8 ms·
CNN Is Closing Down Beme, YouTube Star Casey Neistat’s Video Company
- hudo 9y agoNeistat is a great guy, but I just don't get what CNN expected, whats supposed to be ROI of 25m price paid!?
- sintaxi 9y agoI get the impression they bought the company expecting Neistat would allow them to tap into his vlogging audience to spread their political agenda so he would become something like a new-wave news anchor. I expect it went something like this... Them: "Hey Casey, you should vlog the womans march" Him: "Nah, I'm going to go surfing with my buddies". I bet this lead to a lot of frustration from both sides when Neistat didn't want to play along.
- joelrunyon 9y ago> “I couldn’t find answers. I would sort of disappear, and I would hide, and I would make YouTube videos for my channel because at least I would be able yield something,” Neistat said. “I don’t think I’m giving CNN what I want to give them, and I don’t think they’re getting value from me.” Sounds like things went poorly. Anyone know if this affected his earn-out (if there was one) or if they're just calling this whole thing a bust?
- miiiiiike 9y agoThe Nerdwriter episode on Casey Neistat's style was pretty interesting: https://youtube.com/watch?v=JbiJqTBCQuw https://youtube.com/watch?v=JbiJqTBCQuw
- fortythirteen 9y agoBeyond the Beme platform itself, I'm greatly troubled by this SV notion that you can crowdsource objectivity, as if we have ever received a rational analysis from a mob. Recent developments, like Facebook's decision to let its users determine what is and isn't factual (what is essentially Beme's advertised product), will lead to sanctioned groupthink.
- Robotbeat 9y agoNot only that, but because Facebook is an online platform, they'll be fighting not only typical online security threats, but mass bot/troll campaigns to influence the result.
- fortythirteen 9y agoI think there's a greater threat from using "bots" as an easy excuse to silence opinions the network's owners don't agree with. Taking a small subsection of a group and painting it as the majority is one of the oldest disinformation tactics.
- amelius 9y agoPerhaps you can identify individuals who are "usually right". And from there do the filtering.
- fortythirteen 9y ago"Usually right" by who's standard? You would require individual arbitrators to determine what's correct, and at that point, why do crowdsourcing?
- joelrunyon 9y agoDetails from the co-founder - https://medium.com/@mhkt/when-your-startup-stops-d275c15ff702 https://medium.com/@mhkt/when-your-startup-stops-d275c15ff70...
- joncrane 9y agoWasn't there a post in the past few weeks that lampooned the "founder's farewell message for a failed startup" and catalogued the typical elements of such a message? This one seems to fit that mold perfectly.
- joelrunyon 9y agohttps://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
- Nition 9y agoThat message on their office whiteboard in the photo there: > Look at this fucking cheetah. > He doesn't slow down, he doesn't get distracted. > If you slow down he will catch you and he will tear your FUCKING HEART OUT. > Work Harder > Work Faster US startup culture is weird, man. Who, in good conscience, says something like that to their employees?
- Raed667 9y agoThey seem to have disabled the video. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ob4hS6ymCJZOVA_F7KTvMcFJc5zFQY7Q/view?usp=drivesdk https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ob4hS6ymCJZOVA_F7KTvMcFJc5z...
- TimothyBJacobs 9y agoA mirror seems to be available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46RDiwfknu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46RDiwfknu4
- code4tee 9y agoCNN bought a brand and not a product. In fact the only “product” the company had (beme) was shut down at acquisition. Seems like they simply never managed to translate some smart enthusiastic people into a viable product. Sad, but seemed like a predictable outcome. Neistat is great, but never saw how his approach would succeed inside a large corporate operation or how he could monetize the “brand” beyond his very successful YouTube following.
- sintaxi 9y agoI tend to agree and I always got the impression that Casey was far more motivated by his vlogging than running beme.
- legohead 9y agoBeme was dumb to begin with. Took a powerhouse of a personality to get it anywhere. Hard truth :\
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Talyen42 9y agoClassic case of a superstar at X (video, editing) trying a new sport Y (startup management), and failing spectacularly. Casey Neistat is a talented daily lifestyle vlogger, and apparently not a talented venture startup video platform CEO.
- blocked_again 9y agohmm. He did sold the company for millions of dollars to CNN. Should have made more money than most "venture startup video platform CEO"s in their lifetime.
- ravitation 9y agoHow much of that is a result of success as the former, and not the later?
- blocked_again 9y agoThere are plenty of startups started by celebrities which burned a lot of money and died. Of course, the popularity of Casey must be a factor for the CNN acquisition but you can't tell that as the only one.
- ohazi 9y agoThe company took multiple rounds of VC money and sold to CNN for ~$20 million. He very likely didn't make a penny from the sale. Somewhat irrelevant though, as he takes home annual-salary-sized checks for every video that he puts on youtube.
- blocked_again 9y agoRaised $2 million in 1 round and sold out for $25 million.
- arosier 9y agoRaised $6+ million in 2 rounds.
- ohazi 9y agoIn a nutshell: They tried to build a Vice News, but they ended up with a BuzzFeed.
- spookyuser 9y agoI thought it was closer to Vox, but yeah.
