
CNN Is Closing Down Beme, YouTube Star Casey Neistat’s Video Company - juokaz
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stevenperlberg/cnn-is-closing-down-beme-youtube-star-casey-neistats-video
======
alacritythief
So as a user of the Beme Panel app (the 2nd app, created after the CNN
acquisition), I thought its core idea was fascinating. The ability to quickly
panel and poll people on news topics directly via a phone app instead of
invasive text or phone calls seems something worthwhile to invest in. Using it
felt more like joining a group for a conversation rather than being prodded by
pollsters.

What didn't make sense to me is why they didn't "step on the gas" and
accelerate the speed of their app development and content. I overall enjoyed
the Beme youtube vids and it seemed they were finally honing in on the right
track, and as mentioned earlier the Beme Panels app showed promise.

However, the videos were a bit infrequent, not pumping out as much video
content as competitors VICE or Vox, or even CNN's own previous acquisition
"Great Big Story". The Panels app was still in closed beta and only brought in
a trickle of users instead of trying to bring in even more to provide more
data points and diversity of content/conversation.

Being a subscriber to Casey's YouTube channel, it seems to me that Casey is
the kind of person that's a self-starter that likes to change things up a lot
(which works for YouTube vids), but when it comes to consistently working on
something that's more finite for long periods of time he doesn't have the
knack for it.

------
throw7
CNN is in its MTV transition phase. Remember when MTV played videos? We'll be
saying: Remember when CNN did news? I don't blame CNN; the issue is their
funding doesn't allow for complete independence. They need to shift
programming to keep ad dollars coming in and they're looking for their "The
Real World".

I've followed Bourdain through his many network changes, but his latest shows
on CNN aren't the same. CNN is still relatively dry. Not for want of trying
though... witness the number of times their newscasters shouted "shithole"
with glee recently. :)

Personally, Neistat is not appealing to me, but he had an existing audience
that I guess CNN execs were willing to give it a shot. That to me is
desperation, not execution.

~~~
nugi
Wow, MTV is a perfect metaphor if you grew up in the 80s/90s. I may have to
start using that. Its all 'talking heads' and filler now. I wonder if they
still have independent coverage of anything outside dc or nyc.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Its all 'talking heads' and filler now.

It's always been that way, other than brief exceptions (the 1991 Gulf War was
probably the longest).

------
code4tee
CNN bought a brand and not a product. In fact the only “product” the company
had (beme) was shut down at acquisition. Seems like they simply never managed
to translate some smart enthusiastic people into a viable product.

Sad, but seemed like a predictable outcome. Neistat is great, but never saw
how his approach would succeed inside a large corporate operation or how he
could monetize the “brand” beyond his very successful YouTube following.

~~~
sintaxi
I tend to agree and I always got the impression that Casey was far more
motivated by his vlogging than running beme.

------
Talyen42
Classic case of a superstar at X (video, editing) trying a new sport Y
(startup management), and failing spectacularly.

Casey Neistat is a talented daily lifestyle vlogger, and apparently not a
talented venture startup video platform CEO.

~~~
blocked_again
hmm. He did sold the company for millions of dollars to CNN. Should have made
more money than most "venture startup video platform CEO"s in their lifetime.

~~~
ohazi
The company took multiple rounds of VC money and sold to CNN for ~$20 million.
He very likely didn't make a penny from the sale.

Somewhat irrelevant though, as he takes home annual-salary-sized checks for
every video that he puts on youtube.

~~~
blocked_again
Raised $2 million in 1 round and sold out for $25 million.

~~~
arosier
Raised $6+ million in 2 rounds.

------
joelrunyon
> “I couldn’t find answers. I would sort of disappear, and I would hide, and I
> would make YouTube videos for my channel because at least I would be able
> yield something,” Neistat said. “I don’t think I’m giving CNN what I want to
> give them, and I don’t think they’re getting value from me.”

Sounds like things went poorly. Anyone know if this affected his earn-out (if
there was one) or if they're just calling this whole thing a bust?

------
legohead
Beme was dumb to begin with. Took a powerhouse of a personality to get it
anywhere. Hard truth :\

~~~
barce
Where's your data to back that up?

~~~
nerflad
Casey openly talks about how the app failed. Him and Matt Hackett's interview
on the YC Podcast: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvK-
CgzxSdM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvK-CgzxSdM)

------
miiiiiike
The Nerdwriter episode on Casey Neistat's style was pretty interesting:
[https://youtube.com/watch?v=JbiJqTBCQuw](https://youtube.com/watch?v=JbiJqTBCQuw)

------
arosier
After Casey's latest launch of Beme (pre CNN), he shed some additional insight
into the money Beme had raised and how they spend it. To date, Beme has now
raised $6,000,000+ (presumably $6,619,242 assuming a $4 Million Series A on
top of the existing stated Seed round).

The first launch of Beme led to 400,000 downloads in the first 6 days. Users
posted 1 million videos in that same time frame. While there were breakout
areas or "10s of thousands of consistent users, "after the cool down from the
initial launch, they saw user engagement fall and realized the product was not
working. There was hope that there was still validity in the concept (posting
unedited - authentic video footage); however, the app needed a redesign to
thoroughly test the concept.

