Tag: Media

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Tilting Point acquires mobile game Star Trek Timelines

Tilting Point announced this morning that it has acquired Star Trek Timelines, a free-to-play character collection game, from the game’s developer Disruptor Beam. It’s also hired Disruptor Beam team members to create a new studio, Wicked Realm Games.

This follows Disruptor Beam‘s shuttering of its other titles, Game of Thrones Ascent and The Walking Dead: March to War. Moving forward, the company says it will be focused on its Disruptor Engine tools for mobile game development and operations.

Tilting Point, meanwhile, had previously acquired the game Languinis and the monetization startup Gondola, but President Samir El Agili told me that this is the first time the company has acquired both a game and the development team behind it. CEO Kevin Segalla described this as an extension of Tilting Point’s “progressive publishing” model, where the company first works with developers on user acquisition, then develops a deeper business relationship over time.

In fact, Timelines — which Tilting Point says has been downloaded 8 million times and earned over $100 million — was one of the first games supported by the company’s user acquisition fund. And through those efforts, the Tilting Point team came to believe that there’s still plenty of opportunity for growth.

“We spent a good amount of time over the past year-and-a-half to two years helping the team scale the game to success, helping them bring a user to the game using our ability to do user acquisition, as well as improving the game itself in terms of our operations,” El Agili said. “What we have seen over this time is that Star Trek Timelines is a very impressive game, its users are very sticky.”

He noted that Tilting Point is increasing the size of the team working on Timelines from nine at Disruptor Beam to 19 at Wicked Realm Games, which will be led by Disruptor Beam’s former CTO David Cham.

The studio, El Agili said, will be “100 percent integrated from a financial standpoint, but they’re still going to be very independent way in the way they operate.” And while Wicked Realm will be focused on Timelines for the near future, there are “more ideas that we can build with them.”

Segalla also said that as a result of the deal, Tilting Point is essentially becoming the first Disruptor Engine customer.

“Tilting Point has been a great partner to us and have proven that they care about the game and its community and there’s no one better to take Star Trek Timelines to the next level,” said Disruptor Beam CEO Jon Radoff in a statement. “We are also excited that Tilting Point will be one of our first live customers for our live-ops technology and that we will be continuing our working relationship.”

Tilting Point acquires game monetization startup Gondola

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Bookshlf launches an app to curate and share your favorite digital content

Bookshlf has created a new way for people to recommend media — whether it’s music, videos, articles, podcasts or even tweets — to their friends and to the rest of the world.

The New York-based startup is officially launching its web and iOS app this week and announcing that David A. Steinberg, co-founder and CEO of marketing company Zeta Global, has signed on as both an investor and advisor.

The big emphasis here is curation. It’s a word that comes up a lot in the media industry, but President Andrew Boggs — who previously worked in business development at zeta, then founded Bookshlf with Mike Abend and Justin Cadelago — argued that the major internet platforms aren’t actually designed for real curation.

“A lot of the legacy platforms have focused on quantity over quality,” Boggs said. “There’s also the nature of things being really fleeting there … For example, if you are sharing stuff about music, I have to sift through your feed to find that information.”

It sounds like this idea resonated with Steinberg, who argued, “The big social media platforms do not make a living by building small groups of very interesting people. They think, ‘How do we get as much volume as possible?'”

Bookshlf

In Bookshlf, on the other hand, users can organize their recommendations into different “shelves” based on topic, and then easily add links using the iOS Share menu (or by just adding them directly in the app). You can also share links to your shelves via social media.

Boggs, for example, has shelves tied to topics like electronic music, humor, tech/media news and even the best burgers in New York. Steinberg, meanwhile, said, “I don’t believe people primarily go to Facebook or Instagram to consume business information,” so it’s not surprising his shelves are focused on artificial intelligence, DARPA and Zeta itself.

The paradigm of a shelf of content might seem a little quaint — Boggs compared it to the shelves of DVDs or albums that you might have shown off in the past. But in his view, the model makes sense for these kinds of recommendations, because it allows people to focus on what they’re actually interested in: “Because the shelves are a curated selection, you can jump to your profile, and if you have a music shelf, I can jump right into that.”

While it remains to be seen how people will actually use Bookshlf, Boggs said there’s a likely to be a minority of core users who are doing the most active curation and sharing. These are the kinds of people who are probably already doing a lot of sharing — whether that’s on social media or just over a group chat — and “love to send you interesting articles and interesting podcasts.” At the same time, other users will simply browse the app for interesting recommendations, and they can also use the shelves to save links for themselves.

