Архив метки: Amanda Silberling

Pornhub owner MindGeek sold to private equity firm

MindGeek — owner of several adult entertainment sites, including Pornhub, Brazzers and Redtube — was acquired by a Canadian private equity firm, Ethical Capital Partners (ECP).
ECP, which was formed last year, did not disclose the terms of the deal.
“In MindGeek, we have identified a dynamic tech brand that is built upon a foundation of trust, safety and compliance, and with ECP’s resources and broad expertise spanning regulatory, law enforcement, public engagement and finance, we have a unique opportunity to strengthen what already exists,” said ECP founding partner Fady Mansour in a statement.
The acquisition follows a rocky few years for the porn giant. MindGeek’s CEO Feras Antoon and COO David Tassillo both departed from the company in June 2022. MindGeek also is currently in the midst of multiple lawsuits that allege it has knowingly profited off of child sexual abuse material (CSAM). As of December 2020, the platform removed all non-verified content and now requires anyone who appears in a user-uploaded video to verify their identity. Platforms like OnlyFans uphold similar policies as a way of cracking down on nonconsensual content.
In its announcement, ECP refers to MindGeek as “the internet leader in fighting illegal online content.” The private equity firm lists several policies in MindGeek’s trust and safety program, including its moderation practices, which require human moderators to manually review all uploads.
MindGeek, and the online porn industry at large, faces significant risk from U.S. legislation like SESTA/FOSTA. The legislation carves out an exception to Section 230 that holds online platforms liable for facilitating prostitution and trafficking, so credit card processors have become skittish about running afoul of the law. Now payment and credit card companies like PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and Discover no longer process payments on sites like Pornhub.

Instagram accidentally reinstated Pornhub’s banned account

Pornhub owner MindGeek sold to private equity firm by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
Pornhub owner MindGeek sold to private equity firm

Spotify considers rebranding Anchor to Spotify Creator Studio

According to a survey sent to creators in the Spotify for Podcasters program, the streaming giant might be doing away with the Anchor brand. Anchor, which Spotify acquired for $340 million in a deal that included the studio Gimlet, is a free podcast hosting service. In 2020, Anchor said that its service was used to create 1 million new podcasts, accounting for 80% of new shows uploaded to Spotify that year.
But now that Anchor has been part of Spotify for almost three years, the company appears to be considering a rebrand. In the survey, sent to some podcasters who have claimed their show on Spotify for Podcasters, Spotify’s user research team shared information about the possible rebrand, which is still being tested with potential users.
“Anchor and Spotify for Podcasters are now Spotify Creator Studio, the all-in-one platform for creators of all kinds (and sizes) to express themselves and find success on Spotify,” the sample announcement in the survey reads.
Image Credits: Spotify, screenshot by TechCrunch
Image Credits: Spotify, screenshot by TechCrunch
Currently, podcasters can join Spotify for Podcasters to access analytics about their show, even if they host with another service like Libsyn, Podbean or Buzzsprout. Those who host via Anchor have access to features like subscription monetization and video podcasts, but only listeners using Spotify are able to interact with that content.
If the proposed rebrand from the survey were to go through, Spotify for Podcasters would be rebranded to “Spotify Creator Studio – Unhosted.” Anchor would be rebranded to “Spotify Creator Studio – Hosted.” Both products would remain free.
Spotify’s survey of podcasters about this potential change indicates an interest in the rebrand, but that doesn’t mean it will come to fruition.
“At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of surveys and tests in an effort to improve our user experience. Some of these end up paving the path for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important learning. We have no news to share on future plans at this time,” a Spotify spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Over the last few years, Spotify has made a number of podcasting acquisitions like Anchor and Gimlet. These include Podz, a podcast discovery platform, and Megaphone, a podcast ads company. For four of its recent acquisitions — Findaway, Podsights, Chartable and Sonantic — the company paid about $295 million.

Spotify buys Gimlet and Anchor in podcast push, earmarks $500M for more deals

Spotify considers rebranding Anchor to Spotify Creator Studio by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
Spotify considers rebranding Anchor to Spotify Creator Studio

Why watch a movie when you can watch your corporate all-hands meeting?

