Chris Richmond (born July 29, 1986) is an American businessperson and entrepreneur. He founded a television streaming site called ShareTV.com, co-founded an adtech platform called Proper Media and acquired popular websites such as

TV Tropes TV Tropes is a wiki website that collects and documents descriptions and examples of plot conventions and devices, which it refers to as tropes, within many creative works. Since its establishment in 2004, the site has shifted focus from coveri ...

Snopes ''Snopes'' , formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a Fact checking, fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been see ...

and

Salon.com ''Salon'' is an American politically progressive/ liberal news and opinion website created in 1995. It publishes articles on U.S. politics, culture, and current events. Content and coverage ''Salon'' covers a variety of topics, including re ...

Career

Richmond founded his first large website in 2007, called ShareTV.com. This became one of the first online distribution partners of

HULU Hulu () is an American subscription streaming service majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company, with Comcast's NBCUniversal holding a minority stake. It was launched on October 29, 2007 and it offers a library of films and television serie ...

and TheWB, and was one of first sites to stream the

Oscars The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

online. In 2014, Richmond, along with his business partner Drew Schoentrup, acquired

, a

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pu ...

geared toward fiction writers. To announce the purchase, Richmond and Schoentrup launched a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign to ask the members for their help in improving the project. The campaign raised more than $100,000 in donations. In 2015, Richmond co-founded an adtech platform called Proper Media. Its first official client was Snopes.com, the largest and oldest fact-checking website on the web. After a year, Proper Media purchased a significant stake in Snopes.com. There was a legal dispute regarding whether Proper Media purchased 50% or 40% of Snopes.com which started in 2017 and continued until 2022 when Richmond and Schoentrup bought out all other shareholders of Snopes. In 2018, Richmond helped with his 3rd acquisition by acquiring Spoutable.com under Proper Media. This acquisition added eight employees and nearly doubled the reach of Proper Media. In 2019, Richmond and his business partner completed the acquisition of Salon.com for $5 million from Salon Media Group (). In 2021, after 6 years of year over year growth with Richmond as CEO, Proper Media was sold to Sovrn Holdings. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. In 2022, Richmond took over as CEO of

after completing the transaction with Schoentrup to buy out the other shareholders.

Cybersquatting case

Richmond started out at ShareTV.org and was completely unable to obtain the commercial equivalent, ShareTV.com, from a

cybersquatter Cybersquatting (also known as domain squatting) is the practice of registering, trafficking in, or using an Internet domain name, with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill of a trademark belonging to someone else. The term is derived fr ...

. In 2013, Richmond won a lawsuit for ShareTV.com against the cybersquatter, despite the fact that they owned the domain seven years before ShareTV began its trademark.

Snopes.com lawsuit

As of 2017, Richmond was engaged in a lawsuit against Snopes over whether he and Drew Schoentrup own 50% or 40% of Snopes. As a result of this dispute, ad revenue was withheld from Snopes.com and its founder David Mikkelson launched a

GoFundMe GoFundMe is an American for-profit crowdfunding platform that allows people to raise money for events ranging from life events such as celebrations and graduations to challenging circumstances like accidents and illnesses. From 2010 to the b ...

campaign to keep Snopes.com running.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Richmond, Chris 21st-century American businesspeople Internet-based activism 1986 births Living people Businesspeople from Oakland, California