It sounds like the Bookshlf team isn’t focused on monetization yet, but Boggs suggested that there are a number of interesting opportunities, including targeted advertising, sponsored shelves, micropayments for content and selling data about broader trends in the audience interest.

In addition to Steinberg, Bookshlf has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from CAIVIS Acquisition Corp, Dalton Partners and Cambridge Way Ventures.

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Facebook fact-check feud erupts over Trump virus “hoax”

Who fact-checks the fact-checkers? Did Trump call coronavirus the Democrat’s “new hoax”?

Those the big questions emerging from a controversial “false” label applied to Politico and NBC News stories by right-wing publisher The Daily Caller. Its Check Your Fact division is a Facebook fact-checking partner, giving it the power to flag links on the social network as false, demoting their ranking in the News Feed as well as the visibility of the entire outlet that posted it.

Critics railed against Facebook’s decision to admit The Daily Caller to the fact-checking program last April due to its history of publishing widely debunked articles. Now some believe their fears of politically biased fact-checks are coming true.

Image via Judd Legum

This week, Check Your Fact rated two stories as false. “Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a ‘hoax’ from Politico, and “Trump calls coronavirus Democrats’ ‘new hoax'” from NBC News, as highlighted by Popular Information’s Judd Legum. The fact-check explanation states that “Trump actually described complaints about his handling of the virus threat as a “hoax”.

Trump had said at a rally that (emphasis ours):

“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs . . . They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that . . . we’ve lost nobody, and you wonder, the press is in hysteria mode.“

It’s hard to tell exactly what Trump means here. He could be calling coronavirus a hoax, concerns about its severity a hoax, or Democrats’ criticism of his response a hoax. Reputable fact-checking institution Snopes rated the claim that Trump called coronavirus a hoax as a mixture of true and false, noting “Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax.”

Image via Judd Legum

Perhaps Politico and NBC News’ headlines went too far, or perhaps the headlines fairly describe Trump’s characterization of the situation.

But the bigger concern is how Facebook has designed its fact-checking system to prevent other fact-checking partners from auditing the decision of The Daily Caller.

When asked about this, Facebook deflected responsibility, implying that audit process wouldn’t be necessary because all of its fact-checking partners have been certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking Network. This group publishes ethics guidelines that include an accuracy standard that requires checkers “maintain high standards of reporting, writing, and editing in order to produce work that is as error-free as possible.” Checkers are also supposed to follow criteria for determining story accuracy, and can apply  mid-point labels like “Partly False” or “False Headline” which The Daily Caller didn’t use here.

Facebook tells me that because it doesn’t think it’s appropriate for it to be the arbiter of truth, it relies on the IFCN to set guidelines. It also noted that there’s an appeals process where publishers can reach out to directly to a fact-checker to dispute a rating. But when I followed up, Facebook clarified that publishers can only appeal the fact-checker that labeled them, and can’t appeal to other fact-checkers for a second decision or audit of the original label.

fb arbiter of truth

That leaves very little room for controversial or inaccurate labels to be rolled back. A fact-checker would have to be formally rejected by the IFCN for violating its guidelines to lose its status as a Facebook partner.

If Facebook doesn’t want to be the arbiter of truth, it should still establish a process for a quorum of its fact-checking partners to play that role. If consensus amongst other partners is that a label was in accurate and a story might instead warrant a lesser label or none at all, that new decision should be applied. Otherwise, mistakes or malicious bias from a single fact-checker could suppress the work of entire news outlets and deprive the public of the truth.

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Hulu with Live TV belatedly arrives on PlayStation 4

Hulu’s Live TV service, which allows users to watch both live and on-demand programming, including Hulu Originals, has finally arrived on the PlayStation 4 — close to three years after the service first debuted. The launch closes a significant hole in Hulu’s offerings, as its Live TV service was already available across nearly all other major platforms, including Apple TV (4th gen.), Amazon Fire TV devices, Echo Show, Roku devices, Xbox 360 and Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android, Windows 10, web, Chromecasts, and select TVs from LG, Vizio, and Samsung.

Hulu didn’t offer an explanation for what took so long, but it’s not the only live TV streaming service to not be available on PS4. Dish-owned Sling TV doesn’t include support for PS4, nor does AT&T TV NOW. However, Hulu’s top rival, YouTube TV will stream on Sony’s game console.

