Mode Media

Mode Media
Privately held
Industry Internet, Media, Fashion
Founded 2003
Founder Ernie Cicogna, Fernando Ruarte, Vic Zauderer, Dianna Mullins, Raj Narayan, Rebecca Bogle Arora, Susan Kare, Emmanuel Job, Samir Arora
Headquarters 2000 Sierra Point Parkway Brisbane, California, U.S.
Products Mode.com,Mode Video, Glam, Foodie, Brash, Bliss, Tend, Ning.com
Number of employees
 480 (2015)
Website Mode Media

Mode Media, Inc. (formerly Project Y, Glam Media) is the largest privately held digital lifestyle media company with more than 10,000[1] lifestyle creators reaching over 400 Million unique users a month.[2] Mode Media launched Mode.com—its new social consumer platform in April, 2015 to provide personalized content and video stories to users that are curated by professional editors. Mode Media has grown to over $100 Million in revenue, primarily from providing native content, branded video and digital advertising to large brands. [3]

Mode Media is #7 in the Top 100 Web properties as measured by comScore with 141 million visitors in the United States and 400 million unique visitors worldwide.[2][4][5][6]

History

Mode Media was founded as Project Y, Inc. in 2003 by former Apple veteran and NetObjects CEO Samir Arora together with a group of Silicon Valley veterans.[7] The company originally was founded as a media platform for all consumers & categories—with the vision that people will be the filters for content and products. For the first 18th months, the company focused on building a social discovery platform to connect people based on their interests and passions for things they love in silicon valley and bringing the top luxury brands on as advertisers in New York. In late 2004, the company decided to focus on women as their first demographic and style as their first vertical category by recreating the look and feel of printed fashion magazines. The company launched Glam.com in September 2005 at Fashion Week in New York.[8][9]

After the launch, Mode discovered that consumers were going to a large number of web sites and blogs instead of portals like Yahoo and AOL, and created the industry's first Blog Affiliates Network with 12 style bloggers. The growth of social media, discovery of content and the massive increase of the long-tail helped grow Mode Media from a small startup to a top media company. The company evolved its Blog sites model to a TV affiliates and Cable model by requiring the use of their technology platform, branding, editorial supervision, data-rights and premium marketing programs—separating itself from the portals and ad networks as a business model.

As the company grew, it diversified its focus from exclusively targeting a female audience. The company now owns and operates Mode.com across 20 lifestyle categories and Channels: Glam (Women Style, Fashion, Beauty), Brash (Men's Lifestyle), Bliss (Health & Wellness), Tend (Parenting), Foodie (Food Recipes and Restaurants) and Entertainment, Music and Video. Mode Media has built a proprietary ad platform Adapt for super premium brand advertising that is used by more than 6,000 sites worldwide.

In June, 2007, Mode Media became the #1 women's web property in the US as reported by comScore.[10] In September, 2007, Mode Media launched its first discovery product "Glam Curator" and started to popularize the term "curation" as a new way of filtering content in the social web. [11]

In September 2011, Mode acquired the Ning, a social media platform that allowed users to create custom social networks.[12][13]

In May, 2013, Mary Meeker's Internet Industry Trends listed Mode as one of the Top 10 Internet Properties by Global Monthly Reach—"Glam Is Huge! Bigger than Wikipedia or Apple. The only Internet properties with more US users are Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and Yahoo." [2]

In 2014, Glam Media was renamed to Mode Media.[14]

Mode Studios

In 2014, Mode Media launched Mode Studios, to create original video series, branded entertainment and digital films in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Mode has produced over 500 original videos with key YouTube stars and vLoggers.[15]


In 2015, Mode Media launched Mode Video streaming platform [16]

Mode Studios "100 Years of Fashion" became the first hyper-viral video series in style online, reaching over 250 million views, with its first episode "100 years of Women's Fashion" reaching over 175 million views in 4 months, making it the most watched style video ever. [17]

Mode.com is one of the fastest platforms to reach 25 million users a month, with 20 million video viewers on its platform, and has streamed over 1 billion video views in 6 months from launch. [18] Unlike most MCN's like Maker Studios, FullScreen and new content companies like Buzzfeed, Mode is unusual as it has built the technology and streaming platform and has video creators and Mode Studios for original content, making it a rising alternative to YouTube and Facebook video.


Financials

Initial financing was provided by founder Samir Arora's Information Capital LLC. [19]

In total, the company has raised approximately $186 million from silicon valley venture firms Accel, DFJ, Walden, Information Capital and strategic investors Burda and Dentsu. Mode Media has grown from the launch of Glam.com in 2005 to $100 Million in revenue. Mode provides native content, branded video and premium advertising to large brands. [20]

References

  1. ↑ Media, Glam. "Content Creators". Creators. San Francisco: Glam Media. Retrieved November 2012.
  2. 1 2 3 "Internet Industry Trends". Mary Meeker. The Atlantic. Retrieved May 2013.
  3. ↑ "Mode Media Raises Another $30M".
  4. ↑ Saul Hansell (September 20, 2007). "Why Portals Are So Over at AOL". The New York Times. Retrieved October 17, 2007.
  5. ↑ Jeff Jarvis. "Glam: The success of the network". Retrieved November 18, 2007.
  6. ↑ Jeff Jarvis. "DLD: The network model". Retrieved February 19, 2008.
  7. ↑ "Glam Media. About Glam. Our Story. Management.". Glam Media. Glam Media. Retrieved January 26, 2009.
  8. ↑ Miller, Claire Cain (September 17, 2007). "Pretty in Pink". Forbes.com (Forbes.com LLC). Retrieved November 2, 2007.
  9. ↑ "Glam Media. About Glam. Our Story.". Glam Media. Glam Media. Retrieved October 24, 2007.
  10. ↑ Marshall, Matt. "Glam surges to No. 1 women's property, overtakes iVillage". VentureBeat. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  11. ↑ Marshall, Matt. "Glam, the Web's fastest growing network, unveils Digg-like feature". Venturebeat. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  12. ↑ http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159013
  13. ↑ Parr, Ben. "Glam Media Acquires Ning". Mashable. Retrieved 2 May 2014.
  14. ↑ Castillo, Michelle. "Glam Media Rebrands as Mode Media and Takes On Netflix". AdWeek. Retrieved 2014-07-14.
  15. ↑ "Mode Launches Comprehensive Video Service".
  16. ↑ "Mode Launches Video Streaming".
  17. ↑ "Most Watched fashion video online".
  18. ↑ "Mode Media crosses a billion video views in charge to be FB and YouTube alternative".
  19. ↑ Ali, Rafat (February 2, 2010). "Glam Raises $50 Million Mezzanine Round at $750 Million Valuation". paidContent. paidContent. Retrieved February 2, 2010.
  20. ↑ "Mode Media Raises Another $30M".

External links

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