go90
go90 was an American Internet television service and mobile app owned and operated by Verizon Communications. The service was positioned as a mobile-oriented "social entertainment platform" targeted primarily towards millennials, featuring a mixture of new and acquired content from various providers. The service was available exclusively within the United States.
Industry
October 1, 2015
July 31, 2018
Brian Angiolet (SVP Chief Content Officer), Richard Tom (GM and CTO, Verizon Digital Entertainment)
Streaming service
Television
Movies
The service was plagued by an unsuccessful launch, credited to poor content discoverability and a lack of firm content strategy, resulting in managerial turnover (including a relaunch of the service by the staff of Verizon acquisition and former competitor, Vessel). Including acquisitions that became the basis of the service (such as Intel's OnCue project, and later Vessel), it was estimated that Verizon had spent $1.2 billion on the service.[1]
On July 31, 2018, after attempts to promote go90's content via Verizon's AOL and Yahoo! properties (including blogging platform Tumblr), the service was shut down.
Reception[edit]
From the onset, Mari Silbey of Light Reading felt that much of go90's library consisted of content that could already be found elsewhere, and contested whether Verizon's planned original content for the service would be compelling enough. In addition, Silbey argued that go90's announced social networking features were not inherently innovative for a video service and that it was "hard to turn social media features into a driving force for popularity."[36] Advertisers had been critical of the service, citing slower user adoption than expected. Warren Zenna of Havas Media felt that the app's user experience was inferior to that of YouTube.[37]
Concerns were also displayed over Verizon's announced intent to not have go90 content count towards its subscribers' data caps, noting the company's stance against net neutrality.[38][39]
The NWSL's streams on go90 faced sustained criticism from sportswriters: The Equalizer felt that the app was buggy and did not have the same wide device support as YouTube, while it was also argued that the relative obscurity of go90, and the inconsistent quality of the game streams, could harm the league's growth.[40][41][42] After repeated technical issues, the league would live-stream several weeks of matches domestically on the NWSL website.[43]
Demise[edit]
By 2017, as the service faltered, insiders suggested that Verizon had been aggressively overpaying on content deals (describing the company as having made deals "guns blazing"), on the assumed basis that making large content investments would ensure growth.[14]
Verizon subsequently acquired Yahoo!, and merged it with AOL into the subsidiary Oath. Its lead executive Tim Armstrong stated in February 2018 that go90 had been placed within the Oath division, but would likely be wound-down in the future. Armstrong admitted that go90 was a "super ambitious project", but that it was difficult to build its brand, and that its content deals could be better leveraged by Oath's individual properties instead.[44] In March 2018, Oath-owned blog platform Tumblr began to syndicate some of go90's original content internationally—which Digiday considered as being a pilot project for this strategy.[45]
After the more aggressive promotion of its content across AOL and Yahoo properties, go90 had managed to increase its average monthly user count to 17 million. On June 29, 2018, Oath officially announced that go90 would be shuttered on July 31, 2018. The company stated that it would be evaluating the future of go90's original series and that it would "focus on building its digital-first brands at scale in sports, finance, news and entertainment for today's mobile consumers and tomorrow's 5G applications."[46]
Estimates vary on the losses attributed to the failed service. Digiday cited two sources close to go90 who estimated total spending of $1.2 billion, including the Vessel and OnCue acquisitions.[1] In Verizon's filing for the third quarter of 2018, it cited $913 million in charges related to "product realignment" attributable to shutting down go90.[47] In September 2018, Verizon laid off 50 employees in the Content Operations group managed by Brian Angiolet and eliminated the group. Ivana Kirkbride and Richard Tom were among the departing employees.[48]
At least two of the initiatives launched by Verizon Hearst Media Partners–Seriously.TV and Rated Red–were shuttered in 2017 and 2018 respectively.[49] In 2018, AwesomenessTV was sold to Viacom for $50 million—a fraction of Verizon's $650 million valuation. Digiday reported that the company had depended strongly on content investments by Verizon for around 40% of its revenue, and that there had been animosity within the venture due to its majority partner DreamWorks Animation being acquired by a subsidiary of Comcast—a direct competitor to Verizon. Comcast also did not believe that AwesomenessTV aligned well with its other digital media investments, such as BuzzFeed and Vox Media.[50][16] In June 2021 as part of its upcoming IPO, BuzzFeed announced that it would acquire Complex Media from Verizon Hearst Media Partners.[51]