ShowYou, Qwiki, Laffster, and Next Issue are four groundbreaking syndication startups to keep on your radar.
The publishing industry is seeing innovators reshaping how we consume content. Trevor Guthrie, Director of OMD’s Ignition Factory East, and his colleague, Sam Olstein, the Marketing Director at Ignition Factory, shared their choices for the four must-watch startups at the ad:tech panel “Publishers and Tablets: New Strategies for Monetizing and Creating Content” that are reshaping content syndication.
Laffster
A startup based out of Venice, Calif., and a graduate of LA’s only startup incubator, Muckerlabs, Laffster can be best described as the Pandora of comedy-oriented content. Laffster’s developers have architected a genome based on the studies of “researchers and scholars in humor, including neuroscientists and psychologists at schools like Dartmouth College and the University of Colorado,” which can tailor video-based comedic content for its users. Videos are aggregated from publishers including “The Onion” and “The Colbert Report,” and the platform is growing quickly. It’s not surprising when Guthrie and Olstein informed us that 40 percent of people are getting their news through satire.
Showyou
Flipboard has emerged as the leading social news site, and Showyou has based its business off Flipboard’s framework. Not surprisingly Showyou is comparable in design and function as Flipboard, which Olstein admits, but the differentiator is the fact that Showyou is 100 percent dedicated to the syndication of video content.
Already the company has partnered with brands to add native unit advertising. In September, Showyou announced its brand launch partners including Doritos, Levi’s, Monster, Showtime and Mountain Dew. During the 90-day trial period brands were invited to curate their own Showyou channels, where original video content produced by the brands and its ads could live.
The app is compatible strictly with iOS devices and desktops.
Qwiki
Qwiki first launched as a “smart Wiki” that stitched together images, video and an automated voiceover to create a visual reference platform that’s best described as a multimedia Wikipedia. The company has since announced its pivot in May that’s now geared toward becoming a publishing platform for users to create their own multimedia stories, which the company calls a “Qwiki.” Users can stitch together a Qwiki by adding six types of media including images, videos, a Google map, and their own video narration. Citing Qwiki’s in-app editing tools, Olstein credits the platform as YouTube 2.0 but also exhibits some similarities to Tumblr.
Next Issue
Next Issue may be the best kept secret or, depending on how you see it, the hidden gem among publishing startups. Similar to the Netflix and Hulu Plus subscription model, Next Issue offers access to 68 different magazines on the iPad including Elle, Sourthern Living, GQ and Wired, for just $9.99 per month – the cost of a Netflix subscription. And with a premium subscription, for $14.99 per month, subscribers can gain access to six more titles. The availability of magazines on Android 7-inch tablets on the other hand is limited to just 24 magazines, while the premium subscription adds just five more titles to the mix. One thing to note is that the magazines aren’t interactive digital tablet-based magazines, but instead are simply PDF copies of the print editions.
