NewsTilt

Last updated

NewsTilt was a news website for independent professional journalists, founded by the company NewsLab. Founded in October 2009, it was funded by Y Combinator and launched on 13 April 2010; [1] it closed only two months later. [2]

The company was founded by computer scientists Paul Biggar and Nathan Chong. The site intended to build brands and audiences for individual journalists, who were vetted for acceptance to the site by an editorial team, including Jon Margolis. [1] Journalists writing on NewsTilt included John Graham-Cumming, Jack El-Hai, and Davar Ardalan. [3] In the launch press release, Biggar said that "The journalist is the brand, and their community tells them directly what to write, and whether they liked it." [4] The site was compared to True/Slant, which was bought by Forbes. [2] The site intended to take 20% of revenue. [5]

The site closed on 26 June 2010 after founder Paul Biggar decided to leave and Nathan Chong emailed journalists to say "I now believe that we should never have made promises about building your online brand or large amounts of traffic". [6] The remaining funds were returned to investors. [2] David Cohn, founder of Spot.us, noted that the site "put too much emphasis on their tech-wizardry and the idea that they would build tools for journalist and all of a sudden POOF—journalism would be solved." [2] [7] Biggar explained the failure of the site in a blog post in September 2010. [8] Among the problems with the site were a difficult relationship between the co-founders, [2] and Biggar both defended his PhD thesis and got married shortly after the launch. [9] Neither of the founders had experience in journalism, [2] and they did not appreciate journalists' need for editors. [10] The site also required logging in through Facebook, which was criticised for privacy reasons. [9] Biggar moved to Mozilla after the closure and later founded another company, CircleCI. [11]

Related Research Articles

<i>The Atlantic</i> Magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C.

The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.

<i>Slate</i> (magazine) U.S.-based online magazine

Slate is an online magazine that covers current affairs, politics, and culture in the United States. It was created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. In 2004, it was purchased by The Washington Post Company, and since 2008 has been managed by The Slate Group, an online publishing entity created by Graham Holdings. Slate is based in New York City, with an additional office in Washington, D.C.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Craig Newmark</span> American entrepreneur Craigslist founder

Craig Alexander Newmark is an American internet entrepreneur and philanthropist best known as the founder of the classifieds website Craigslist. Prior to founding Craigslist, he worked as a computer programmer for companies such as IBM, Bank of America, and Charles Schwab. Newmark served as chief executive officer of Craigslist from its founding until 2000. He founded Craig Newmark Philanthropies in 2015.

Tom's Hardware is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The site features coverage on CPUs, motherboards, RAM, PC cases, graphic cards, display technology, power supplies and displays, storage, smartphones, tablets, gaming, consoles, and computer peripherals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Bradley Carr</span>

Paul Bradley Carr is a British writer, journalist and commentator, based in San Francisco. He has also—as he wrote on his official website—"edited various publications and founded numerous businesses with varying degrees of abysmal failure."

The Sunlight Foundation was an American 501(c)(3) nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that advocated for open government. The organization was founded in April 2006 with the goal of increasing transparency and accountability in the United States Congress, the executive branch, and in state and local governments. The foundation's primary focus was the role of money in politics. The organization sought to increase campaign finance regulations and disclosure requirements. The Sunlight Foundation ceased operations in September 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Independent Institute</span> Liberal nonprofit news organization

The American Independent Institute is a nonprofit organization which funds liberal investigative journalism efforts. According to the organization, its aim is to support journalism which exposes "the nexus of conservative power in Washington." The current institute, started by David Brock in 2014, is a relaunch of the former state-based digital news-gathering network known as the American Independent News Network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sue Gardner</span> Canadian journalist & former executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation

Sue Gardner is a Canadian journalist, not-for-profit executive and business executive. She was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation from December 2007 until May 2014, and before that was the director of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's website and online news outlets.

The Awl was a website about "news, ideas and obscure Internet minutiae of the day" based in New York City. Its motto was "Be Less Stupid."

The Conversation is a network of not-for-profit media outlets publishing news stories and research reports online, with accompanying expert opinion and analysis. Articles are written by academics and researchers under a Creative Commons license, allowing reuse without modification. Copyright terms for images are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. Its model has been described as explanatory journalism. Except in "exceptional circumstances", it only publishes articles by "academics employed by, or otherwise formally connected to, accredited institutions, including universities and accredited research bodies".

