The NewFronts – the digital world’s equivalent of the TV industry’s upfronts – are running all this week in New York City. Here’s an overview of what happened on the first day:
Yahoo!
Last week Yahoo launched two new ad formats in the run up to its NewFront, with a native video format and a video format aimed at generating app installs. Yahoo’s big announcement was that Simon Cowell is to be part of its ‘Ultimate DJ’ series. Yahoo also announced new video series across its Live, Original Programming.
Yahoo also announced a renewed partnership for a second year with Live Nation to live stream concerts with the addition of festivals; The Pursuit, a new scripted original long-form series from Scott Stuber and Beth McCarthy Miller; and multiple new programs from Yahoo’s Digital Magazines, including I Am Naomi, starring executive producer Naomi Campbell, and Riding Shotgun with Michelle Rodriguez, starring executive producer Michelle Rodriguez. Yahoo his now producing 55 original series in total.
New York Times
Yesterday the New York Times who showcased some early experimentation with virtual reality at its NewFronts presentation, “Every Angle,” in New York City. The Times collaborated with Vrse – a virtual reality app that can be used with Android and Google cardboard – on the early experiments and offered attendees the chance to view a virtual reality film starring the French artist JR.
The virtual reality film, titled “Walking New York,” takes viewers through the making of the Magazine’s cover, for which JR took a photo of a recent immigrant to New York and pasted a 150-foot-tall version of the portrait on the Flatiron Plaza in Manhattan. The Times shared details about shared information about a variety of new video series and shows, which you can find more information about New York Times.
Buzzfeed
Buzzfeed’s big announcement was its ‘Process for Optimizing and Understanding Network Diffusion’, which it calls ‘Pound’. Pound looks at social sharing of Buzzfeed posts and analyses how it is shared.
Since last year’s NewFronts event,Buzzfeed has produced 1,840 videos. Buzzfeed videos are now viewed more than one billion times per month, up from 17 million views per month two years ago, and 40 to 50 percent of those views come from international audiences.
