Mic (media company)

Mic
Type of site
 News
Available in English
Founded 2011 (2011) (as PolicyMic)[1]
Headquarters New York City, New York, U.S.
Founder(s) Chris Altchek
Jake Horowitz
Website mic.com
Alexa rank Positive decrease 12,066 (September 2018)[2]
Registration Optional
Current status Active

Mic is an American internet and media company based in New York City that caters to millennials.[3][4] Originally known as PolicyMic, it rose to prominence after its on the ground coverage of the Tunisian Revolution.[5][6] In April 2014, the company reached 19 million unique monthly visitors.[7]

History

Mic was founded in 2011 as PolicyMic by Chris Altchek and Jake Horowitz, two high school friends from New York.[5] In 2014, the company announced they would re-brand their organization to target millennials, renaming themselves as "Mic".[8]

Mic's news director, Jared Keller, was fired in February 2015 after the blog website Gawker found various levels of plagiarism in 20 different passages of his work.[9] In March 2016, Mic acquired curated video app Hyper as well its developer, AntiHero.[10]

Current advisors to the company include David Shipley, executive editor of Bloomberg View and former op-ed page editor at The New York Times, and Jacob Lewis, the former managing editor of The New Yorker.[11] Allison Goldberg, senior vice president of Time Warner Investments, joined Mic’s board of directors in April 2017.[12]

Mic senior reporter Jack Smith IV was fired in September 2018 after several sexual misconduct accusations against him were published on Jezebel.[13]

Content

Since 2018, Mic has produced video content covering social justice and progressive issues, described as "serious issues important to young people",[14] distributed through the Mic website and through social media. This content is supplimented with advertorial videos produced for clients.[15]

Writing for Forbes in 2014, Abe Brown described PolicyMic's style as hyperbolic, with a mix of serious analysis of issues and attention-seeking listicles. Brown grouped the site with Upworthy, Buzzfeed, and BusinessInsider as opposed to more conventional news media such as The New York Times and Washington Post.[5]

The site sometimes enlists politician and celebrity contributors; these have included Senator Rand Paul,[16] former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,[17] Senator Kirsten Gillibrand[18] and radio host Daisy Rosario.[19] In December 2013, the White House worked with Mic on what was called an "Open Mic" competition to "make health care work for our generation".[20][21][22]

Funding and revenue

Mic generates revenue through advertising known as "branded content". Digiday.com reported in November 2014 that "brands like Microsoft, Cole Haan, Cadillac and most recently GE have all tapped Mic in the last few months in the hopes of using its millennial expertise to reach the site's audience of educated 20-somethings".[23]

The New York Observer positively reacted to the company's financial practices in 2014, claiming that Mic had not made a profit and "is in the increasingly rare habit of actually paying each one of its contributors".[24]

As of April 2017, the company had raised $52 million[12] in funding from investors, including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Lerer Ventures, Advancit Capital, Red Swan Ventures, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation,[25] Time Warner Investments, Kyu Collective and You & Mr Jones.[12] The company has not disclosed its valuation,[7] though The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2017 that it was “in the range of the ‘mid hundreds of millions’ of dollars.”[12]

The company laid off several employees in late 2017, as did other digital media companies.[15] Inconsistencies in tracking viewer numbers, changes in Facebook's algorithms and advertising rates, and an overemphasis on search-friendly text stories were all cited as partial reasons.[15][26] The company shifted business models, with less content being produced overall in favor of longer-form video journalism covering social justice and progressive causes. Business Insider cited the company's strategy as an example of the "pivot to video" idea common among digital media companies during that time.[15]

References

  1. ↑ "PolicyMic.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS. Retrieved July 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ "mic.com Site Overview". Alexa Internet. Retrieved September 8, 2018.
  3. ↑ "Mic's plans to become a millennial media powerhouse". Fortune.
  4. ↑ "Mic: Media company for millennials". Fox5NY.com.
  5. 1 2 3 Brown, Abram (May 28, 2014). "The Media Startup Getting 20-Year-Olds To Talk About More Than Cat Pictures". Forbes. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  6. ↑ Dietz, David (January 19, 2011). "Snapshot of a New Tunisia: An Uneasy, But Hopeful Calm". PolicyMic. Retrieved January 19, 2015.
  7. 1 2 Stelter, Brian (April 28, 2014). "Another $10 million in funding for PolicyMic, a startup with shades of BuzzFeed and Upworthy". CNNMoney. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  8. ↑ "'Mic' Drop: PolicyMic Changes Its Name, Revamps Layout". Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  9. ↑ Barr, Jeremy; Sterne, Peter (12 February 2015). "Mic fires news director after plagiarism investigation". Politico. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
  10. ↑ "Mic Acquires Video App Hyper". AdWeek. March 8, 2016. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  11. ↑ Bilton, Ricardo (February 7, 2014). "Can PolicyMic become the voice of the millennials?". Digiday. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Shields, Mike (April 7, 2017). "Digital Publisher Mic Raises $21 Million in Series C Round". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved April 7, 2017.
  13. ↑ Levine, Jon (2018-09-25). "Mic Terminates Reporter After 'Multiple, Disturbing Allegations'". TheWrap. Retrieved 2018-10-08.
  14. ↑ Lewis, Hilary (April 17, 2014). "The Next Buzzfeed? 5 Hot New Websites". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  15. 1 2 3 4 Shields, Mark (11 March 2018). "Digital media startup Mic says it's doing just fine despite talk of an industry Armageddon". Business Insider. Retrieved 6 June 2018. (Subscription required (help)).
  16. ↑ Paul, Rand (March 13, 2013). "I Filibustered to Defend Millennials". PolicyMic. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  17. ↑ Rice, Condoleezza (October 3, 2011). "America Tries its Best". PolicyMic. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  18. ↑ Gillibrand, Kirsten (April 30, 2013). "Ending the Epidemic of Sexual Assault in the Military". IdentityMic. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  19. ↑ "Daisy Rosario". Futuro Media Group. Retrieved September 12, 2016.
  20. ↑ Bhuiyan, Johana (December 4, 2013). "White House taps PolicyMic to engage millennials on A.C.A." Capital New York. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  21. ↑ Horowitz, Jake (December 12, 2013). "Here's What Millennials Think Obama Should Do to Make Health Care Better for Our Generation". PolicyMic. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  22. ↑ OpenMic Editors (March 31, 2014). "The White House Responds to PolicyMic's Health Care Open Mic". PolicyMic. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  23. ↑ Bilton, Ricardo (November 25, 2014). "Inside Mic's millennial native ads pitch to brands". Digiday. Retrieved March 11, 2015.
  24. ↑ Smith, Jack, IV (April 29, 2014). "PolicyMic Raises $10 Million To Keep Chasing The Millennial News Audience". The New York Observer. Retrieved March 19, 2015.
  25. ↑ Ha, Anthony (October 15, 2013). "PolicyMic Raises $3M, Betting That Millennials Want Substantive News and Commentary". TechCrunch. Retrieved June 16, 2014.
  26. ↑ Mullin, Benjamin (11 January 2018). "How Many People Did That Story Reach? It Depends Who's Counting". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 6 June 2018.
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