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CNN Shutters Casey Neistat's Video Company Beme, Which It Bought 14 Months Ago For $25 Million (theverge.com)
In late November 2016, CNN purchased YouTube star Casey Neistat's video-sharing app Beme for $25 million. The news network purchased the app in a bid to harness Neistat's (at the time) 6 million subscribers, with the hopes of turning the company into an independently operated daily online news show and a core part of CNN's offerings that would appeal to a younger demographic. Today, CNN has shut down Beme because Neistat was unable to figure out a viable strategy due to creative differences and sluggish process. He will be departing from CNN. The Verge reports: "I couldn't find answers. I would sort of disappear, and I would hide, and I would make YouTube videos for my channel because at least I would be able to yield something," Neistat told Buzzfeed News. "I don't think I'm giving CNN what I want to give them, and I don't think they're getting value from me." When CNN bought Beme, it said Neistat's company would focus on "timely and topical video and empowering content creators to use technology to find their voice." Beme currently employs 22 people, and CNN said it would re-employ most of the team, though some would lose their jobs. CNN plans to continue developing tech products developed by Beme, including an unreleased live-news app called Wire.
That fool is laughing all the way to the bank. I can't stand the guy but kudos for rolling CNN.
They gave him $25 million for nothing and he's -their- bitch?
I honestly can't say I'm surprised this is how it ended. In terms of content and audience CNN and Casey are so far apart I have a hard time understanding how anyone could think a synergy could be found. It probably was just some out of touch executive desperate to jumpstart an attempt at regaining the sub 30 market that broadcast news media has more or less completely lost.
Then again when you are CNN and part of a big corporation like Turner Broadcasting it's not exactly the end of the world if you end up throwing 25 million USD down the drain.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Casey who?
Is that the inventor of Netstat ? ... maybe that's why it failed.
We tend to use "ss" now
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I could have told them they weren't going to get anything good from him for half the price.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
without even an embrace or extend.
CNN saw Casey's 8.7 million youtube subscribers and thought buying him out was a sure way transfer a chunk of those eyeballs to CNN, provided he was the front-man for whatever media content they came up with. CNN was so sure of this strategy that they feared someone else would execute it first, which prompted them to not only buy Casey but also his entire Beme company, to bail it out of the hole it dug itself and its investors into from that failing first-person video app of theirs.
Proof again that making hasty decisions based on FOMO rather than common sense are usually wrong and very expensive mistakes.
Beme what?
>> (Large Media Company Buys Web Site For Too Much Money, Previous Owner Laughs To Bank, Then Site Shuts Down)
What, you thought it was going to end with the MySpace buyout? Or Tumblr?
CNN was already mixed up with the king of these mistakes though. You'd think after getting financially sodomized buying AOL they would have learned.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
to shut them down. Microsoft used to do it all the time. $25 million is a small price to pay to shut down upstart new media. Meanwhile Bernie Sanders had to go on youtube to get coverage for his Medicare For All townhall.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I could have told them that for the same price they'd have to pay to watch one of those youtube videos.
Probably cheaper cause it would be a very short assessment.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Is he part of the under-twenty....seven(?) age group? In my thirties I am feeling old, I have never heard of this guy. Whose eyeballs were CNN trying to buy? Americans age 17-28? English speaking europeans 25-40?
6 million viewers is a lot but at the same time is a tiny tiny fraction of total users and there's a better chance you've never heard of the guy...
moox. for a new generation.
Well, apart from those millions of dollars and a few jobs at... what was that again? Beme?
Have they tried changing the name to Blockchaineme? Maybe that would help.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
https://www.reddit.com/r/caseyneistat/comments/7swlm5/deleted_video/dt7ywnd/?context=2
Mark Cuban is a billionare because of a project Yahoo bought and shuttered.
How is AOL doing?
I read "CNN Shutters ..." and was instantly ecstatic! Then I read the remainder of the headline. Maybe next time.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
It's just like when Wayne Campbell sold out to television producer Benjamin Oliver. His show was never the same after that. Noah's Arcade sucks anyway.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
Nice work if you can get it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
Irony is strong with this one.