Movie theater attendance is down, largely thanks to the pandemic, but chains like AMC still need to make money. If meme stocks aren’t a reliable business plan, why not find another use for a giant room with a huge screen and lots of seats?
In partnership with Zoom, AMC Theatres will launch a product called Zoom Rooms next year. Basically, you go to the movie theater to join a Zoom meeting with your company. Yes, you must commute to the movie theatre only to join a meeting with your colleagues across the country, who are also at an AMC movie theatre. If your company isn’t strapped for cash, you might even get some complimentary popcorn.
These theatres, which range between 75 and 150 seats, will be available to book for three-hour blocks.
“AMC has an abundance of attractive theatres at centrally located venues in city after city after city, each with ample seating capacity, especially so during daytime hours on weekdays when most meetings take place,” said AMC Theaters CEO Adam Aron. “Zoom Rooms at AMC broadens our scope, as we now can participate as well in the multi-billion [dollar] market for corporate and other meetings.”
While the idea of one person sitting alone at a movie theater on a Zoom call is funny, that’s not what’s going on here. This technology is supposed to connect groups of people in different locations — so, for example, a New York-based team might meet at one theatre to catch up with a Los Angeles-based team at another theatre. But it remains unclear how you can actually tell who’s talking if you have dozens of people crowded into a theatre. Movie theatre popcorn aside, it seems like a technical nightmare to figure out how to actually conduct a meeting this way… and perhaps working from home and mailing your employees some nonperishable popcorn bags is a simpler alternative.
“As hybrid work has become more commonplace throughout the United States, Zoom Rooms at AMC will enable companies and other entities with decentralized workforces and customer bases to bring people from different markets together at the same time for cohesive virtual and in-person events and meeting experiences,” a press release from AMC Theatres says.
It feels like someone put a handful of publicly traded companies into a hat, picked out two randomly, and challenged them to create some kind of new collaboration.
AMC floundered during the pandemic, since its core business was rendered moot by a once-in-a-lifetime catastrophe. But even as vaccines become more widespread, people aren’t returning to the movies like the company hoped. Even though AMC’s quarterly revenue increased, the company still reported a quarterly loss this week. Meanwhile, Zoom is trying to broaden its scope by adding features like email and calendar as its unprecedented growth slows down.

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GameStop, meme stocks, and the revenge of the retail trader

Why watch a movie when you can watch your corporate all-hands meeting? by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
Why watch a movie when you can watch your corporate all-hands meeting?

Twitter CMO is the latest to leave in a string of exec departures

Twitter CMO Leslie Berland is the latest executive leaving the social network, just days into its Elon Musk era, Bloomberg and the New York Times report. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg also writes that Jean-Philippe Maheu, the vice president of global client solutions, is leaving the company.
Berland hasn’t said anything publicly about the job change yet, other than tweeting out a simple blue heart emoji.

— Leslie Berland (@leslieberland) November 1, 2022

Despite the tweet’s brevity, it seems to have been signal enough to usher in a flood of responses, including other Twitter employees sending blue heart emojis right back. A VP of product quote tweeted Berland’s tweet and added that “it’s not hyperbolic to say that no one had a bigger impact on Twitter the service — and Twitter the company. She always had your back, she always listened, she always did right, and she made Twitter ‘what’s happening.’”
Berland’s LinkedIn and Twitter bios haven’t been updated to reflect any job change. TechCrunch reached out to Berland prior to publishing for comment but did not immediately hear back.
Berland’s reported departure comes over a decade after they first joined the company — and continues a string of departures that were announced today, including chief consumer officer Sarah Personette and chief people and diversity officer Dalana Brand.
As my colleague Amanda Silberling noted, the cohort of Twitter’s pre-Musk executives still at the company is getting smaller and smaller. Jay Sullivan, Twitter’s head of product, deleted the bio on his Twitter account, which previously denoted his role at the company. The previous head of product, Kayvon Beykpour, was let go by former CEO Parag Agrawal in May. Agrawal himself, along with CFO Ned Segal, general counsel Sean Edgett and Head of Legal Policy, Trust and Safety Vijaya Gadde were let go on Thursday when Musk took over.
Current and former Twitter employees can reach out to Natasha Mascarenhas at natasha.m@techcrunch.com, or Signal, a secure messaging app, at (925) 271 0912.

