go90 was an American
Internet television
Streaming television is the digital distribution of television content, such as TV shows, as streaming media delivered over the Internet. Streaming television stands in contrast to dedicated terrestrial television delivered by over-the-air a ...
service and
mobile app
A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...
owned and operated by
Verizon Communications
Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas i ...
. The service was positioned as a
mobile
Mobile may refer to:
Places
* Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city
* Mobile County, Alabama
* Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S.
* Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Mobile ( ...
-oriented "social entertainment platform" targeted primarily towards
millennial
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000 ...
s, featuring a mixture of new and acquired content from various providers. The service was available exclusively within the United States.
The service was plagued by an unsuccessful launch, credited to poor content discoverability and a lack of firm content strategy, resulting in managerial turnover (including a relaunch of the service by the staff of Verizon acquisition and former competitor,
Vessel). Including acquisitions that became the basis of the service (such as
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
's OnCue project, and later Vessel), it was estimated that Verizon had spent $1.2 billion on the service.
On July 31, 2018, after attempts to promote go90's content via Verizon's
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
and
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
properties (including blogging platform
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
), the service was shut down.
History
In January 2014, Verizon acquired the talent and assets of OnCue—a then-planned subscription streaming service in development by
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
—for around $200 million. In September 2015, Verizon unveiled a streaming service based on the assets, known as go90. It was described as being a mobile-first "social entertainment platform" targeting
millennial
Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the Western demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000 ...
demographics, featuring video content from various partners, as well as features such as the ability to join "crews" related to shows, and to create clips from its shows and share them on social networks. The name "go90" referred to the practice of rotating a
smartphone
A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
to
landscape orientation to watch videos, a 90-degree rotation. Verizon planned to leverage ad technology and content assets it acquired in its purchase of
AOL
AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017â ...
, and to release 50-55 new, short episode series.
Brian Angiolet, Verizon's senior vice president of consumer products, served as initial head of the service.
Chip Canter, formerly of
NBCUniversal
NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States.
NBCUniversal is primari ...
, was brought on as general manager in March 2016, and hired Ivana Kirkbride, formerly of
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
, as chief content officer. Under Canter, the service's content strategy shifted to one focusing on a wider variety of content in genres that had been performing well, such as gaming, music, sci-fi, sports (including live events), and dramas targeting young women.
The service also planned to take a more granular approach to content acquisition, and lessen its aggressive focus on primarily targeting mobile platforms.
Under Angiolet's direction as Global Content Chief, Verizon made multiple investments and acquisitions in an effort to bolster go90.
In April 2016, Verizon acquired a 24.5% stake in
AwesomenessTV
Awesomeness (abbreviation of AwesomenessTV) is an American-based film and television studio as well as a multi-channel based multilingual television network owned by Paramount Digital Studios, a division of Paramount Global. Established in June ...
, a digital media studio and YouTube
MCN targeting youth and teenagers, for around $159 million (valuing AwesomenessTV at $650 million).
DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division ...
and
Hearst Corporation
Hearst Communications, Inc., often referred to simply as Hearst, is an American multinational mass media and business information conglomerate based in Hearst Tower in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.
Hearst owns newspapers, magazines, televis ...
also owned stakes in the company. Verizon invested $180 million over multiple years for AwesomenessTV to produce content for go90.
A joint venture with Hearst,
Verizon Hearst Media Partners
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 a ...
, also acquired
Complex Media
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 a ...
in a deal reportedly valuing the company at $250 to $300 million.
Failed launch, Vessel acquisition
Despite high expectations from Verizon, go90's first year of operations was unsuccessful; partners reported that their content was drawing a minuscule audience (with most content only receiving view counts within the thousands, although some, such as ''
The Runner'', were able to reach at least a million), and that even under Canter's leadership, the service lacked clear content and distribution strategies. ''
Digiday
''Digiday'' is an online trade magazine for online media founded in 2008 by Nick Friese. It is headquartered in New York City, with offices in London and Tokyo.
Description
''Digiday'' provides daily online news about advertising, publishing, an ...
'' reported via go90 employees that Verizon's executives "were so consumed early on with the idea of providing a large quantity of high-quality content, that they never showed any focus. There was no indication that Verizon actually knew the audience that they were trying to reach."
Insiders also noted that not enough internal metadata was provided to categorize go90's videos, which hampered search and discoverability. Verizon hired contractors to manually compose this information in a process only intended to take three months, however, the process took nearly a year to complete.
In May 2016, Verizon CEO
Lowell McAdam
Lowell Clayton McAdam (born May 28, 1954) is an American businessman. He is the former chairman and CEO of Verizon Communications, a company he joined in 2000.
Early life
McAdam earned a bachelor's degree in engineering from Cornell Universit ...
admitted that go90 may have been "a little bit overhyped," backpedaling on previous pronouncements and the implications of major business and media investments.
