Ex.co

Ex.co (stylized EX.CO and formerly Playbuzz) is an online publishing platform for publishers, brand agencies, and individual content creators to create content in interactive formats such as polls, quizzes, lists, video snippets, slideshows, and countdowns. Playbuzz-generated content is generally associated with viral media that can be shared via social media or embedded elsewhere online.[2] Founded in 2012, content generated from Playbuzz was the most shared on Facebook as of January 2015, with an estimated 10 million shares per month.[3][4]

EX.CO
Formerly
Playbuzz
Founded2012
FoundersTom Pachys, Shaul Olmert
Headquarters
New York City 
Key people
Tom Pachys, CEO[1]
Shaul Olmert, President[1]
Websiteex.co

History

Playbuzz was founded in 2012 by Shaul Olmert and Tom Pachys. Olmert is the son of former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert[5] and has worked as an executive with Nickelodeon and also cofounded the social game app GameGround.[6] Pachys is a graduate of IDC and also the cofounder of Whimado. The company originally raised $3 million in a Series A funding round from Carmel Ventures.[7]

Playbuzz was founded as PlayChanger in July 2012. PlayChanger worked with game developers and publishers to distribute crowd-sourced content games within verticals such as sports, music, and fashion. Playbuzz was officially launched in December 2013 as a modified version of PlayChanger.[8]

By June 2014, Playbuzz broke the top 10 of Facebook's most-shared publishers.[9] The website itself reached 70 million unique views the same month, half of which were referred from Facebook.[9] Within 10 months of the Playbuzz platform's launch, it surpassed 7.5 million monthly Facebook shares, making it the second-most-shared publisher on Facebook in September 2014.[10]

According to Forbes, seven of the 10 biggest stories on Facebook in September 2014 involved content that originated on Playbuzz.[10] The company took over the number one spot as the most-shared publisher on Facebook in November 2014 with approximately 9 million shares, holding the spot through January 2015 with an estimated 10 million shares.[11] Playbuzz was listed by Inc. as one of the "15 Israeli Startups Getting Hot at the Turn of 2015"[12] and also voted one of Europe's Hottest Startups the same year by Wired.[13]

In September 2017, the company announced it had raised an additional $35 million in a Series C funding round led by Viola Growth with participation from existing investors including the Walt Disney Company and Saban Ventures.[14][15] This brought Playbuzz's total funding to $66 million.[16]

In November 2019, Playbuzz changed its company name to Ex.co.[17] It also launched a subscription-based content marketing platform.[18]

Content

Content is generated by individual content creators as well as brands, publishers and agencies.[9] Playbuzz formats are free to use for editorial purposes, with a cost associated for branded or sponsored content campaigns.[19] The website has ready-to-use formats for posts that have been used by publishers such as TheBlaze, The Huffington Post, MarthaStewart.com, AOL, and MTV to push content to social media.[9][2] The company launched its first video format in 2016,[20] and full article format in 2017.[21]

See also

References
  1. "Playbuzz CEO Shaul Olmert to Step Down". Calcalist. Retrieved 31 December 2019.
  2. Dewey, Caitlin (9 October 2014). "Meet Playbuzz, the Israeli clickbait farm that just beat Buzzfeed - and is coming for you next". The Washington Post. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  3. Shapiro, Ariel (22 January 2015). "Playful Playbuzz". Jerusalem Post. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  4. "The Biggest Facebook Publishers of January 2015". NewsWhip. February 2015. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  5. "Interviews: Shaul Olmert". PBS. 28 March 2006. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  6. Takahashi, Dean (17 November 2010). "GameGround raises $5.3M for gamer social networking app". Venture Beat (Games Beat). Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  7. Kosoff, Maya (10 October 2014). "A BuzzFeed Clone Founded 10 Months Ago Is Crushing Other Websites On Facebook - Including BuzzFeed". The Business Insider. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  8. Nicholson, David (14 October 2014). "What Kind of Quiz Are You? 5 Ways That Playbuzz Out-Muscled BuzzFeed In The Social Content Sensation Of The Year". Forbes. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  9. Kosoff, Maya (11 July 2014). "A Son of Israel's Ex-Prime Minister Created a BuzzFeed Clone, And It's Already Become Gigantic on Facebook". The Business Insider. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  10. O'Reilly, Lara (18 March 2015). "Playbuzz, the Israeli startup crushing all other publishers on Facebook, just raised $16 million". The Business Insider. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  11. "The Biggest Facebook Publishers of January 2015". News Whip. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  12. Newlands, Murray (16 December 2014). "15 Israeli Startups Getting Hot at the Turn of 2015". Shalom Life. Retrieved 16 February 2015.
  13. "Europe's hottest startups 2015". Wired. 5 August 2015. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  14. Shead, Sam (27 September 2017). "Playbuzz raised $35 million for its platform that aims to help publishers engage with the 'Snapchat generation'". The Business Insider. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  15. Marshall, Jack (27 September 2017). "Disney-backed Playbuzz raises $35 million to grow content creation platform". MarketWatch. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  16. Ellingson, Annlee (27 September 2017). "Disney invests more in accelerator graduate Playbuzz". L.A. Biz. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
  17. Ha, Anthony (18 November 2019). "Playbuzz becomes Ex.co and expands its content marketing platform". Tech Crunch. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  18. "פלייבאז משנה פוקוס ועוברת לשרת את המותגים העסקיים". Calcalist (in Hebrew). 19 November 2019. Retrieved 27 February 2020.
  19. Frederick, Ben (1 April 2016). "Playbuzz Raises $15M To Grow Sponsored Content Business". Media Post. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  20. Ha, Anthony (8 March 2016). "Playbuzz makes it easier to skip the boring parts with Video Snaps". TechCrunch. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  21. Ha, Anthony (21 July 2017). "Playbuzz unveils a new editor for writing articles chock full of interactive content". TechCrunch. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
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