- xchaotic 9y agoCasey Neistat cashed out really well and got out of his golden handcuffs very quickly, he can go back to vlogging now.
- baldfat 9y agoHe never left vlogging
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ihuman 9y agoI found a couple of mirrors of the video. They have the same title, but they have slightly different content, so I'm not sure which was the one that was linked. https://youtu.be/8dVbO9BJa80 https://youtu.be/8dVbO9BJa80 https://youtu.be/46RDiwfknu4 https://youtu.be/46RDiwfknu4
- throw7 9y agoCNN is in its MTV transition phase. Remember when MTV played videos? We'll be saying: Remember when CNN did news? I don't blame CNN; the issue is their funding doesn't allow for complete independence. They need to shift programming to keep ad dollars coming in and they're looking for their "The Real World". I've followed Bourdain through his many network changes, but his latest shows on CNN aren't the same. CNN is still relatively dry. Not for want of trying though... witness the number of times their newscasters shouted "shithole" with glee recently. :) Personally, Neistat is not appealing to me, but he had an existing audience that I guess CNN execs were willing to give it a shot. That to me is desperation, not execution.
- nugi 9y agoWow, MTV is a perfect metaphor if you grew up in the 80s/90s. I may have to start using that. Its all 'talking heads' and filler now. I wonder if they still have independent coverage of anything outside dc or nyc.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> Its all 'talking heads' and filler now. It's always been that way, other than brief exceptions (the 1991 Gulf War was probably the longest).
- mizzack 9y ago'member when ESPN showed sports?
- alacritythief 9y agoSo as a user of the Beme Panel app (the 2nd app, created after the CNN acquisition), I thought its core idea was fascinating. The ability to quickly panel and poll people on news topics directly via a phone app instead of invasive text or phone calls seems something worthwhile to invest in. Using it felt more like joining a group for a conversation rather than being prodded by pollsters. What didn't make sense to me is why they didn't "step on the gas" and accelerate the speed of their app development and content. I overall enjoyed the Beme youtube vids and it seemed they were finally honing in on the right track, and as mentioned earlier the Beme Panels app showed promise. However, the videos were a bit infrequent, not pumping out as much video content as competitors VICE or Vox, or even CNN's own previous acquisition "Great Big Story". The Panels app was still in closed beta and only brought in a trickle of users instead of trying to bring in even more to provide more data points and diversity of content/conversation. Being a subscriber to Casey's YouTube channel, it seems to me that Casey is the kind of person that's a self-starter that likes to change things up a lot (which works for YouTube vids), but when it comes to consistently working on something that's more finite for long periods of time he doesn't have the knack for it.
- baldfat 9y agoOUTPUT: They didn't make enough videos. 41 Videos in 6 Months 7.7 million views. 10 of them were Casey and not the Beme crew. The production was good and the stories were interesting in a Vice type of way BUT they didn't output enough content. On YouTube amount of content is more valuable than production quality. PS Casey states that Beme is moving into CNN and will still actually produce content. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfIhBu0TZBs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfIhBu0TZBs
- amerine 9y agoI agree with you. They should have been doing Vice-level output to keep and grow and audience.
- arosier 9y agoAfter Casey's latest launch of Beme (pre CNN), he shed some additional insight into the money Beme had raised and how they spend it. To date, Beme has now raised $6,000,000+ (presumably $6,619,242 assuming a $4 Million Series A on top of the existing stated Seed round). The first launch of Beme led to 400,000 downloads in the first 6 days. Users posted 1 million videos in that same time frame. While there were breakout areas or "10s of thousands of consistent users, "after the cool down from the initial launch, they saw user engagement fall and realized the product was not working. There was hope that there was still validity in the concept (posting unedited - authentic video footage); however, the app needed a redesign to thoroughly test the concept. Beme has 11 full time employees (10 of which are technical, 1 of which runs their social media communities (Jack)). Casey does not collect a salary from Beme. With this being said, it sounds as if Casey does not include himself in this employee count as he would most likely fall into the non-technical category. Beme splits their employees into 3 teams. Most likely these are divided by platform: Android, iOS, and Web. The burn rate for these 11 employees is $180,000/month or $2,160,000/ year. Beme has the option to monetize through in-app advertising, in-app purchases, and selling of user data. With no signs that any 3 of these revenue streams have been activated at this time these expenses are being paid for from the venture capital money raised. The second release has seen a surge in downloads to over 1 million, with added engagement after the first 8 days of launch. Time will tell if the added interest is purely based off of Casey's current social clout, or if the concept has legs to become a standalone sharing platform. https://techcrunch.com/video/casey-neistats-youtube-life/519622188/ https://techcrunch.com/video/casey-neistats-youtube-life/519...
- arcaster 9y agoThat was quick. Then again, good on Casey Neistat for squeezing out hopefully a cool few million from CNN.
- dboreham 9y agoFailed acquisition: dog bites man story. Strange though that the acquired company principal is roaming around bad mouthing the acquirer rather than "focusing on strategic projects" or gardening.
- vit05 9y agoThe great thing about Neistat is the way he tells a history. About him, about a product, about a trip. Beme News has never tried tell any history.