A case study in Start Up Companies
Vox.com
A few things about its history
Vox.com is an American website that broadcasts the news and concerns explanatory journalism. Vox.com is one of the editorial brands owned by Vox Media, an American multinational digital media company which was founded on August 1st 2002 by Jerome Armstrong, Tyler Bleizinsky and Markos Moulitsas. Among the other editorial brands that Vox Media owns are SB Nation, The Verge, Polygon, Curbed, Eater, Racked and Recode. The company owns and operates its offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin and San Francisco. The network now features over 300 sites with over 400 paid writers.
Ezra Klein founded Vox.com in 2014, when he resigned from the Washington Post. It was launched on 6th April 2014 with Klein as its editor-in-chief. His opening editorial essay, “How politics makes us stupid”, explained his distress about political polarization in the context of Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan’s theories on how people protect themselves from information that conflicts with their core beliefs. Klein has expressed his expectation to “improve technology of the news” and build an online platform better equipped for making news understandable.
The new site that was created, Vox.com, employed 20 people among whom there also were some of Klein’s colleagues from The Washington Post. Vox.com is noted for its concept of “explanatory journalism” and its use of “card starks” that define terms and provide context within an article. It has been described as having a liberal or progressive editorial perspective.
How does it work?
There are several topics presented to choose from. Some of these topics have a title which seems to be rather common such as Culture, World, Business and Finance etc., while others are original such as Identities, Explainers, First Person and New Money.
What makes Vox.com special is the way that the articles are written which is extremely explanatory. There are also other factors that contribute to his uniqueness such as the use of “card stacks”. “Card stacks” is an attempt by Vox to reuse prior journalistic work and in order to do so “card stacks” are made in bright “canary yellow” that provide context and define terms within an article. The cards are perpetually maintained as a form of “wiki page written by one person with a little attitude”. As an example, a card about the term “insurance exchange” may be reused on stories about the Affordable Care Act.
The site uses Vox Media’s Chorus content management system, which enables journalists to easily create articles with complex visual effects and transitions, such as photos that change as the reader scrolls. Vox’s site you can also find podcast as the writers support the idea that the mission of explaining the news should not have to do with writing alone.
Readership and Presence
As far as is readership is concerned in June 2015, Vox.com had 54.1 million unique visitors, of which 41% were between the ages of 18 and 34, according to comScore Inc.
It holds a strong presence in the social media as it has received 1,109,030 likes on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/Vox) and 480,000 people follow it on Twitter (https://twitter.com/voxdotcom). It has also got a YouTube channel where 1,501,677 people have subscribed ( https://www.youtube.com/vox). People can also subscribe to Vox in iTunes or find it in Spotify or Soundcloud.
Initial Funding
As of August 2015, Vox Media, which owns Vox, had received funding valuing it at over $1 billion, thus becoming a startup unicorn. Of this amount, $200 million came from NBCUniversal, $100 million from the venture arm of Comcast (NBC Universal’s parent company), and $46.8 million from General Atlantic. Other investors included Accel Partners, Allen and Company, Khosla Ventures and former AOL executive Ted Leonsis.
How does it make money?
As Vox is a brand that belongs to the Vox Media it makes money in exactly the same way that Vox Media does, through advertisements. Jeo Bankoff, Vox CEO, explained his company’s strategy while talking at the AD Age Digital conference. He said that Vox media used talent and work flow to help advertisers tell better stories to valuable audiences. He also referred to the fact that by using an advertising platform called “Harmony” they help their customers target the audiences that they need to. Nevertheless Vox.com does not include advertisements itself. At the bottom of the main page any potential customer can click on the words “Advertise with us” below the Vox Media’s company logo which redirects them to Vox Media’s advertising site. Thus, Vox.com provides Vox Media with customers and Vox Media funds Vox.com in return.
Criticism
Even before it was officially launched Vox.com was already being criticized by conservative media commentators.
After it was launched it has been described as using “Upworthy” headlines to enhance share ability and to act as a “Wikipedia for ongoing news stories.”
David Harsanvi criticized the site’s concept of “explanatory journalism” by his article in The Federalist titled “How Vox makes us stupid“ by mocking Ezra Klein’s launching essay “How politics make us stupid” while The Economist, commenting on the same article said the website was “bright and promising” and the premise behind the site was “profoundly honorable”.
The website Deadspin wrote a post listing each time Vox ran a correction for a factual error in an article, in December 2014.
After the US elections in 2016, when Donald Trump was elected In 2016 president, Glenn Greenwald criticized media including Vox for “suppressing reporting that reflects negatively on them and instead confines itself to hagiography.” in the run-up and aftermath of the election.
Vox.com Business Model Canvas
