Joe Spieser launched LittleThings.com in 2014  as a women-focused digital media site devoted to uplifting content, like animal videos, recipes, and other feel-good stories. Things were booming before an algorithm change, with 20 million social media followers mostly built from Facebook's massive userbase, he tweeted. Speiser said Facebook even used LittleThings as an example of how to build a successful media company at one of its annual conferences. But traffic to the company's pages was throttled when Facebook changed its algorithm to promote posts that it thought people would engage with the most, like posts from friends and family, in a move it hoped would keep users on the platform longer. However, it also began to promote violent, false, and divisive content. Speiser tweeted that CEO Mark Zuckerberg "didn't like the fluffy content we were producing and he wanted to be taken more seriously. " Speiser said his then-flourishing site lost 90% of organic traffic on Facebook. The readership loss forced Speiser to let go of more than 100 staff members, and the former CEO said he lost $100 million. "It was a death sentence," he said. The now- angel investor warned other startup founders that although building businesses on apps like Amazon, TikTok, Google, Spotify, and Instagram can get you millions of eyeballs and fast growth, "can you ever truly sleep well at night knowing at any time it can all be taken away with just a simple algorithm change?"  
LittleThings eventually shut down in 2018. One source close to the company told Insider at the time that "Facebook is the destroyer of worlds." Speiser declined a more in-depth interview for this story. This algorithm change has been at the center of a debate over Facebook's influence on news production. Publishers were forced to reorient their business models to reach the platform's readers, who showed that they were more apt to click on and engage with sensationalistic and divisive content over other forms of stories. So-called clickbait content became more common as a result. Facebook's parent company, now known as Meta, has pushed back against the reporting from the documents, saying they do not paint a complete picture of the company's various initiatives to combat harmful activities on its platforms. Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know. Subscribe to push notifications

Startup founder says he lost his company and $100 million by relying on Facebook: 'Sends chills down my spine' to watch others build businesses on Instagram and TikTok

In 2018, digital media startups crashed and burned, unable to sustain their business models amidst changing social media algorithms, fickle readers and advertisers. Facebook’s fickleness sunk LittleThings and Mic, and contributed to layoffs at Upworthy. When the social network stopped reliably sending readers its way, those publishers couldn’t hang on. Mic first saw traffic from Facebook decline, then the same network hit the knockout blow by not renewing a Facebook Watch deal that would have served as a lifeline. Meanwhile, the old guard sought refuge with billionaires. Salesforce founder Marc Benioff snapped up Time, Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon bought Fortune and biotech magnate Patrick Soon-Shiong bought the Los Angeles Times this year, joining notable billionaires like Jeff Bezos (The Washington Post) and Laurene Powell Jobs (The Atlantic) in owning a media property. Companies without a benefactor sought to hang on by diversifying. Publishers like Bloomberg, Condé Nast’s Vanity Fair and Wired and New York Media erected paywalls. Publishers like BuzzFeed sold products and others started affiliate programs. Finally, programmatic revenue streams rose in importance, as publishers like Vox Media tried to scale up high-end ad experiences with Concert. Here’s a look back at the way publishing transformed in 2018. February: LittleThings shuts down . The four-year-old producer of uplifting content distributed across social media saw its traffic plummet 75% after Facebook changed its algorithm to focus on content from friends and family. March: Vice brought in Nancy Dubuc to serve as CEO. The former A&E Networks exec stepped in after the company faced allegations of a culture of sexual harassment and reportedly missed earnings projections of $805 million by more than $100 million . April: RockYou buys LittleThings. RockYou specializes in squeezing profit out of mobile gaming apps with declining audiences, and saw an opportunity to turn around distressed media properties, too, in part by cutting costs, CEO Lisa Marino told AdExchanger later that year. Condé Nast erected another paywall, on Vanity Fair . Vox Media pushes for diversification by recruiting more publishers to its own ad tech platform Concert, which offers unique, video-focused ad creatives and touts better context and engagement than social media. June: Biotech billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong completes his purchase of the Los Angeles Times and The San Diego Union-Tribune from Tronc. He calls fake news a “cancer of our time,” and plans to mount a West Coast alternative to The New York Times and The Washington Post. June: RockYou snapped up CafeMedia’s publishing portfolio. CafeMedia continued to sell ads, but decided managing publishers’ ads is a better business than creating content. July: Bryan Goldberg scooped up Gawker in a bankruptcy auction for $1.5 million, the first of two distressed media properties he’d bring into his fold in 2018. July: Business intelligence platform Uzabase buys Quartz, with plans to integrate more of its content into its NewsPicks content platform. Paid membership follows in November. August: Upworthy lays off 40% of staff , or 31 people, and president Eli Pariser and editor-in-chief Liz Heron left. Like LittleThings, it also saw traffic drop due to Facebook
September: Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife Lynne Benioff buy Time for $190 million. October: Lenny Letter, the newsletter founded by “Girls” creator Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, shut down after three years. Condé Nast and Hearst had sold ads for the feminist publication. November: After laying off its editorial staff, Mic sold for $5 million to Bustle Digital Group. The sale represented a 95% drop from its previous valuation of $100 million. “The company simply failed to reach scale with an audience,” opined AdExchanger contributor and Tubular Labs CEO Rob Gabel. November: Thai billionaire Chatchaval Jiaravanon acquires Fortune for $150 million. November: BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti floats the idea of a digital media merger in an interview with The New York Times. Peers like Vice, Vox Media, Refinery29 and Group Nine could band together to negotiate with Facebook and Google, he said . November: Rookie Magazine, an eight-year-old magazine for teen girls, closed its doors. Founder Tavi Gevinson decided not to take on funding, ask for subscriptions, pivot or scale – and was left with the option to close down, integrity intact. “Digital media has become an increasingly difficult business, and Rookie in its current form is no longer financially sustainable," she said. November: Condé Nast CEO Bob Sauerberg departs , with no successor, amidst a challenging media climate. November: To diversify revenue, New York Media reveals plans for a paywall and makes a push to bring in more programmatic revenue . November: Three years after acquiring Recode, Vox Media folded the site back into Vox.com. Traffic for the standalone brand had declined by half. December: Verizon takes a $4.6 billion writedown on Oath unit, three months after its head, Tim Armstrong, said he would leave at the end of the year, and six months after $658 million in writedowns from Go90’s failure. While most other publishers struggled this year because they lost access to social media distribution, Oath floundered because Verizon decided not to connect its mobile carrier data to Oath’s content – a vision that AT&T is pursuing with Xandr and WarnerMedia. Popular On AdExchanger Right Now:

