shares or comments. Facebook is referring to such posting behavior as “engagement bait.” Starting yesterday, Facebook started pushing “engagement bait” down in users’ News Feeds. And starting a few weeks from now, Pages and publishers that engage in such behavior will start seeing the reach diminished for all of their posts. Yikes.
VIRTUAL + AUGMENTED REALITY
8i, a startup focused on holographic capture, is laying off more than 30 staffers – about half of its workers, all told. The company confirmed the layoffs to Variety. 8i, which was founded in 2014, uses its technology to capture 3D holograms of people and other items. Those holograms can then be used in virtual and augmented reality experiences. The company released its “Holo AR” app, which lets users record videos that include augmented reality holograms, in June. In explaining the layoffs, the company simply said that it’s “streamlining [its] business]” in an effort to remain “nimble.” To date, 8i has raised over $41 million in funding. That includes a $27 million round from earlier this year, which was lead by Time Warner.
MEASURING UP
SHAREABLEE SOCIAL TV RATINGS: Top U.S. Streaming Shows Overall by Engagement for the week of December 11-December 17, 2017
Program, Total Actions (000), Total Content, Actions per Post (000), Fans/Followers (000)
The Julius Influencer Ranking, from influencer marketing platform Julius, is based on an influencer’s Average Engagement (the daily sum of engagements over the past 60 days) on an individual social platform or overall social presence. Below, check out the Top 10 True Crime Influencers and the Top 10 TV Show Reviewers from October to November 2017.
The ListenFirst Television Interest (TVI) Rating (TM) is a standardized measurement of the most buzzed-about TV programs on linear TV and streaming services. A complement to ListenFirst’s other syndicated data products (such as the ListenFirst Digital Audience Rating – TV), the metrics included in the rating capture organic actions that are largely unaffected by paid media. Programs that surface on the TVI leaderboards are the most hashtagged on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, as well as most searched for on Wikipedia (used as a proxy for organic search volume).
All Series (12/11/17 – 12/17/17)
Streaming Series (12/11/17 – 12/17/17)
Source: ListenFirst. The TVI Rating aggregates metrics that measure organically generated activity by fans of the TV show. The metric includes total volume of official hashtag mentions on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Tumblr, along with Wikipedia page views (as a proxy for organic search volume) for a show as a percentage of the total volume of the same activities for all shows.
OpenSlate Engagement Data for the Science & Technology vertical, based on the engagement metric for the week ending December 17
EXECUTIVE MOVES
Erik Huggers is leaving Vevo. Huggers has served as President and CEO of the music video service since 2015. Alan Price, the company’s CFO, will serve as Interim CEO while the company undertakes a search for Huggers’ replacement. (Price will also continue to serve as CFO.) Vevo is jointly owned by Sony and Universal Music; Google and the Abu Dhabi Media Group also hold minority stakes.
TRIVIA
Who stars as protagonist Prairie Johnson in Netflix’s The OA? (Email trivia@cynopsis.com with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and state.)
Our Last Trivia Question: What’s the name of Spike Lee’s production company? Answer: 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. Kudos to Stephen Kelley-Story Distribution International Ltd./Dublin, Ireland, Lori Paterson-Spectrum Reach/NY, Susan Nessanbaum Goldberg-M and S Entertainment/CA, Tom Moore-Kalt Productions/CA, Christine Allen-McGee Media/NY, David Westberg-SAG-AFTRA Federal Credit Union/CA, and Cynthia Thomas-Viacom/NY