The Verge is an American technology news website operated by Vox Media, publishing news, feature stories, guidebooks, product reviews, consumer electronics news, and podcasts.

Blottr was a citizen journalism news website based in the United Kingdom and started in August 2010 by entrepreneur Adam Baker. Originally featuring hyperlocal news in London, the site grew to cover a total of eight UK cities: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Leeds, Leicester and Manchester. In October 2011 Blottr expanded outside of the UK to Blottr France and Blottr Germany. Blottr peaked at more than 5000 contributors and more than 1.4 million unique visitors a month. Blottr was shut down in April 2014.

Vox Media, Inc. is an American mass media company based in Washington, D.C., and New York City. The company was established in November 2011 by Jim Bankoff and Trei Brundrett to encompass SB Nation and The Verge. Bankoff had been the CEO for SB Nation since 2009.

Quartz is an American English language news website. It is privately held, and is focused on international business news. Quartz was established in New York City in 2012. It has specific publications for Africa, Hong Kong, India, Japan, and the United Arab Emirates. They initially did not have a paywall, then did, then dropped it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Circa News</span>

Circa News, also known as Circa, was an American online newspaper and entertainment service. The site was founded in 2012 by Matt Galligan, Ben Huh and Arsenio Santos. The service had news stories and features consisting of individual bits of information.

Elite Daily is an American online news platform founded by David Arabov, Jonathon Francis, and Gerard Adams. The site describes its target audience as millennials. In addition to general news and trending topics, the site offers feature stories and listicles covering politics, social justice, sex and dating, women's issues, and sports. Its slogan is "The Voice of Generation Y".

Rob Fishman is an American entrepreneur and writer.

The Information, legally the Lessin Media Company, is an American technology industry-focused business publication headquartered in San Francisco. Founded in 2013 by journalist Jessica Lessin, the publication publishes content behind a paywall that allows subscribers access to the site and access to global networking events. Lessin has stated that she aims to "build the next Wall Street Journal over the next 50 years" with the publication.

The Markup is an American nonprofit news publication focused on the impact of technology on society. Founded in 2018 with the goal of advancing data-driven journalism, the publication launched in February 2020. Nabiha Syed is the current chief executive officer and Sisi Wei is the editor-in-chief.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Angwin</span> American investigative journalist

Julia Angwin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and entrepreneur. She was a co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Markup, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the impact of technology on society. She was a senior reporter at ProPublica from 2014 to April 2018 and staff reporter at the New York bureau of The Wall Street Journal from 2000 to 2013. Angwin is author of non-fiction books, Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America (2009) and Dragnet Nation (2014). She is a winner and two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in journalism.

References

  1. 1 2 Rao, Leena (12 April 2010). "YC's NewsTilt Aims To Help Journalists Create A Business Model For Content". TechCrunch. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Ingram, Mathew (19 September 2010). "Anatomy of a Failure: Lessons from the Death of NewsTilt". GigaOm. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  3. ↑ Mikus, Matthew (21 April 2010). "NewsTilt Offers New Approach to Online Journalism". Internetevolution.com. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  4. ↑ "NewsLabs Launchs [sic] NewsTilt". NewsLabs Press Release. 13 April 2010. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  5. ↑ Alvarez, Alex (13 April 2010). "Launching Today: NewsTilt, The LiveJournal For Serious Journalists". MediaBistro. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  6. ↑ Romenesko, Jim (29 June 2010). "NewsLabs folds just months after launch, regrets big promises to journalists". Poynter.org. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  7. ↑ Cohn, David (7 July 2010). "Five Lessons to Learn from NewsTilt". Digidave. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Biggar, Paul (16 September 2010). "Why we shut NewsTilt down". Paulbiggar.com. Retrieved 22 August 2013.
  9. 1 2 Cameron, Chris (21 September 2010). "7,000 Words on Failure: NewsTilt Co-Founder's Essay on What Went Wrong". Readwrite.com. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  10. ↑ Beckett, Lois (17 September 2010). "NewsTilt Was An Obvious Disaster From the Beginning". The Snitch. SF Weekly. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
  11. ↑ "100 Startup Founders: Paul Biggar". Geckoboard. 17 August 2012. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 9 September 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.