Twitter CMO is the latest to leave in a string of exec departures by Natasha Mascarenhas originally published on TechCrunch
Twitter CMO is the latest to leave in a string of exec departures

Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion?

Whenever YouTube superstar MrBeast crops up in business or tech headlines, you’re guaranteed to find a slew of bewildered comments: Who is this guy, and why is a YouTuber such a big deal? Am I old if I don’t know who this is? Why is he younger than me, yet makes so much more money? Is this dude actually giving people free islands, or is he full of it?
If you don’t know who MrBeast is, that’s fine. That just means you probably aren’t on YouTube that often, or that you’ve never wondered what happens if you put 100 million Orbeez in your friend’s backyard. But let me ask you this: Have you heard of Cribl, Snapdocs, Sayo Bank or fabric? I haven’t either, those are just some names of companies worth more than $1 billion that I pulled off Crunchbase.
According to Axios‘ sources, MrBeast — the 24-year-old whose name is Jimmy Donaldson — is trying to raise $150 million for his business, valuing it at $1.5 billion. It might seem hard to imagine how a content creator’s business can be worth that much, but the North Carolina resident has built an impressive empire. With 109 million YouTube subscribers, MrBeast runs the fifth most subscribed channel on the platform, and he’s the top earner among U.S. YouTubers. Across his five other channels, he’s amassed another 82 million subscribers — and that’s not even counting his three Spanish language channels, which have about 33 million subscribers combined.
YouTube is one of the most profitable platforms for creators, because you can earn 55% of ad revenue as a member of YouTube’s partner program. But MrBeast has expanded his business beyond the realm of social media — he has leveraged his brand to open up MrBeast Burger, a ghost kitchen food chain, and a snack company called Feastables, which raised $5 million this year at a $50 million valuation from 776, Shrug Capital and Sugar Capital.
But MrBeast’s business model isn’t as straightforward as making videos and raking in ad revenue. His uploads, which center on extreme stunts and competitions for cash prizes, cost an obscene amount of money to make. Last year, his 25-minute “Real Life Squid Game” video required a whopping $3.5 million to produce, including more than $456,000 in prize money. For comparison, the nine-episode “Squid Game” series cost Netflix a total of $21.4 million, averaging out to about $2.4 million per hour-long installment.
A few weeks ago, MrBeast said that he spends $8 million per month on his businesses. Just last September, MrBeast told the creator-focused YouTube channel Colin and Samir that he spent $4 million every month. That’s a big jump.
Some companies reach unicorn status (a valuation above $1 billion) before even turning a profit. Yet Forbes estimates that MrBeast made $54 million in 2021, so he’s already proven to VCs that they can bet on him to return their investment.
“The videos get views even if I don’t upload, so if I really wanted to, I could just live off of the money that the views made,” MrBeast told Insider. But if the 24-year-old wants to grow even more quickly and turn a larger profit, then venture capital funding might actually make sense.
MrBeast has already taken funding on a smaller scale from companies like Jellysmack and Spotter. Jellysmack uses AI to maximize top creators’ cross-platform growth in exchange for a revenue cut; Spotter gives YouTubers large sums of upfront capital in exchange for revenue from their back catalog. But as one of the most successful content creators in the world, MrBeast can go even bigger with venture capital.
But is going bigger always better? MrBeast’s business model is like a snake eating its own tail — no one is making money like he is, but no one is spending it like him either. He described his margins as “razor-thin” in a conversation with Logan Paul, since he reinvests most of his profits back into his content. His viewers expect that each video will be more impressive than the last, and from the outside looking in, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before MrBeast can no longer up the ante (and for other creators, this has led to disaster). So, if MrBeast’s business really is a unicorn — I’d wager it is — then he has two choices. Will he use the cushion of $150 million to make his business more sustainable, so he doesn’t have to keep burying himself alive? Or will he keep pushing for more until nothing is left?

MrBeast explains YouTube’s algorithm

MrBeast’s ‘Real Life Squid Game’ and the price of viral stunts

Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion? by Amanda Silberling originally published on TechCrunch
Is MrBeast actually worth $1.5 billion?