Consoles don’t tend to be a top priority for streaming TV services, as there are many other platforms that are used more often for streaming. In the U.S., for example, Roku is ahead of rivals like Apple and Amazon, according to eMarketer, in terms of media player usage. And let’s not forget that even Sony’s own PlayStation Vue, wasn’t able to successfully tap into the sizable PlayStation user base in order to make its live TV service work. PlayStation Vue shut down for good in January.

Hulu says PS4 owners who already stream through the existing Hulu app for the standard service will now be able to switch to the Hulu + Live TV service through their account settings on Hulu.com in order to access it from their console. Customers who already subscribe to Hulu + Live TV will now be able to watch the live channels the next time they launch their Hulu app on the PlayStation 4.

The Live TV service offers a range of live TV channels, including ESPN, FOX, NBC, and ABC, among others.

Hulu is now majority-owned by Disney, following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox and its subsequent deal with NBCU that gave it operational control. Since Disney took over, it’s made several major changes including a reorg that saw the departure of Hulu CEO Randy Freer followed by the promotion of Hulu’s chief marketing officer Kelly Campbell to president. Yesterday, Hulu rolled out a new FX hub on the service featuring over 40 shows and originals. FX was another property that came in through the acquisition, in addition to Fox’s stake in Hulu.

Disney announced in December that Hulu with Live TV had grown to 3.2 million subscribers, while its total Hulu subscriber base was 30.4 million. Disney+ — which is available on PS4 —  was close behind with 26.5 million subscribers.

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SmartNews’ local news feature now covers more than 6,000 U.S. cities

SmartNews, the news aggregation app that hit unicorn funding last year, has spent the last year growing its local news feature. With the United States presidential election underscoring both the importance of local news and its challenges, SmartNews has a huge opportunity to gain new users.

In early 2019, SmartNews had 40 local partners. Over the past year, it has expanded that to publishers in over 6,000 cities, with the goal of covering the majority of the U.S. population. The app also currently has an election news section, with live updates on primary results and sections focused on each presidential candidate.

For local media, apps like SmartNews and competitor Flipboard, which recently launched its own local news feature, offer less reliance on search traffic for much-needed traffic and revenue. A Pew Research survey published last year found that while most American adults believe it’s important for journalists to be engaged with local communities, only about 14% said they have paid for local news, with many citing the availability of free content as the primary reason why.

Both local and election news are presented as tabs in the SmartNews’ main navigation menu and the company says the Local News tab, which shows headlines personalized by user location, now drives almost as much engagement to publishers as the default Top News tab.

Founded eight years ago in Japan, where it is now one of the top news apps, SmartNews launched its American version in 2014. The app’s content team, including former journalists, screen publishers before they are added to its platform, but articles shown to users are picked by machine learning. Over the past few years, as the political and media landscape in America becomes increasingly polarized, SmartNews has focused on discovery tools with the goal of breaking readers out of “filter bubbles” reinforced by social media algorithms.

For example, last year it launched a feature called News From All Sides, a slider that displays headlines about the same topic from publications across the political spectrum.

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For the Election News tab, the slider was adapted for news about each presidential candidate. When it originally launched, the slider had five sections, but that has been pared down to three, with the goal of encouraging people to explore more news sources instead of focusing on how they are labeled, said Jeannie Yang, SmartNews’ senior vice president of product.

“I think one of the improvements we made is that it’s not exactly about getting it ‘right,’ quote-unquote, but about how do you let people explore the spectrum and actually be able to understand it without feeling they are locked in,” she told TechCrunch.

While working on its local news and election news features, more than fifty people from SmartNews, including Yang, head of global growth Fabian-Pierre Nicolas and members of its engineering, product, data and marketing teams, traveled through Minnesota and Iowa. More recently they drove through Nevada and California, with Michigan and Florida next on the itinerary. These “listening tours” were inspired by trips SmartNews Ken Suzuki and its other co-founders made through the United States in 2016, to connect with potential users of the app.

“It is meant to get us out of our bubble, since our main [U.S.] offices are in Palo Alto, San Francisco and New York and build empathy with how people connect to the news and the app,” said Nicolas. The team sent out surveys on Craigslist and went to places like cafes and churches to ask people about a wide range of issues, including politics, how they get election and local news and their communities.

A lot of people they talked to rely on TV or radio for most of their news. If they browse online, they often use their desktop computers instead of smartphones because of costly or limited data plans. Many said they had issues finding reliable local news sources, especially as more publications are purchased by larger outlets. Articles may no longer focus on their communities, for example, or they have to sort through more sponsored content and opinion pieces to get to news.

