Say Media (formerly VideoEgg) is a technology and advertising firm. The company provides a publishing platform (Tempest) to professional publishers and sells advertising across that platform and extended network of sites. Say Media has offices in San Francisco, Portland, NY, London, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and Detroit and is
privately held
A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in the respective listed markets, but rather the company's stock is ...
.
History
Say Media was formed when VideoEgg (a video advertising company) bought Six Apart (a technology company that created Moveable Type and TypePad). VideoEgg was
founded in early 2005 when
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
graduates David Lerman, Matthew Sanchez and Kevin Sladek were making video software. At the time, the three were involved in a
social venture A Social Venture (also called a social enterprise) is undertaking by a firm or organization established by a social entrepreneur that seeks to provide systemic solutions to achieve a sustainable, social objective.
Background
Social ventures may b ...
that was matching non-profit organizations that needed
public service announcement
A public service announcement (PSA) is a message in the public interest disseminated by the media without charge to raise public awareness and change behavior. In the UK, they are generally called a public information film (PIF); in Hong Kong, ...
s with a nationwide network of filmmakers who would make videos with their digital cameras and desktop editing packages.
[About.com](_blank)
September 19, 2005.
The three soon encountered a lack of simple, foolproof tools for people to put videos on the web from the diverse range of devices, editors, encoders, and players, people owned. They began to create tools to manage web video.
As their business matured they began to focus on
monetization
Monetization ( also spelled monetisation) is, broadly speaking, the process of converting something into money. The term has a broad range of uses. In banking, the term refers to the process of converting or establishing something into legal tend ...
, they found an opportunity in
video advertising Video advertising encompasses online display advertisements that have video within them, but it is generally accepted that it refers to advertising that occurs before, during and/or after a video stream on the internet.
The advertising units use ...
in online video and online
social networking service
A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...
s. In May, 2008 the company officially discontinued video hosting services to focus entirely on its online advertising network.
In June 2008, VideoEgg and one of its partner websites,
hi5
hi5 is an American social networking service based in San Francisco, California. It is owned by The Meet Group.
Users can create a profile and provide personal information including interests, age, photos, and hometown. Users can also send f ...
, were sued in the United States by
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
recording labels and music publishers. The plaintiffs alleged that the services are liable for
copyright infringement
Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
due to videos uploaded by hi5 users through the VideoEgg application, and sought
injunction
An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in pa ...
s against the allegedly infringing activity.
VideoEgg acquired
Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd., sometimes abbreviated 6A, is a software company known for creating the Movable Type blogware, TypePad blog hosting service, and Vox (the blogging platform). The company also is the former owner of LiveJournal. Six Apart is hea ...
in 2010, and renamed itself Say Media. It sold
Movable Type
Movable type (US English; moveable type in British English) is the system and technology of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document (usually individual alphanumeric characters or punctuatio ...
and the Six Apart name to Infocom, a Japanese information technology company; Say Media retained
TypePad
Typepad is a blogging service owned by Endurance International Group, previously owned by SAY Media (from the merger of Six Apart Ltd and VideoEgg). Originally launched in October 2003, Typepad is based on Six Apart's Movable Type platform, and ...
. As a result of this transaction, the headquarters of Six Apart is now Tokyo, Japan.
Say Media acquired the websites
Dogster
Dogster is a bimonthly magazine and website for dog lovers. Its sister publication is Catster, a bimonthly magazine and website for cat lovers. Dogster magazine (formerly Dog Fancy) has been continuously published since 1970, celebrating 50 year ...
,
ReadWriteWeb
ReadWrite (originally ReadWriteWeb or RWW) is a Web technology blog launched in 2003. RW covers Web 2.0 and Web technology in general, and provides industry news, reviews, and analysis. Founded by Richard MacManus, Technorati ranked ReadWriteWe ...
POPcast Communications and
Remodelista
Remodelista is an interior design and lifestyle website operated by Remodelista LLC. It was founded in 2007 by the current editor-in-chief Julie Carlson along with Francesca Connolly, Janet Hall, and Sarah Lonsdale. The company is based in New Yor ...
over the past several years. It also launched
xoJane
''xoJane'' (also known as ''xoJane.com'') was an American online magazine from 2011-2016 geared toward women and founded by Jane Pratt and co-published by Say Media. Pratt was the founding editor of '' Sassy'' and ''Jane'' magazines.
In less t ...
, with editor Jane Pratt, xoVain, its beauty-centric counterpart, and
Gardenista
Gardenista is an outdoor spaces and garden design website operated by Remodelista LLC. It was founded in 2011 by Julie Carlson and Michelle Slatalla initially as a section of Remodelista, and then as a separate entity in 2012. The company is based ...
, a sister site of Remodelista. In 2013, the company decided to divest these assets to focus on their platform (Tempest) and advertising operations. Say Media subsequently sold Dogster & Catster, ReadWriteWeb, Remodelista and Gardenista, which as of early 2015 all operate independently or under new ownership.
Funding
Say Media is a privately owned company. As of 2010, VideoEgg had conducted four
rounds of funding, raising over $30 million. Investors include
First Round Capital
First Round is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies.
Founded by Josh Kopelman
Joshua Kopelman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist.
Kopelman is best k ...
,
WPP Group
WPP plc is a British multinational communications, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding company headquartered in London, England. It was the world's largest advertising company, as of 2019. WPP plc owns many compan ...
, August Capital, Focus Ventures and
Maveron
Maveron is an American venture capital firm that invests in consumer-only and early-stage companies, with offices in Seattle, Washington and San Francisco, California. The firm was co-founded by Dan Levitan and former Starbucks chief executive Ho ...
.
Products and services
The company currently builds, maintains and provides Tempest, a publishing platform, to professional publishers in exchange for managing their unsold inventory.
As of 10/2016, 50 sites including Maxim, Rachael Ray, Climbing, Bio, and Fashionista were using the platform.
Say's in-house design team (located in Portland, Oregon) creates display ad units and the custom
overlay
Overlay may refer to:
Computers
*Overlay network, a computer network which is built on top of another network
*Hardware overlay, one type of video overlay that uses memory dedicated to the application
*Another term for exec, replacing one process ...
using advertiser's creative assets.
[AdFrames]
In July 2008, VideoEgg announced several new capabilities to their ad network. These include offering advertisers increased ad features and functionalities, such as:
* Real-time
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...
feeds to continually update the ad experience
*
Zip code-specific messaging
* Rich multi-video ad experience to increase user interactivity
*
Merchandising
Merchandising is any practice which contributes to the sale of products to a retail consumer. At a retail in-store level, merchandising refers to displaying products that are for sale in a creative way that entices customers to purchase more i ...
multiple items in a single real-time ad experience
*
Viral capabilities to help spread the message through virtually any communication or social channel
VideoEgg Launches New Video Ad Units
July 9, 2008,
Publishers are able to integrate VideoEgg's AdPlatform. VideoEgg then serves the ads, which are designed to fit in any space and publishers receive payment every time a user engages with one of the VideoEgg ad units on the publisher's site.
Trademark
The company successfully filed a lawsuit for trademark infringement against an Israeli company (associated with the Komodia library) also calling itself Say Media. That company has since changed names.
References
{{Reflist, 2
Video hosting
Companies established in 2005