The House committee leading the investigation into the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol issued subpoenas to four major tech companies Thursday. January 6 select committee chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS) sent letters to YouTube parent company Alphabet, Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, Reddit and Twitter demanding for those companies to provide […]
GoFundMe gets Classy (literally) with acquisition of nonprofit giving platform
GoFundMe announced today that it will acquire Classy, a nonprofit fundraising software company. This is an all equity deal, though the company did not disclose the financials. Anyone can make a GoFundMe, from a local food pantry to a community member in need. But Classy is more specialized, working directly with nonprofits. Since its 2010 […]
Pendulum raises $5.9M to help organizations track harmful narratives
Pendulum helps companies, governments and other organizations track harmful narratives on social media platforms and elsewhere on the web. The company today announced that it has raised a $5.9 million seed round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participation from Cercano Management and others. The service was incubated inside Madrona Venture Labs. “Pendulum’s platform applies […]
The New York Times plans to buy The Athletic for $550M
The New York Times Company agreed to purchase sports media outlet The Athletic in a deal valued at $550 million, The Information reports. This deal comes after months of speculation — at one point, The Athletic CEO Alex Mather approached Axios about a merger, which did not come to fruition. With this deal, the company […]
Despite scrapped IPO, Babbel sees fast growth for its language learning service
Berlin-based language learning service Babbel was supposed to IPO on the Frankfurt stock exchange in late September. But only a few days before the initial listing the company pulled the plug with an eye on the developing Evergrande debt crisis that made the global stock markets very nervous. It has yet to announce a new […]
Interactive streaming platform Adventr raises $5M in seed funding
Founder and CEO Devo Harris got the idea for Adventr while working with the music industry’s biggest artists. “Adventr was inspired by my experience creating content for artists like Kanye West, Britney Spears and Nas,” he said. “The music videos where I introduced interactive components shot up in popularity, proving that engaging viewers was not […]
Google’s Area 120 launches Qaya, a service offering web storefronts for digital creators
A team at Google is today launching a new service called Qaya, which will allow creators to easily set up new web storefronts where they can sell their products and services directly to their audiences. The project is the latest to emerge from Google’s in-house project incubator, Area 120, which was recently a part of […]
Twitch’s newest moderation tool spots accounts trying to get around channel bans
Twitch introduced a new way for streamers to fight accounts that evade channel-level bans Tuesday. The automated tool is called “Suspicious User Detection” and can spot users trying to get around bans, giving anyone moderating a Twitch channel more recourse for dealing with potentially disruptive behavior before it starts. The company announced that the new […]
Vistaprint acquires Crello and Depositphotos, rebrands as Vista, to better take on Canva and others in online creative design for businesses
Vistaprint, has built a name for itself in providing printing and marketing services for consumers, sole traders and small businesses, is making a pair of acquisitions as it looks for better ways to square up to the opportunity to serve SMBs with digital services. The company is acquiring online graphic design editor Crello, and an […]
Memberful, a Patreon subsidiary, launches a newsletter product to challenge Substack
Between Facebook outages and Twitch data breaches, last week was bumpy for social platforms and the creators who build businesses on them. As internet creators look to diversify their income streams and retain ownership over their audiences, membership software maker Memberful is launching a newsletter feature today to add to its subscription membership services. While […]