After a long decade of media destruction, no one in the industry was surprised to see “Reporter (Newspaper)” ranked as the worst job of 2013. But life is starting to look better for some online publications — like at Vox Media. Its SB Nation network of local sports sites has become a foundation for a national edition, tech-oriented news site The Verge, and most recently video gaming site Polygon.
On the business side, it has begun cracking the display advertising market.
The CEO who is behind its ongoing growth is Jim Bankoff, who you may also know as the guy who previously led Aol’s content businesses for many years. He’s going to have a couple of newsy things to say about Vox and the business of high-quality media today when I interview him Monday at Disrupt NY. If you’re interested in media, advertising, and startups trying to get into these industries, you’ll want to see this.
He joins our list of Disrupt NY speakers that currently includes Nasty Gal’s Deborah Benton, investor Chamath Palihapitiya, and hardware creator Limor Fried, with more still to be announced.
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Jim Bankoff
Chairman & CEO, Vox Media
Jim runs all aspects of Vox Media, one of the fastest growing online publishers, focused on the sports, personal technology and gaming categories. Vox is solving the problem of developing high-value digital journalism, storytelling and brand advertising at scale. Its audiences are among the most engaged and affluent on the web.
SB Nation, its sports brand, boasts over 30 million users per month across 300 individually branded, fan-centric sports communities, each covering a specific professional or college team, league or sport. In November 2011, Vox Media launched The Verge, which has quickly established itself as a category leader and the fastest growing site that covers technology. In October, Vox launched Polygon, a site dedicated to news and community for fans of gaming, anchored by an all-star roster of writers. All Vox Media sites are built upon, Chorus, its world-class proprietary publishing platform.
The company enjoys support from leading investors including Accel Partners, Comcast Interactive Capital, Khosla Ventures and Allen & Company.
A veteran of the online industry, Jim developed and led dozens of the most popular websites on the Internet including Aol, Mapquest, Moviefone, AOL Music and Engadget as an Executive Vice President at Aol. He co-founded TMZ.com and also oversaw Aol’s industry-leading instant messaging services, AIM and ICQ, and social networking and community applications including Blogsmith and Netscape.
His accomplishments have earned him wide recognition, most notably the first Emmy ever awarded to a webcast, for his role as Executive Producer of the Live 8 concerts online. Jim also serves as a Senior Advisor at Providence Equity Partners, the largest private equity firm focused on media and communications.