To ensure the quality of news sources on its platform, SmartNews’ content team screens publications first and partners with local news publishers, like McClatchy. The content each users sees in their Local News tab is based on their location. The app prioritizes neighborhood news first, then brings in news from next-largest administrative area.

For example, if a reader lives near a large city, SmartNews will display headlines from newspapers published there. If they live in a less densely populated area, it will show articles from newspapers in their county. In the future, the Local News tab may also include information from other sources, including local deals, crime and safety incidents or city council agendas.

SmartNews is taking advantage of election season to get more readers, with marketing campaigns that include running commercials during debates. The app’s goal is to convert them into long-term users and be the first news app that people go to on their phones. In turn, Nicolas said, they hope this will create a healthier media ecosystem by giving local publishers an additional source of inbound traffic to monetize.

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Streaming service AT&T TV launches nationwide, but isn’t meant for cord cutters

AT&T is expanding its streaming strategy with the launch of a new, nationwide TV service, AT&T TV, delivered over the internet. Not to be confused with AT&T TV Now — AT&T’s over-the-top live TV service aimed at cord-cutters, previously called DirecTV Now — the new service is more of an alternative to AT&T’s DirecTV.

The company apparently believes it can access an untapped sweet spot in between those who just want to use streaming apps and those who want a traditional pay-TV service, like cable or satellite television. To cater to this audience, AT&T TV offers hundreds of live TV channels, plus 40,000 on-demand titles, and 500 hours of DVR space on a set-top box.

The box, however, is a bit more modern. The service comes with an Android TV-powered box that lets you switch between live TV and over 5,000 apps from the Google Play Store without having to change inputs on your TV. At launch, that means customers are able to access popular streaming apps like Netflix, YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify right from their TV. When AT&T’s new service HBO Max arrives in May, it will also be available and there may be special offers for AT&T TV customers.

The Android TV box also includes a voice-activated remote and Google Assistant integration, which lets you issue commands to search for content across your apps, play music, or control your smart home devices.

Through an accompanying mobile app, customers can also record shows and stream TV from a smartphone or tablet.

Despite the method of delivery, AT&T TV is very much like a traditional pay-TV package rather than the streaming apps it tries to emulate. And it’s an expensive one. The company offers affordable introductory pricing, but ropes you into a two-year contract where prices jump significantly in year two. For example, the entry-level Entertainment package is $49.99 per month for the first 12 months, then it goes to $93 per month in year two. Choice and Xtra, meanwhile, go from $54.99 and $64.99 per month to $110 and $124 per month, respectively. Ultimate jumps from $69.99 to $135 per month.

Choice and higher packages have the option of adding on regional sports for $8.49 per month more.

And like traditional pay-TV services, there’s an activation fee ($19.95), early termination fees ($15/month for each remaining month), and equipment non-return fees. It also comes with only one set-top box, and additional boxes are $120 each.

The somewhat better deal is to bundle AT&T TV with AT&T’s new 1-gigabit internet service, where the bundles begin at introductory pricing of $39.99 per month for video and $39.99 per month for internet for 12 months, under a two-year contract. But when prices climb in year two, the savings won’t really matter as much.

The streaming service arrives at a time when AT&T is shedding video subscribers. In 2019, the company lost 4.1 million total video customers.

But offering a streaming service with a traditional pay-TV business model attached is an odd strategy on AT&T’s part that fails to address the main reasons that consumers were cutting the cord with traditional pay-TV providers in the first place. Mainly, pay-TV services cost too much and customers felt they were nickel-and-dimed with fees. That hasn’t changed here. In addition, there’s plenty to watch today on much more affordable services, like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, for example. And there’s more still, if you’re willing to tack on a few more dollars per month for over-the-top subscriptions of premium channels, like Starz, Showtime, or AT&T’s own HBO. 

However, there is a part of the market that wants a combination of pay-TV and streaming apps. Comcast targets these customers with its X1 platform, for instance.

AT&T TV may also appeal to those who didn’t want the hassle of setting up or dealing with a satellite dish — or lived somewhere the satellite service didn’t reach. In the end, AT&T TV may even pick up existing DirecTV subscribers who just want to upgrade from one pay-TV service to another.

 

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The world Bob Iger made

There were the times when it seemed like Walt Disney CEO Bob Iger might be the last Hollywood executive standing.

