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WhoSay has launched a free iOS application for fans.
The company was founded in 2010 by Steve Ellis and CAA as a platform for actors, athletes, musicians and other stars to easily share their photos, videos and other self-generated content across Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. WhoSay’s mobile and desktop web portals currently receive 12 million visitors per month.
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Now WhoSay has created an app targeted at fans, allowing them to construct customized feeds with content direct from their favorite stars. (An Android version is expected to be released by the end of the year.) Fans can handpick individuals as well as select from genres like “comedians” or “soccer players” to build a personalized experience. An in-house editorial team will curate content for special events, such as the Emmys, and promote content from members with new projects, such as the upcoming fall TV shows. WhoSay’s 1,500-plus celebrity users, who include Channing Tatum, Tom Hanks and Sofia Vergara, have more than 1 billion combined social media connections.
“We think of ourselves as a new kind of digital magazine, where our fans get real-time content by our members and customize their experience,” Ellis, WhoSay’s CEO, tells The Hollywood Reporter.
Unlike with other social media sites, all content posted to WhoSay is owned by its posters — in other words, the celebrities themselves. The New York-based company, which also has offices in Los Angeles and London, plans to share with its members revenue generated from the content they post via native advertising and other marketing opportunities.
“Our clients have very unique and valuable content. Everyone knows it,” Ellis says. “So it’s great to be able to turn that into something. We’ve already begun to monetize the platform.”
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“WhoSay is doing some groundbreaking work to help artists turn all their direct-to-fan and digital activities into a real business opportunity,” Luis Balaguer, Vergara’s manager at Latin World Entertainment, tells THR in a statement.
WhoSay’s Talent app, accessible by invitation only, allows its celebrity clients to publish across multiple social media platforms and also work with corporate and nonprofit partners such as NBC, Nike and the Red Cross for promotional social media messages.
“From the business perspective for our clients, what matters for us is that this is the first media company ever by, with and for the artists,” Ellis says. “What matters the most is that they have a place where they can tell the stories they care about, their way.”
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