The 11th Hour Dispatch — Tuesday, July 10, 2018
BIG BUSINESS
YouTube today announced a $25 million investment to fight fake news content and assist news organizations on its platform. The fund will help news organizations, the first of which include Vox Media and India Today, to adapt their content to YouTube and effectively monetize it. YouTube will also roll out funding to 20 markets to help organizations “create sustainable video operations in-house” through best practice education and audience development initiatives. In terms of fighting fake news, YouTube will promote “authoritative sources” over “sensationalist” videos in searches and add news previews in breaking news searches that will allow users to click links to full articles. Additionally, conspiracy theory videos will include link overlays to trusted third-party organizations like Encyclopaedia Britannica and Wikipedia, the latter of which has high school English teachers cringing nationwide.
BINGE WATCH
Reese Witherspoon is inching closer to Oprah status with each sip of sweet tea. She and her Hello Sunshine production company have signed a deal with AT&T that will launch a new channel featuring series focused on female creators and stories. The channel, Hello Sunshine Video On Demand, will act as a “launching pad” for two new series from Hello Sunshine on DirecTV. And you know one of those series belongs to Ms. Witherspoon. Shine On with Reese will showcase what “inspires, motivates and gives joy” to leading women and share “their perspectives on ambition, work, family and hopes for the future.” The guest lineup sounds like something out of my personal vision board, including Dolly Parton, Ava DuVernay, and Pink. Female entrepreneurs, activists, and authors will also stop by when it premieres on July 17. The second show, Master the Mess, is an unscripted series documenting “decluttering gurus” Clea Shearer and Joanna Teplin as they help people get their lives organized, or as I like to call it, Anti-Hoarders. It premieres on September 4.
YOUNG MONEY
Oh, joy! Another scooter startup that’s raking in large amounts of money! Yesterday, Lime, which started as a simple bikeshare company (oh, those were the days) announced that it is raising $335 million, with a “sizeable investment” from Uber. The investment also includes a partnership that will bring Lime scooters to the Uber app. New investors Alphabet’s GV, IVP, Atomico, and Fidelity join existing investors a16z, the Singapore Sovereign Wealth Fund, Coatue, and Fifth Wall. This round will bring Lime’s funding total to $467 million. The startup did not disclose how this would affect its valuation, but Bloomberg reports a total somewhere in the ballpark of $1.1 billion. You may recall that Lime’s closest competitor, Bird, recently pulled in $300 million, pushing its valuation to $2 billion. While Bird was the first to market with scooters, many seem to think Lime may have the upper hand. Lime offers not only scooters but standard bikes and (arguably cooler) electric bikes, and it seems to be going more for a general transportation approach rather than just jumping on the scooter bandwagon. Also, in 2017, the company reported that 60% of its first-time customers use the service again, which is a pretty telling statistic about its likelihood to succeed.
NOTHIN’ BUT ‘NET
Tyra Banks will be joined by actress Francia Raisa (who also, fun fact, gave Selena Gomez a kidney) for Life Size 2.
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