Yes, Iger’s been openly thinking about retirement and searching for a successor — a search that culminated in this week’s announcement that he’d be stepping down from the CEO role immediately, with Disney Parks Chairman Bob Chapek succeeding him. (Disney says Iger will remain involved as executive chairman and will continue to “direct the Company’s creative endeavors” until the end of 2021.)

But Iger’s succession planning hasn’t stopped him from solidifying Disney’s dominance of the entertainment business, a position designed to last long after his departure.

Acquisitions have been the cornerstone of that strategy, with Disney acquiring Pixar, then Marvel, then Lucasfilm and most recently a big chunk of 21st Century Fox. More than anyone, Iger seemed to understand that the Hollywood studios’ continued success would depend on their intellectual property. It’s no longer enough to just to make a successful movie or series; a successful studio needs to own IP that could fuel cinematic universes, TV shows, theme parks, toys, games and more, indefinitely.

To be clear, even before Iger, Disney was no stranger to mining IP for both box-office success and its broader corporate aims. Nor was he the only Hollywood executive to pursue these strategies over the past decade. By now it’s a well-worn observation that virtually every big-budget Hollywood film is either a remake, a sequel or an adaptation of existing material.

Disney CEO Bob Iger immediately steps down from CEO position

But Iger was the one who made the biggest bets, repeatedly, and for whom those bets seemed to pay off most impressively and consistently. That’s clear when you look at the biggest box office successes of 2019 — Disney released seven of the top 10 films, with another (“Spider-Man: Far From Home”) benefiting from Marvel’s input and audience goodwill.

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Stem is offering cash advances to help musicians stay independent

Stem, a startup that helps independent musicians get paid, is expanding with a new financing program called Scale.

Co-founder and CEO Milana Rabkin Lewis described the company’s core offering as a way for collaborators to “memorialize the split” of the proceeds from a song — once they’ve uploaded a track, Scale can automatically handle splitting the payments among those collaborators. It also offers a broader suite of tools, including revenue data, to help musicians manage the financial side of their careers.

However, Rabkin Lewis noticed that some musicians on Stem were starting to “graduate” by signing a deal with a record label, usually because they needed capital: “Sometimes that was money for marketing, sometimes it was money for production, sometimes it was the cost of going on tour.”

With Scale, Rabkin Lewis and her team are trying to offer something better — a way for musicians to get access to the money they need without having to sign a restrictive contract. The payment terms are transparent — they’re calculated as a percentage of monthly revenue, with musicians able to adjust how much money they take and how quickly they want to pay it back.

Plus they’re able to maintain creative control and full ownership of their master recordings. And Stem says these advances are better from a tax perspective, because they’re classified as a merchant credit advance that only gets taxed as money is actually earned.

Milana Rabkin Lewis

Money might not be the only thing a musician needs, but Rabkin Lewis (a former agent at the United Talent Agency) said that marketing and other services that were once the sole domain of record labels are now available through independent professionals. And Stem already helps connect artists to those specialists through its Stem Direct membership program.

While Scale is officially launching today, Stem has already been testing the program out with select artists. Rabkin Lewis said the advances vary from $2,500 to $250,000, with most of them in the $50,000 to $100,000 range, and payback periods ranging from four to 18 months.

Artists who have already participated in the program include Brent Faiyaz, Justin Skye and Lil Donald.

Rabin Lewis added that there’s a “huge white space” when it comes to offering financial services to “the creative class.”

“In the future, I’m excited to be thinking about how artists an collateralize their music,” she said. “You should be able to take out money against your music to be able to finance your recording studio, or finance your child’s studies. I want to be the platform that understands what it means to be a creative professional and be able to provide the best-in-class services to these people that other segments of workers have access to.”

Stem raises $8M to get music artists paid more seamlessly

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Tinder’s video series ‘Swipe Night’ gets a second season

Following a successful debut for Tinder’s first foray into original content, the company is giving its interactive video series “Swipe Night” another run. The company confirmed today it’s renewing “Swipe Night” for a second season that will launch this summer, again as an in-app experience within Tinder’s dating app.

Variety first reported the news of “Swipe Night’s” return. Tinder further confirmed the details to TechCrunch.

“Swipe Night,” as you may recall, first launched in October 2019 within Tinder. The experience introduced a first-person adventure played in-app, where users would make choices at key turning points to progress the narrative — like a choose-your-own-adventure story.

The series was designed to increase user engagement and help the app’s young users better connect.

Today, half of Tinder is Gen Z (ages 18-25) — a demographic that’s embracing their single lifestyle and more casual relationships compared with those on other dating apps, like Tinder parent company Match, for example, or its newer acquisition Hinge. These younger users connected with the idea of starting conversations based on a shared experience, says Tinder.

