Zig Media is a mobile-media technology company based in Brooklyn, New York owned by Billboard-Hollywood Reporter. Called an "

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

of news" by The New York Times, the company's platform distills original and sourced content into images and video, then distributes it through mobile phone and desktop computer applications. Fast Company reported that Zig had 400,000 users as of June 2018 following investment from Graydon Carter, Ronald Meyer, Quincy Jones, and LiveNation.

History

In 2016, cofounders Joshua James and Adam Platzner approached '' Vanity Fair'' editor Graydon Carter to offer a modern, visual solution to changing magazine tastes and consumer news consumption. The ''New York Times'' reported that "at the time, Mr. Carter was mulling the state of news; he recalled an assistant pointing out to him that millennials ‘think in more visual terms, than in textual terms.’" With cofounder John Tornow, James and Platzner built an algorithm that captures personalized consumer data from social media preferences. The technology feeds news articles in the form of picture-heavy content back to each consumer according to their tastes. Zig’s iOS application launched in January 2018. Reported by ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...

'', first investors included

Graydon Carter Edward Graydon Carter, CM (born July 14, 1949) is a Canadian journalist who served as the editor of '' Vanity Fair'' from 1992 until 2017. He also co-founded, with Kurt Andersen and Tom Phillips, the satirical monthly magazine ''Spy'' in 1986. ...

, Ron Meyer, and Quincy Jones. In May 2018 '' NBC News'' reported additional funding of $1.6 million from Alan Docter,

Aviv Nevo Aviv "Vivi" Nevo ( he, אביב נבו; born 1965) is an Israeli-American venture capitalist. He is a major shareholder in Time Warner and other companies, having built his fortune up from an initial $10 million inheritance. Biography Nevo was born ...

, and LiveNation. In October 2018 The Hollywood Reporter wrote that Valence Media, part of

Eldridge Industries Eldridge Industries LLC is an American holding company headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, with offices in New York City, London, and Beverly Hills. Eldridge makes investments in various industries including insurance, asset management, techn ...

, invested in Zig. In 2019, The Hollywood Reporter-Billboard acquired Zig Media.

Technology

Users sign up for the Zig app or use Zig distribution channels to provide personalized media-consumption preferences to the platform’s algorithm. The platform returns media in a visual format based on the user’s personalized preferences and tailors each

news feed On the World Wide Web, a web feed (or news feed) is a data format used for providing users with frequently updated content. Content distributors ''syndicate'' a web feed, thereby allowing users to ''subscribe'' a channel to it by adding the feed ...

over time based on additional consumer data. The technology tracks stories that users skip and click to optimize the news feed for each user. In 2018, ''Fast Company'' compared Zig to Apple News and Flipboard with "more images and more personalization." CNBC explained that Zig "emphasizes photos over text" and reduces the time that consumers use to peruse the internet for news.

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://zig.com/ Companies based in Brooklyn Online mass media companies of the United States Mass media companies established in 2016 American companies established in 2016 Mass media companies based in New York City