On October 26, 2016, Verizon acquired
Vessel, a streaming video startup led by former
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 ...
executives,
Jason Kilar
Jason Alan Kilar (; born April 26, 1971) is an American businessman. He was the CEO of WarnerMedia from May 2020 to April 2022. He was previously an Amazon executive, the founding CEO of the short-lived Vessel, and the CEO of Hulu.
Early life ...
and Richard Tom. The purchase was a
talent acquisition
Acqui-hiring or Acq-hiring (a portmanteau of "acquisition" and "hiring", also called talent acquisition) is a neologism which describes the process of acquiring a company primarily to recruit its employees, rather than to gain control of its prod ...
, resulting in Vessel being shut down at the end of the month, and its staff re-assigned to work on go90. Kilar departed from the company. On January 23, 2017, it was reported that Verizon had laid off 155 go90 employees from its San Jose office, which had been displaced by the acquired Vessel staff. Tom was appointed as chief technology officer of Verizon Digital Entertainment.
During Verizon's fourth-quarter earnings report the next day, it was revealed that average daily usage of the go90 app was "consistent sequentially at about 30 minutes per viewer." In early February, a Verizon spokesperson told ''FierceVideo'' that the service had seen organic growth over the past two months.
In late March 2017, go90 released a significant redesign of its mobile app, which was designed to help improve discovery and content recommendations and prioritize live content (such as sports) within the interface. The redesign also incorporated the "motion poster" concept for advertisement displays that originated from Vessel.
Chip Canter was replaced as general manager in April 2017 by Tom.
The following month, it was reported that go90's app had 2.1 million average monthly users.
Original content
go90 featured original series, such as ''Mr. Student Body President'', ''
My Dead Ex
''My Dead Ex'' is an American series which is produced by AwesomenessTV and airs on go90. The series premiered at South by Southwest in 2018 before being airing on Tumblr and go90 starting on March 20. It currently streams on Netflix.
Plot
Char ...
'', ''
The Runner'' (which was produced by
Ben Affleck
Benjamin GĂ©za Affleck (born August 15, 1972) is an American actor and filmmaker. His accolades include two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and a Volpi Cup.
Affleck began his career as a child when he starred in the PBS educationa ...
and
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige Damon (; born October 8, 1970) is an American actor, film producer, and screenwriter. Ranked among ''Forbes'' most bankable stars, the films in which he has appeared have collectively earned over $3.88 billion at the North Americ ...
), ''
T@gged'', ''
Tween Fest
''Tween Fest'' is an American comedy series produced by Funny or Die for the streaming service go90. The series, created by Nick Ciarelli and Brad Evans and directed by Scott Gairdner, follows a two-weekend outdoor festival for internet stars that ...
'', ''
Street Fighter: Resurrection'' and ''
Transformers: Prime Wars Trilogy''. Its original series were acquired from studios such as
CollegeHumor
CollegeHumor is an Internet comedy company based in Los Angeles. Aside from producing content for release on YouTube, it was also a former humor website owned by InterActiveCorp ( IAC) until January 2020, when IAC withdrew funding and the websi ...
,
Funny or Die
Funny or Die is a comedy video website and film/television production company owned by Henry R. Muñoz III that was founded by Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, Mark Kvamme, and Chris Henchy in 2007. The website contained exclusive material from a reg ...
,
Nerdist Industries
Nerdist Industries, LLC is part of the digital division of Legendary Entertainment. Nerdist Industries was founded as a sole podcast ( The Nerdist Podcast) created by Chris Hardwick but later spread to include a network of podcasts, a premium cont ...
,
Machinima
Machinima, originally machinema () is the use of real-time computer graphics engines to create a cinematic production. Most often, video games are used to generate the computer animation. The word "machinima" is a portmanteau of the words ''ma ...
,
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
, and
Rooster Teeth Productions
Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC is an American digital media company headquartered in Austin, Texas. Founded in 2003 by Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldaña, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman, Rooster Teeth is a subsidiary of Warne ...
, among others., as well as producers like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon,
LeBron James
LeBron Raymone James Sr. (; born December 30, 1984) is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "King James", he is widely considered one of the greatest pl ...
, and
Rob Gronkowski
Robert James Gronkowski (born May 14, 1989) is an American former football tight end who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons. Nicknamed "Gronk", Gronkowski played nine seasons for the New England Patriots, then played h ...
(who hosted and executive produced a ''
Shark Tank
''Shark Tank'' is an American business reality television series that premiered on August 9, 2009, on ABC.Hibberd, James (May 10, 201'Dancing,' 'Bachelor,' and a bigger 'Shark Tank' returning to ABCInsider TV. Retrieved June 24, 2012 The show i ...
''-like series entitled ''MVP'' for two seasons).
In 2017, go90 began a three-year deal with the
National Women's Soccer League
The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...
to stream all games not aired on television.
Reception
From the onset, Mari Silbey of ''
Light Reading
Light Reading Inc. is a telecommunications industry information company based in New York City. Its activities include publishing, data analysis, market research, and events management.
