go90

go90
Founded October 2015 (2015-10)
Headquarters United States
Owner Verizon Communications
Key people Richard Tom (GM and CTO, Verizon Digital Entertainment)
Products Streaming service
Television
Movies
Parent Oath Inc.
Website www.go90.com

go90 was an American over-the-top video service and mobile app owned and operated by Verizon Communications. The service was positioned as a mobile-oriented "social entertainment platform" targeted primarily towards millennials, featuring a mixture of new and acquired content from various providers. The service was available exclusively within the United States, although as of March 2018 some of its content became available internationally via Tumblr.

Following an unsuccessful launch (which content partners credited to a lack of firm content strategies) and resulting managerial turnover (including a relaunch of the service by the staff of Verizon acquisition and former competitor Vessel), on June 29, 2018, Verizon announced that go90 would be discontinued on July 31, 2018.

History

go90 was originally formed using assets and talent acquired from Intel's unreleased OnCue streaming service, which Verizon acquired for around $200 million in January 2014.[1][2][3] Unveiled in September 2015, go90 was described as being a mobile-first "social entertainment platform" targeting millennial demographics, featuring video content from various partners, as well as features such as the ability to join "crews" related to shows, and to create clips from its shows and share them on social networks. Verizon planned to leverage ad technology and content assets it acquired in its purchase of AOL.[4][5][6] Verizon planned to release 50-55 new, short episode series.[7]

Chip Canter, formerly of NBCUniversal, was brought on as general manager in March 2016, and hired Ivana Kirkbride of Vessel and YouTube as chief content officer. Under Canter, the service's content strategy shifted to one focusing on a wider variety of content and genres.[8][9][10][11] Despite high expectations from Verizon, go90's first year of operations were unsuccessful; partners reported that their content was drawing a minuscule audience (with most content only receiving view counts within the thousands, although some, such as The Runner, were able to reach at least a million), and that even under Canter's leadership, the service lacked clear content and distribution strategies.[12] Digiday reported via go90 employees that Verizon's executives "were so consumed early on with the idea of providing a large quantity of high-quality content, that they never showed any focus. There was no indication that Verizon actually knew the audience that they were trying to reach."[10]

On January 23, 2017, it was reported that the staff of Vessel (which had been acquired by Verizon in October) would be taking over go90's operations and redeveloping the service, resulting in Verizon laying off 155 go90 employees from its San Jose office. Vessel's co-founder Richard Tom was appointed as chief technology officer of Verizon Digital Entertainment.[13][14][15] In late-March 2017, go90 released a significant redesign of its mobile app, which is designed to help improve discovery and content recommendations, and prioritize live content (such as sports) within the interface. The redesign also incorporates the "motion poster" concept for advertisement displays that originated from Vessel.[16][17] Chip Canter was replaced as general manager in April 2017 by Richard Tom.[9]

In April 2017, it was reported that go90's app only had 2.1 million average monthly users.[18] Verizon subsequently acquired Yahoo, and merged it with AOL into the subsidiary Oath. Its lead executive Tim Armstrong stated in February 2018 that go90 had been placed within the Oath division, but would likely be wound-down in the future. Armstrong admitted that go90 was a "super ambitious project", but that it was difficult to build its brand, and that its content deals could be better-leveraged by Oath's individual properties instead.[19] In March 2018, fellow Oath property Tumblr began to syndicate some of go90's original content internationally—which Digiday considered as being a pilot project for this strategy.[20]

After more aggressive promotion of its content across AOL and Yahoo properties, go90 had managed to increase its average monthly user count to 17 million. On June 29, 2018, Oath officially announced that go90 would be shuttered on July 31, 2018. The company stated that it would be evaluating the futures of go90's original series, and that it would "focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment for today's mobile consumers and tomorrow's 5G applications."[21]

Notable shows

go90 features original series like Mr. Student Body President[22] starring Jeremy Shada and Arden Rose, The Runner, T@gged, Tween Fest, Street Fighter: Resurrection and Transformers: Prime Wars Trilogy from companies like MTV, Funny or Die, CollegeHumor, My Dead Ex for AwesomenessTV, Nerdist Industries, Rooster Teeth, Machinima, and more[23], as well as producers like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon,[24] and LeBron James.[25]

Reception

Advertisers have been critical of the service, citing slower user adoption than expected. Warren Zenna, a digital specialist at Havas Media, categorized the service as being like YouTube but not as good. Part of the challenge was a poor interface, and difficulty finding the application.[26] A reviewer for Boy Genius Report said that the development of go90 was a continuation of Verizon's opposition to net neutrality.[27] Verizon planned to offer its subscribers go90 content without that content counting toward their bandwidth cap.[28]

During Verizon's Q4 2016 earnings call on January 24, 2017, chief financial officer Matt Ellis, cited “... the average daily usage in go90 was consistent sequentially at about 30 minutes per viewer, with less than 20% of traffic surfed on the Verizon wireless network in the second half of the year.”[29][30]

Beginning in 2017, the National Women's Soccer League began streaming games in the United States exclusively on go90, as part of a paid multi-year sponsorship agreement,[31] though after repeated technical issues, the league would live-stream several weeks of matches domestically on the NWSL website.[32] Continuing issues with go90, as well as the agreement's more limited accessibility drew sustained criticism from journalists covering the league.[33][34]