Beme has 11 full time employees (10 of which are technical, 1 of which runs
their social media communities (Jack)). Casey does not collect a salary from
Beme. With this being said, it sounds as if Casey does not include himself in
this employee count as he would most likely fall into the non-technical
category. Beme splits their employees into 3 teams. Most likely these are
divided by platform: Android, iOS, and Web.

The burn rate for these 11 employees is $180,000/month or $2,160,000/ year.
Beme has the option to monetize through in-app advertising, in-app purchases,
and selling of user data. With no signs that any 3 of these revenue streams
have been activated at this time these expenses are being paid for from the
venture capital money raised.

The second release has seen a surge in downloads to over 1 million, with added
engagement after the first 8 days of launch. Time will tell if the added
interest is purely based off of Casey's current social clout, or if the
concept has legs to become a standalone sharing platform.

[https://techcrunch.com/video/casey-neistats-youtube-
life/519...](https://techcrunch.com/video/casey-neistats-youtube-
life/519622188/)

------
joelrunyon
Details from the co-founder - [https://medium.com/@mhkt/when-your-startup-
stops-d275c15ff70...](https://medium.com/@mhkt/when-your-startup-
stops-d275c15ff702)

~~~
joncrane
Wasn't there a post in the past few weeks that lampooned the "founder's
farewell message for a failed startup" and catalogued the typical elements of
such a message? This one seems to fit that mold perfectly.

~~~
joelrunyon
[https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/](https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/)

------
xchaotic
Casey Neistat cashed out really well and got out of his golden handcuffs very
quickly, he can go back to vlogging now.

~~~
baldfat
He never left vlogging

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ihuman
I found a couple of mirrors of the video. They have the same title, but they
have slightly different content, so I'm not sure which was the one that was
linked.

[https://youtu.be/8dVbO9BJa80](https://youtu.be/8dVbO9BJa80)

[https://youtu.be/46RDiwfknu4](https://youtu.be/46RDiwfknu4)

------
baldfat
OUTPUT: They didn't make enough videos. 41 Videos in 6 Months 7.7 million
views. 10 of them were Casey and not the Beme crew.

The production was good and the stories were interesting in a Vice type of way
BUT they didn't output enough content. On YouTube amount of content is more
valuable than production quality.

PS Casey states that Beme is moving into CNN and will still actually produce
content.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfIhBu0TZBs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfIhBu0TZBs)

~~~
amerine
I agree with you. They should have been doing Vice-level output to keep and
grow and audience.

------
hudo
Neistat is a great guy, but I just don't get what CNN expected, whats supposed
to be ROI of 25m price paid!?

~~~
sintaxi
I get the impression they bought the company expecting Neistat would allow
them to tap into his vlogging audience to spread their political agenda so he
would become something like a new-wave news anchor. I expect it went something
like this...

Them: "Hey Casey, you should vlog the womans march" Him: "Nah, I'm going to go
surfing with my buddies".

I bet this lead to a lot of frustration from both sides when Neistat didn't
want to play along.

~~~
arcaster
I think this kind of friction between Beme and CNN was likely very similar to
the friction that pushed Boston Dynamics and Google apart.

~~~
sintaxi
Hmm yeah, that's an interesting point. I've always be curious what happened
there.

------
ohazi
In a nutshell: They tried to build a Vice News, but they ended up with a
BuzzFeed.

~~~
spookyuser
I thought it was closer to Vox, but yeah.

------
Raed667
They seem to have disabled the video.

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ob4hS6ymCJZOVA_F7KTvMcFJc5z...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ob4hS6ymCJZOVA_F7KTvMcFJc5zFQY7Q/view?usp=drivesdk)

~~~
TimothyBJacobs
A mirror seems to be available here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46RDiwfknu4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46RDiwfknu4)

------
fortythirteen
Beyond the Beme platform itself, I'm greatly troubled by this SV notion that
you can crowdsource objectivity, as if we have ever received a rational
analysis from a mob.

Recent developments, like Facebook's decision to let its users determine what
is and isn't factual (what is essentially Beme's advertised product), will
lead to sanctioned groupthink.

~~~
amelius
Perhaps you can identify individuals who are "usually right". And from there
do the filtering.

~~~
fortythirteen
"Usually right" by who's standard? You would require individual arbitrators to
determine what's correct, and at that point, why do crowdsourcing?

~~~
amelius
> "Usually right" by who's standard

By the standard of the person you are showing the news to.

C.f.: collaborative filtering. Or how Netflix recommends movies.

~~~
ivanhoe
So people who at some point liked enough anti-vaxers posts to cross the
threshold will never ever see any article presenting the facts that prove it's
not true? And beside why would you want to serve users only the things that
they agree with? It's not good for them, just makes them more stupid & easier
targets for disinformation, but it's not good for Facebook neither because
people love arguing online and cutting it down means also cutting the user
interaction with the platform too.

------
arcaster
That was quick.

Then again, good on Casey Neistat for squeezing out hopefully a cool few
million from CNN.

------
dboreham
Failed acquisition: dog bites man story. Strange though that the acquired
company principal is roaming around bad mouthing the acquirer rather than
"focusing on strategic projects" or gardening.

------
vit05
The great thing about Neistat is the way he tells a history. About him, about
a product, about a trip. Beme News has never tried tell any history.

