Type of site | Contributor weblog |
---|---|
Available in | English |
Founded | February 2010 |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Owner | The Thought & Expression Co. |
Founder(s) | Chris Lavergne |
Key people | Chris Lavergne |
URL | thoughtcatalog |
Advertising | Yes |
Registration | No |
Launched | February 1, 2010 |
Current status | Active |
Thought Catalog is a website founded in 2010 by American entrepreneur and media strategist Chris Lavergne. [1] Owned by The Thought & Expression Company, the site attracts 6.6 million monthly unique visitors. [2]
The site's founder, Chris Lavergne, registered the domain name in 2008, and began working on the site while a marketing strategist at Warner Bros. Records. [3] Thought Catalog started publishing on February 1, 2010. [4] By 2012, Thought Catalog was attracting 2.5 million unique visitors per month, and began to attract many millennial readers, with nearly three-quarters of the site's audience falling into the 21- to 34-year-old demographic. [3]
The site is based on a semi-open model, employing staff and freelance writers while also taking submissions for publication. [3] [5] Thought Catalog receives between 100 and 500 pieces a day via the submission form. [6]
In July 2014 Thought Catalog was drawing more than 34 million unique visitors per month, with much of the traffic due to social sharing. [7]
Thought Catalog earns revenue from branded content and banner ads, with the Wall Street Journal featuring the site on its list of "Sponsored Content That Buzzed In 2014." [8] [9]
Thought Catalog’s founder, Chris Lavergne, was named to Forbes "30 Under 30" list in 2014. [10]
Thought Catalog launched Thought Catalog Books with four original e-books priced from $2.99 to $4.99. [11] As of June 2015, the imprint accepts manuscripts from their active contributors and from unaffiliated authors, some with agents, some without. [12] They publish both eBooks and print books. In September 2014, Thought Catalog Books and UTA sold the rights to The Tracking of a Russian Spy, by Mitch Swenson, to StudioCanal. [13] The imprint published Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel’s book Creatocracy in early 2015. [14] [15]
Thought Catalog’s content, which includes listicles, essays, and think pieces, has been noted for its "millennial" voice. [2] [16] Many well-known authors have contributed to the site including Simon Critchley, Elizabeth Wurtzel, Tao Lin, Nick Mullen, Robert Greene, James Altucher, Mélanie Berliet, Gavin McInnes and Tim Ferriss, in addition to previously unpublished essayists. [6] [17] [18] [19] [20] These entailed co-publisher Brandon Scott Gorrell, conversational columnist Chelsea Fagan, technology and gaming writer Josh Liburdi, and Avery Hopwood Award-Winning Poet Jennifer Sussex.
Early on, the site was known for publishing alternative literature, with Tao Lin as a regular contributor. [16] Later, it became associated with a personal, confessional style. [21] The ambiance between Fagan and Lin was particularly entertaining for fans, while Gorrell composed a majority of the more serious, lengthier essays.
It reflected initial debates on protests against educational funding with the tragic and unfortunate result that higher-education used students' lives as exploitative teaching moments without regard to their psychological well-being, aptitude for coursework, or access to legal defense. Many such writers who attempted to outline the subprime mortgage crisis and student debt bubble were blacklisted.
At the time, Lavergne and Lin drew accolade for hosting a platform that featured all voices rather than the establishment. For emerging writers unaffiliated with Vice or self-publishing entities and those alienated from academic institutions, Thought Catalog was representative and reminiscent of zines like Up is Up and Down is Down and earlier New York pop scenes.
Disputes remain as to intellectual property regarding the only author allowed to publish a novel. The fortunate Thought Catalog alumni have sought employment in the technology sector or moved on to the world of publishing.
After heavy promotion by regular contributors and guest contributors, Thought Catalog reached mainstream millennial audiences. Despite the aspirations of Joycean prose and Dickensian length essays with writers forced to demonstrate craft to overcome institutional bias, the predominant style was indeed akin to confessional poetry. In a time when American millennials could self-publish on social media, the need for stratification into professional spheres arose.
Forbes is an American business magazine founded in 1917 and owned by the Hong Kong-based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairperson and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes, and its CEO is Mike Federle.
Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel was an American writer, journalist, and lawyer known for the confessional memoir Prozac Nation, which she published at the age of 27. Her work often focused on chronicling her personal struggles with depression, addiction, career, and relationships. Wurtzel's work drove a boom in confessional writing and the personal memoir genre during the 1990s, and she was viewed as a voice of Generation X. In later life, Wurtzel worked briefly as an attorney before her death from breast cancer.
Mental Floss is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalfloss.com, which presents facts, puzzles, and trivia with a humorous tone, draws 20.5 million unique users a month. Its YouTube channel produces three weekly series and has 1.3 million subscribers. In October 2015, Mental Floss teamed with the National Geographic Channel for its first televised special, Brain Surgery Live with mental_floss, the first brain surgery ever broadcast live.
The Mays Literary Anthology is an annual anthology of new writing by students from the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.
Yahoo! Voices, formerly Associated Content (AC), was a division of Yahoo! that focused on online publishing. Yahoo! Voices distributed a large variety of writing through its website and content partners, including Yahoo! News. In early December 2011, its owners Yahoo! announced a major shakeup involving the introduction of a new service, Yahoo! Voices, which would replace the Associated Content site and take on the bulk of its content, while some 75,000 items would be retired under the new site's more stringent content submission rules. On July 2, 2014, Yahoo! announced that it would be shutting down Yahoo! Voices on July 31, 2014 and the Yahoo! Contributor Network at the end of August 2014.
Complex Networks is an American media and entertainment company for youth culture, based in New York City. It was founded as a bi-monthly magazine, Complex, by fashion designer Marc (Ecko) Milecofsky. Complex Networks reports on popular and emerging trends in style, sneakers, food, music, sports and pop culture. Complex Networks reached over 90 million unique users per month in 2013 across its owned and operated and partner sites, socials and YouTube channels. The print magazine ceased publication with the December 2016/January 2017 issue. Complex currently has 6.02 million subscribers and 1.8 billion total views on YouTube. As of 2019, the company's yearly revenue was estimated to be US$200 million, 15% of which came from commerce.
James Altucher is an American hedge-fund manager, author, podcaster and entrepreneur who has founded or cofounded over 20 companies. He has published 20 books and is a contributor to publications including The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, and The Huffington Post.
Bleacher Report is a website that focuses on sport and sports culture. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, with offices in New York City and London.
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.
The Daily Dot is a digital media company covering the culture of the Internet and the World Wide Web. Founded by Nicholas White in 2011, The Daily Dot is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
Spanfeller Media Group (SMG), a subsidiary of publishing company Tribune Publishing, is a digital media company based in New York City. It was founded in 2010 by Jim Spanfeller, after leading the digital strategy at Forbes.com. Spanfeller Media Group operates two media sites as subject-specific digital destinations, The Daily Meal, dedicated to food and drink, and The Active Times, centered on outdoor sports and an active lifestyle.
Mic is an American internet and media company based in New York City that caters to millennials.
Moviepilot was a fan-centric online magazine covering the film industry. Its content was written predominantly by an in-house team of staff writers, with additional articles from contributors known as Creators.
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".
Rare is an American news and opinion website based in Washington, D.C. Rare was launched as a startup in 2013 by a team of journalists, marketers and business executives at Atlanta-based Cox Media Group. Rare's slogan is, “America's News Feed", describing itself as a "news, political, and lifestyle social content hub".
Chris Lavergne is an American media strategist and entrepreneur who founded the website Thought Catalog in 2010.
go90 was an American Internet television service and mobile app owned and operated by Verizon Communications. The service was positioned as a mobile-oriented "social entertainment platform" targeted primarily towards millennials, featuring a mixture of new and acquired content from various providers. The service was available exclusively within the United States.
JOE is a left wing distributed social media publisher aimed at young people in Ireland and the UK, with over 2 million unique visitors per month. It is owned by Greencastle Media Group, which is itself owned by David Sefton, John Quinlan and Paul O'Donohoe.
Blavity is an American Internet media company and website based in Los Angeles, created by and for black millennials. Their mission is to "economically and creatively support Black millennials across the African scape, so they can pursue the work they love, and change the world in the process."
Fatherly is a digital lifestyle brand that provides news, expert advice, product recommendations and other resources for parents. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in New York City.