History
The company was founded in 2000 by Stephen Saunders ...
'' felt that much of go90's library consisted of content that could already be found elsewhere, and contested whether Verizon's planned original content for the service would be compelling enough. In addition, Silbey argued that go90's announced social networking features were not inherently innovative for a video service and that it was "hard to turn social media features into a driving force for popularity." Advertisers had been critical of the service, citing slower user adoption than expected. Warren Zenna of Havas Media felt that the app's user experience was inferior to that of
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...
.
Concerns were also displayed over Verizon's announced intent to
not have go90 content count towards its subscribers' data caps, noting the company's stance against
net neutrality
Network neutrality, often referred to as net neutrality, is the principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all Internet communications equally, offering users and online content providers consistent rates irrespective of co ...
.
The NWSL's streams on go90 faced sustained criticism from sportswriters: ''The Equalizer'' felt that the app was buggy and did not have the same wide device support as YouTube, while it was also argued that the relative obscurity of go90, and the inconsistent quality of the game streams, could harm the league's growth. After repeated technical issues, the league would live-stream several weeks of matches domestically on the NWSL website.
Demise
By 2017, as the service faltered, insiders suggested that Verizon had been aggressively overpaying on content deals in order to expedite the (describing the company as having made deals "guns blazing"), on the assumed basis that making large content investments would ensure growth.
Verizon subsequently acquired
Yahoo!
Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...
, and merged it with AOL into the subsidiary
Oath
Traditionally an oath (from Anglo-Saxon ', also called plight) is either a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who conscientiously object to making sacred oaths is to ...
. Its lead executive
Tim Armstrong
Timothy Ross Armstrong (born November 25, 1965) is an American musician, singer, songwriter and producer. Known for his distinctive voice, he is the singer/guitarist for the punk rock band Rancid and hip hop/punk rock supergroup Transplants. ...
stated in February 2018 that go90 had been placed within the Oath division, but would likely be wound-down in the future. Armstrong admitted that go90 was a "super ambitious project", but that it was difficult to build its brand, and that its content deals could be better leveraged by Oath's individual properties instead. In March 2018, Oath-owned blog platform
Tumblr
Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...
began to syndicate some of go90's original content internationally—which ''Digiday'' considered as being a pilot project for this strategy.
After the more aggressive promotion of its content across AOL and Yahoo properties, go90 had managed to increase its average monthly user count to 17 million. On June 29, 2018, Oath officially announced that go90 would be shuttered on July 31, 2018. The company stated that it would be evaluating the future of go90's original series and that it would "focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment for today's mobile consumers and tomorrow's
5G applications."
Estimates vary on the losses attributed to the failed service. ''Digiday'' cited two sources close to go90 who estimated total spending of $1.2 billion, including the Vessel and OnCue acquisitions.
In Verizon's filing for the third quarter of 2018, it cited $913 million in charges related to "product realignment" attributable to shutting down go90. In September 2018, Verizon laid off 50 employees in the Content Operations group managed by Brian Angiolet and eliminated the group. Ivana Kirkbride and Richard Tom were among the departing employees.
At least two of the initiatives launched by Verizon Hearst Media Partners–Seriously.TV and Rated Red–were shuttered in 2017 and 2018 respectively. In 2018, AwesomenessTV was sold to
Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to:
* Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate
* Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom
* Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...
for $50 million—a fraction of Verizon's $650 million valuation. ''Digiday'' reported that the company had depended strongly on content investments by Verizon for around 40% of its revenue, and that there had been animosity within the venture due to its majority partner
DreamWorks Animation
DreamWorks Animation LLC (DWA, also known as DreamWorks Animation Studios and simply known as DreamWorks) is an American animation studio that produces animated films and television programs and is a subsidiary of Universal Pictures, a division ...
being acquired by a subsidiary of
Comcast
Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...
—a direct competitor to Verizon. Comcast also did not believe that AwesomenessTV aligned well with its other digital media investments, such as
BuzzFeed
BuzzFeed, Inc. is an American Internet media, news and entertainment company with a focus on digital media. Based in New York City, BuzzFeed was founded in 2006 by Jonah Peretti and John S. Johnson III to focus on tracking viral content. Ken ...
and
Vox Media
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'' (a sports blog network founded in 2005 by ...
.
In June 2021 as part of its upcoming
IPO
An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...
, BuzzFeed announced that it would acquire Complex Media from Verizon Hearst Media Partners.
See also
*
Quibi
Quibi ( ) was a short-lived American short-form streaming platform that generated content for viewing on mobile devices. It was founded in Los Angeles in August 2018 as NewTV by Jeffrey Katzenberg and was led by Meg Whitman, its CEO. The servic ...
References
{{Verizon Media
Discontinued Yahoo! services
Internet properties established in 2015
Internet properties disestablished in 2018
Defunct video on demand services
Streaming television
2015 establishments in New York City
2018 disestablishments in New York (state)
Former video hosting services