However, the reality is that “Swipe Night” had also arrived at a time when users were opening Tinder’s app less on a daily basis, even as monthly usage climbed. Though “Swipe Night” only ran on specific dates in October 2019, users’ choices within the interactive experience were added to their profiles. This allowed users to see who else agreed with their decisions and who took the opposite path. That made launching Tinder and swiping through profiles more compelling — even for those who may have been tiring Tinder before the series’ arrival.

The experiment worked. Tinder said millions of users tuned in to “Swipe Night” and matches and conversations increased by 26% and 12%, respectively. With “Swipe Night,” it seemed, Tinder finally gave users something to talk about.

The returning second season of “Swipe Night” will again be directed by Karena Evans, who directed Coldplay’s music video “Everyday Life” and Drake’s “In My Feelings” and “God’s Plan.” This time, it will be written by Jessica Stickles (“Portlandia,” “Another Period”) and Julie Sharbutt (“3 Days”).

“Working on Swipe Night was such a fulfilling experience for me. I got to do something that had never been done before and innovate with storytelling to bring a generation of people together. I’m in search of projects that impact, shift or curate a culture and couldn’t be more excited to return for more,” said Evans, in a statement.

“Swipe Night’s” second season may see Tinder tweaking the formula a bit, and may even introduce new mechanics to keep it feeling fresh.

In addition to the Season 2 launching in the U.S., Match previously confirmed that 10 international markets across Europe and Asia will get “Swipe Night” this year. Tinder said today that Season 1 would be launching internationally on March 14th, but declined to say when those users would receive Season 2.

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Newlab and The Boston Globe team up to launch AI tools startup applied XLabs

Applied XLabs is a new startup building tools that can automate data-gathering for journalists — and eventually, for knowledge workers in other industries.

The company is emerging from Brooklyn-based Newlab, with The Boston Globe as its launch partner. It will be led by Francesco Marconi (pictured above), who was previously R&D chief at The Wall Street Journal and head of AI strategy at the Associated Press.

Marconi told me that there’s a tremendous amount of data out there that could be useful to journalists, whether that’s inside public company filings or academic climate change research. But data-driven journalism remains a sliver of the industry, because “only a handful of organizations have the internal resources to create these types of tools, these types of analyses.”

The plan is for Applied XLabs to develop products to help newsrooms, starting with The Globe, automatically pull data and generate insights.

Vinay Mehra, president of The Boston Globe, said the hope is to use AI to improve the information that Globe journalists provide to different communities.

A new hope: AI for news media

For example, Mehra said that The Globe has been expanding its coverage in Rhode Island, partly in response to the disappearance of local newspapers and the resulting “news deserts.” When the team started talking to the community about what kind of coverage they wanted to see, they came up with a long list of ideas like restaurant openings and closings. (That’s something news startup Hoodline, co-founded by Extra Crunch Managing Editor Eric Eldon, has also tried to tackle with data and automation.)

But providing comprehensive coverage in these areas is tough with a small newsroom, Mehra said: “We can’t keep throwing journalists at this.” So the idea is to “mine that data” and make existing journalists more effective.

At the same time, he emphasized that he doesn’t see AI as a way to replace journalists or justify newsroom cuts, and he noted that The Globe continues to hire.

“We can’t sit back and ignore these technologies that are coming out every day,” Mehra said. “The opportunity here is to redefine what is possible with AI, to expand our own thinking and horizons around how we do journalism today and how we serve these communities.”

Marconi added that ultimately, these tools could also be sold to knowledge workers in a variety of industries.

Newlab

“The same way that you have Salesforce for managing the sales process, we are building the platform for knowledge workers,” he said. “The reason why it’s so important to start with news and why we’re working with journalists [is] the threshold is really, really high. If you are able to build products and seeds of information that editors can use and sign off on, then you can quickly expand into other industries.”

Applied XLabs is also the first startup to emerge Newlab’s venture studio program. When we first visited Newlab back in 2016, it described itself as a workspace for companies in robotics, AI and other fields. Now it’s created a studio model where it aims to bring together “diverse stakeholders” to create new companies in frontier tech.

“There is a substantial investment from Newlab, and in addition to capital, Newlab is providing all of the back office services,” Marconi said. “I get the stability of an established company with the freedom, flexibility and creativity of a new venture.”

New Lab is a new home for hardware startups in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard