Playbuzz

Playbuzz

Screenshot of Playbuzz website
Web address www.playbuzz.com
Created by Shaul Olmert, CEO & Co-founder[1]
Tom Pachys, CTO & Co-founder[2]
Launched December 2013
Alexa rank
 462/1143 Increase Playbuzz (US/Global 02/2015)

Playbuzz is an online content publishing platform. Playbuzz users, digital publishers and brands generate content in formats generally associated with viral media, including lists, quizzes, polls, ranked lists, and trivia that can be shared via social media or embedded elsewhere on the web.[3] Founded in 2012, content generated from Playbuzz was the most shared on Facebook as of January 2015 with an estimated 10 million shares per month.[4][5]

History

Playbuzz was founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys. Olmert is the son of former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert[6] and has worked as an executive with Nickelodeon and also co-founded the social game app GameGround.[7] Pachys is a graduate of IDC and also the co-founder of Whimado. Playbuzz originally raised $3.8 million in seed funding with $3 million of that funding coming from Carmel Ventures.[8] It surpassed $19.8 million in total funding in March 2015 when it received an additional $16 million led by Saban Capital and existing investors that include Carmel Ventures and FirstTime Ventures.[9] Playbuzz was officially launched in December 2013.[9]

By June of 2014, Playbuzz broke the top 10 of Facebook's most shared publishers.[10] The website itself reached 70 million unique views the same month, half of which were referred from Facebook.[10] Within 10 months of the Playbuzz platform's launch, it surpassed 7.5 million monthly Facebook shares, making it the second most shared publisher on Facebook in September 2014.[8]

According to Forbes, seven of the 10 biggest stories on Facebook in September 2014 involved content that originated on Playbuzz.[9] The company took over the number one spot as the most shared publisher on Facebook in November 2014 with approximately 9 million shares. It was also listed by Inc. as one of the 15 Israeli Startups Getting Hot at the Turn of 2015.[11]

In March of 2016, Playbuzz announced that it had closed $15 million in new funding led by the Walt Disney Company and Saban Ventures.[12]

Content

Playbuzz relies on user generated content, employing only 16 people as of 2014.[10] Community members and publishers generate content in the form of lists, quizzes, and trivia that can then be shared via social media or embedded in other websites.[10] The website has ready-to-use formats for posts that have been used by publishers such as TheBlaze, The Huffington Post, MarthaStewart.com, AOL, and MTV to push content to social media.[10][3] 80% of the platform's content is generated by users and digital publishers who can embed content on their own sites and also share it through social media.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Hirschauge, Orr (8 July 2014). "PlayBuzz Takes a Page (View) Out of BuzzFeed's Playbook". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  2. ↑ Caro, Mark (2 May 2014). "Why are social media quizzes so popular?". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 18 February 2015.
  3. 1 2 Dewey, Caitlin (9 October 2014). "Meet Playbuzz, the Israeli clickbait farm that just beat Buzzfeed - and is coming for you next". The Washington Post. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  4. ↑ Shapiro, Ariel (22 January 2015). "Playful Playbuzz". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  5. ↑ "The Biggest Facebook Publishers of January 2015". NewsWhip. February 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  6. ↑ "Interviews: Shaul Olmert". PBS. 28 March 2006. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  7. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (17 November 2010). "GameGround raises $5.3M for gamer social networking app". Venture Beat (Games Beat). Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  8. 1 2 Kosoff, Maya (10 October 2014). "A BuzzFeed Clone Founded 10 Months Ago Is Crushing Other Websites On Facebook - Including BuzzFeed". The Business Insider. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  9. 1 2 3 O'Reilly, Lara (18 March 2015). "Playbuzz, the Israeli startup crushing all other publishers on Facebook, just raised $16 million". The Business Insider. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 Kosoff, Maya (11 July 2014). "A Son of Israel's Ex-Prime Minister Created a BuzzFeed Clone, And It's Already Become Gigantic on Facebook". The Business Insider. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  11. ↑ Newlands, Murray (16 December 2014). "15 Israeli Startups Getting Hot at the Turn of 2015". Shalom Life. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  12. ↑ Spangler, Todd. "Disney Invests in Viral-Content Startup Playbuzz as Part of $15 Million Round". Variety. Retrieved 2016-04-06.
  13. ↑ Patterson, Te-Erika (3 February 2015). "4 Slick Ways to Expand Your Digital Branding Strategy". Entrepreneur. Retrieved 16 February 2015.

External links

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