Forbes Media has acquired FlipGloss and its Digital Glossy Insert photo publishing platform for an undisclosed amount. FlipGloss was fully funded by Forbes Media but was previously not considered a subsidiary of the media group. Founded by former Yahoo! digital music executives, FlipGloss has a host of prominent advisors, including Marc Bodnick from Elevation Partners, former Forbes publisher Jim Berrian, and the founders of Launch.com, Dave Goldberg and Bob Roback.
FlipGloss, which launched earlier this year, is a digital magazine focused purely on editorial and advertising photo content. The site features “lifestyle” based photography focused on fashion, design and travel and combines search engine capabilities with the experience of flipping through photo content of a magazine. Forbes just laid off a significant amount of staff but it still managed to pony up the funds for FlipGloss.
The FlipGloss’s patented Digital Glossy Insert slideshow technology lets users ‘Flip, Hover, and Discover’ editorial content and ads in an interactive image stream.Forbes says that FlipGloss’s technology already being implemented and is powering Forbes’ new ranking of “The World’s Most Powerful People.” It makes sense for Forbes to use FlipGloss to scale its multimedia capabilities. We were critical of FlipGloss’ ambitions to be a popular online destination in our initial review, but its technology is visually compelling.