References

  1. ↑ Scolaro, Christina (January 21, 2014). "Intel sells OnCue TV business to Verizon". CNBC. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  2. ↑ Moritz, Scott; King, Ian (January 21, 2014). "Verizon Said to Spend Less Than $200 Million on Intel TV". Bloomberg. Retrieved April 3, 2018.
  3. ↑ "How Verizon's Go90 ended up as a mobile-only video service". CNET. 2015-09-15. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  4. ↑ "Verizon's Mobile Video Service Go90 Launches To Public – TechCrunch". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  5. ↑ Spangler, Todd (2015-09-08). "Verizon Launches Go90 Free Mobile-Video App to Chew Up Wireless Bandwidth". Variety. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  6. ↑ "Inside Verizon's Plans to Reinvent the TV Ad Model With Go90". Ad Age. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  7. ↑ Guerrasio, Jason (17 November 2015). "Verizon thinks it's created the go-to entertainment app for Millennials — and it might be right". Business Insider. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  8. ↑ Petski, Denise (8 December 2016). "Verizon Taps Erin McPherson As Head Of Content Strategy & Programming". Retrieved 21 September 2017.
  9. 1 2 "Verizon's Go90 General Manager Chip Canter Out as Vessel Team Takes Over". Variety. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  10. 1 2 "'Never had a chance': Inside Verizon's $1 billion bad bet on Go90". Digiday. 2018-07-02. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  11. ↑ "Pitch deck: Verizon's plans for Go90 in 2017 and beyond". Digiday. 2017-01-27. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  12. ↑ "Verizon's Go90 partners start to lose faith, call platform 'absolute' dud, but signs of audience persist". FierceCable. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  13. ↑ "Verizon acquires subscription video service Vessel, will shut it down on Oct. 31". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2018-07-09.
  14. ↑ "Verizon Lays Off 155 Employees at Go90 Division (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  15. ↑ Evans, Greg (2017-01-24). "Verizon Axes 155 Go90 Staffers; Streaming Service Targets Millennials". Deadline. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  16. ↑ "YouTube Challenger Vessel Starts Showing Off Its Service, and a Slick New Ad Format". Recode. Vox Media. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  17. ↑ "Verizon announces Go90 updates in effort to save cash-burning video platform". FierceCable. Retrieved 1 June 2017.
  18. ↑ McAlone, Nathan (1 April 2017). "Verizon has spent at least $200 million on video for its go90 service, which has 2.1 million monthly app users". Business Insider. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  19. ↑ Roettgers, Janko (2018-02-13). "Oath CEO Tim Armstrong Casts Doubt on Future of Go90". Variety. Retrieved 2018-04-24.
  20. ↑ "With Go90 flatlining, Verizon sees Tumblr as home to original digital video programs". Digiday. 2018-04-20. Retrieved 2018-04-24.
  21. ↑ Spangler, Todd (2018-06-28). "Verizon Is Shutting Down Go90, Its Ill-Fated Mobile Video Service". Variety. Retrieved 2018-06-29.
  22. ↑ "'Mr. Student Body President' on Verizon's go90".
  23. ↑ Johnson, Jocelyn (April 11, 2016). "Verizon Hires GM of Digital Entertainment and Go90 - Grabs Chip Canter from NBCUniversal - VideoInk". videoink. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  24. ↑ Andreeva, Nellie (March 16, 2016). "Ben Affleck & Matt Damon Reality Series 'The Runner' To Launch On Verizon Go90". deadline.com. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  25. ↑ Petski, Denise (January 20, 2016). "Sports Comedy From LeBron James' Uninterrupted Set For Go90". deadline.com. Retrieved 2016-07-22.
  26. ↑ Shield, Mike (2 August 2016). "Advertisers Say Verizon's go90 Rollout Has Been Rocky". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 4 July 2017.
  27. ↑ Epstein, Zach (24 December 2015). "Verizon Net Neutrality Violation In The Works With Go90 Premium". Boy Genius Report. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  28. ↑ Krause, Reinhardt (22 December 2015). "Verizon Revs Premium Go90, Data Cap Limits Excluded". news.investors.com. Retrieved 24 December 2015.
  29. ↑ "Go90 'not dead,' had best organic growth in December, Verizon says | FierceCable". www.fiercecable.com. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  30. ↑ "Verizon Communications (VZ) Q4 2016 Results - Earnings Call Transcript". www.nasdaq.com. Retrieved 2017-02-05.
  31. ↑ "NWSL, go90 announce exclusive streaming partnership". Black and Red United (SBNation). Retrieved April 14, 2017.
  32. ↑ Balf, Celia (May 19, 2017). "NWSL: For the next few weeks games will be live streamed on website and the league's app". Excelle Sports. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  33. ↑ Smith, Chad C (May 1, 2017). "The NWSL's go90 Deal Could Be Hurting the League". thebluetestament.com. Retrieved June 19, 2017.
  34. ↑ Lee, Allison (April 13, 2017). "Lee: NWSL missed the mark with go90". The Equalizer. Retrieved June 19, 2017.


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