The Year Publishers Went Bust, Sold To Billionaires And Diversified

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NEW YORK, April 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hilco Streambank ( www.HilcoStreambank.com ) acted as the exclusive broker to LittleThings, Inc. ("LittleThings") in the sale of its intellectual property and other assets to RockYou Media. Started in 2014, LittleThings began as a blog for a pet food ecommerce website and evolved into a popular destination for meaningful and inspiring content. Amassing over 24 million social followers, LittleThings expanded to roll out a steady stream of lifestyle content including real life stories and videos, recipes and DIY projects. Reaching a total audience of nearly 60 million comScore unique monthly visitors - with seven million of those being millennials - the site's exceptional video programming included the daily show "Refresh," created and hosted by the millennial married couple Cassie and Paul Morris, and "The Hostess Next Door," starring Chef Vanessa Cantave. LittleThings announced its last post to readers on February 28, 2018. In March 2018 LittleThings retained Hilco Streambank to market and sell its remaining brand assets, including social media assets and technology. As RockYou Media transitions LittleThings into the next phase of its lifecycle, reengaging loyal followers and retaining audience engagement will be of utmost importance. "Hilco Streambank is proud to have assisted LittleThings in the marketing and sale process of its intellectual property assets, including social media assets, technology and brand," Hilco Streambank SVP Richelle Kalnit said. "We trust RockYou Media will continue to bring exceptional content to the highly-engaged LittleThings audience." Gretchen Tibbits, the former President & COO of LittleThings added, "I'm so pleased we were able to find in RockYou Media a new owner who will keep the LittleThings brand alive and deliver its positive content to the loyal LittleThings audience. " About Hilco Streambank
Hilco Streambank is a market leading advisory firm specializing in intellectual property disposition and valuation. Having completed numerous transactions including sales in publicly reported Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases, private transactions, and online sales through HilcoDomains.com and IPv4Auctions.com, Hilco Streambank has established itself as the premier intermediary in the consumer brand, media, and internet and telecom communities. Hilco Streambank is part of Northbrook, Illinois-based Hilco Global a worldwide financial services company and leader in helping companies maximize the value of their assets. About RockYou Media
Founded in 2005, RockYou Media is an interactive media and entertainment company, built around a proprietary platform, RYME, amplifying the authentic voice of multicultural millennials. RockYou Media provides brands and publishers with hyper-engaging content, with a video portfolio that reaches 75 million monthly viewers, developed and optimized by publishers of leading social media apps. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Chicago and New York, you can visit RockYou Media online at  www.RockYou.com  and follow us on Twitter @RockYouInc. About LittleThings
Founded in 2014, LittleThings is a prominent digital lifestyle destination publishing engaging, meaningful content for women across generations. LittleThings garners an unparalleled following of loyal fans, reaching an audience of nearly sixty million comScore unique monthly visitors. Nominated for a 2018 Webby Award for its #GiveMeaning video for American Greetings, LittleThings' video content amassed more than 13 million LIVE views monthly and saw massive success in click-to-play engagement, with 135 million click-to-play O&O views overall. SOURCE Hilco Streambank

Hilco Streambank Advises LittleThings on the Sale of its Intellectual Property and Other Assets to...

