Tag: tech

From teen wizards to Harry Styles romances: How Wattpad created a user-generated media empire

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In the world of Wattpad, no genre is too niche. The user-generated publishing platform, founded in 2006 and boasting 90 million monthly readers, has spent the past few years turning its most online popular stories into both print books and movies and TV shows. In 2021, the multimedia powerhouse was acquired by the Korean tech giant Naver for $600 million—a price buoyed by Wattpad’s ability to analyze content down to which lines of a story readers like best (and absolutely must appear in a movie adaptation). “We have what is possibly the largest library of fiction that’s ever been created,” says Aron Levitz, General Manager of Wattpad Studios, the film and TV arm. “Our audience data allows us to really explore that.” The company’s insights have catapulted dozens of untraditional stories to box office and bestseller success.  Click to expand [Data Visualization: Chelsea Schiff] Wattpad estimates it has 90 projects currently in development (see above), with more titles being surfaced every day by users and algorithms. Some prime examples of the company’s success: Anna Todd’s After series began as Harry Styles fanfiction, selling millions of books. The first After feature film, released in 2019, made $70 million, and a third ( After We Collided ) will come out later this year. Young adult novel I’m A Gay Wizard was one of Wattpad Books’ first print releases in 2019, and is currently being developed into a TV series by the Wattpad Development Fund, which identifies and elevates underrepresented stories for film and TV. The company also has a massive presence in Asia: Indonesian romance novel Turn On garnered more than 17 million reads on Wattpad, and debuted as an eight part TV series in January. With 10 million views so far, it’s the most successful Wattpad project of 2021. Read More …

From teen wizards to Harry Styles romances: How Wattpad created a user-generated media empire

Posted onAuthoradmin

In the world of Wattpad, no genre is too niche. The user-generated publishing platform, founded in 2006 and boasting 90 million monthly readers, has spent the past few years turning its most online popular stories into both print books and movies and TV shows. In 2021, the multimedia powerhouse was acquired by the Korean tech giant Naver for $600 million—a price buoyed by Wattpad’s ability to analyze content down to which lines of a story readers like best (and absolutely must appear in a movie adaptation). “We have what is possibly the largest library of fiction that’s ever been created,” says Aron Levitz, General Manager of Wattpad Studios, the film and TV arm. “Our audience data allows us to really explore that.” The company’s insights have catapulted dozens of untraditional stories to box office and bestseller success.  Click to expand [Data Visualization: Chelsea Schiff] Wattpad estimates it has 90 projects currently in development (see above), with more titles being surfaced every day by users and algorithms. Some prime examples of the company’s success: Anna Todd’s After series began as Harry Styles fanfiction, selling millions of books. The first After feature film, released in 2019, made $70 million, and a third ( After We Collided ) will come out later this year. Young adult novel I’m A Gay Wizard was one of Wattpad Books’ first print releases in 2019, and is currently being developed into a TV series by the Wattpad Development Fund, which identifies and elevates underrepresented stories for film and TV. The company also has a massive presence in Asia: Indonesian romance novel Turn On garnered more than 17 million reads on Wattpad, and debuted as an eight part TV series in January. With 10 million views so far, it’s the most successful Wattpad project of 2021. Read More …

How Sears and Standard Oil paved the way for the age of Amazon

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Despite Amazon’s undisputed centrality in the contemporary digital economy, a close look at its core business model reveals it to be surprisingly conventional. Before the invention of e-commerce, mail-order catalog companies such as Sears, Roebuck had accustomed American consumers to purchasing goods sight unseen from vendors with whom they communicated solely via information technology. Like Amazon, Sears, Roebuck neither manufactured goods nor owned inventory but functioned solely as information intermediary. Read More …

Ro’s $225 million Modern Fertility acquisition is a big bet on women’s health

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Online health brand Ro has been expanding beyond the pharmacy with at-home blood draws and vaccine delivery . Now it’s moving into fertility care with the acquisition of personal testing company Modern Fertility . The purchase shows that Ro sees women’s health as a key area of development Read More …

What makes a great builder? It’s the mission that matters

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For more than three decades, iRobot has been a pioneer in the robotics and consumer electronics industries. It’s no exaggeration to say that our success is almost entirely due to the mission-driven builders who have created a culture that thrives on innovation. Through the years, iRobot has developed some of the world’s most important robots. The company inspired the first Micro Rovers used by NASA, revealed mysteries inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, and deployed the first ground robots used in combat by the U.S. Army, saving thousands of lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. Read More …