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The mobile gaming company RockYou is acquiring the site and plans to revive it. 25 LittleThings staffers have signed on to bring the publication back. And RockYou may acquire more media brands. There's a life for LittleThings after Facebook's algorithm change after all. The women-focused digital publisher LittleThings abruptly shuttered in late February, following Facebook's algorithm tweak that was designed to favor posts from friends and family over content from media companies. But now the mobile gaming firm RockYou is buying LittleThings and reviving the brand. RockYou CEO Lisa Marino said that 25 of LittleThings's former staff of nearly 100 people have signed on to revive the property, which focused on women's lifestyle content, including cooking, parenting, and feel-good stories. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. When LittleThings pulled the plug, founder Joe Speiser told Business Insider that the algorithm tweak eliminated 75% of LittleThings' organic traffic on Facebook. The news at the time sent a shudder through the media industry, as many braced for more publisher closures. But Marino said that regardless of Facebook's news feed priorities, LittleThings clearly had a devoted fan base that didn't want the brand to die (a few had even sent in videos pleading for a comeback). She saw an opportunity to rebuild the publication without relying on Facebook. RockYou, known for its long history of managing social and mobile games, may seem like an odd home for LittleThings. But the company has recently started building out a collection of publications aimed at a multicultural millennial audience, including Vocally.com. And Marino actually sees a lot of parallels in publishing to mobile gaming, where RockYou has acquired and revived several titles that were thought to have passed their prime, such as the former Disney game "Gardens of Time." RockYou was able to pare down those games and run them more leanly, and that's essentially the plan with LittleThings. "To me this is so much like gaming," she told Business Insider. "I've done this before." She also has experience dealing with the ups and downs of Facebook's algorithm. One social game she handled was pulling in $50 million a year. After Facebook deprioritized social games a few years ago, its revenue slid to $15 million. "We just know you can't rely on one platform," she said. As part of the deal, former LittleThings editor-in-chief Maia McCann has signed on to become RockYou's Editor-in- Chief and will oversee multiple titles. In fact, Marino said more publication acquisitions were likely. Another former LittleThings executive Matthew Mirman is also joining RockYou, as VP of Revenue Operations and Monetization Strategy.

LittleThings, which abruptly shut down as a victim of Facebook's algorithm tweak, is coming back (FB)

Pluto TV is an online television platform that aggregates video content from across the web and programs it into themed TV channels. By using a combination of technology, data and a team of specialist editors, Pluto TV offers viewers online video through a portfolio of TV channels spanning traditional genres including music, news, sports, comedy and entertainment as well as dedicated channels catering to specific interests such as hip-hop, surfing, video gaming, stand-up comedy, art and fashion.

Pluto TV

Under the terms of the partnership , LittleThings will distribute its catalog of shows through a new streaming channel on Pluto TV .

LittleThings Channel Launches Exclusively on Pluto TV

MAZ Systems offers a cloud-based platform that helps publishers deliver content to tablets and mobile devices without needing a developer team. The company developed the mobile browser Stream Web.On September 15th, 2021, MAZ Systems was acquired by Zype. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

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Acquired

LittleThings is the lifestyle destination for inspiring, uplifting, and engaging stories.

Date	Round	Investors	Revenue	Sources
4/17/2018	Acquired	RockYou	0 FY undefined	1
6/1/2015	Unattributed VC	Subscribe to see more	0 FY undefined	10
6/30/2011	Series A	Subscribe to see more	0 FY undefined	0

Date	4/17/2018	6/1/2015	6/30/2011
Round	Acquired	Unattributed VC	Series A
Amount
Investors	RockYou	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Valuation
Revenue	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined	0 FY undefined
Sources	1	10	0

First funding	Last Funding	Investor	Rounds	Type	Location
4/17/2018	4/17/2018	RockYou	1 Acquired	Corporation	California
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Lightspeed Venture Partners	Subscribe to see more	Venture Capital	California
00/00/0000	00/00/0000	Westwood Ventures	Subscribe to see more	Venture Capital

First funding	4/17/2018	00/00/0000	00/00/0000
Last Funding	4/17/2018	00/00/0000	00/00/0000
Investor	RockYou	Lightspeed Venture Partners	Westwood Ventures
Rounds	1 Acquired	Subscribe to see more	Subscribe to see more
Board Seats
Type	Corporation	Venture Capital	Venture Capital
Location	California	California

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