Emerson Spartz, the wunderkind founder of the popular Harry Potter fan site MuggleNet, has built an Internet business based on finding and publishing clicky content. He’s now inked a deal with Tribune Media.
Tribune Media, the TV company spun off from the former Tribune Company’s combo print-TV operations, is backing Chicago digital entrepreneur Emerson Spartz “in his quest to turn Dose.com into one of the players in digital media.”
It will be lead investor in a $25 million round of financing for Dose Media, a Spartz-run company whose expertise involves using algorithms to help stories go viral on the Internet.
Spartz, 28, was profiled earlier this year as “The King of Clickbait” in The New Yorker. He was just 12 years old when he built the most popular Harry Potter fan site, MuggleNet.
As Crain’s Chicago Business notes today, Dose.com’s traffic “has quadrupled to about 50 million unique monthly visitors in the past year, putting it in competition with sites such as Gawker and VICE. He’s aiming for BuzzFeed next, with plans to hit 100 million monthly uniques next year.”
Dose, which was originally called Spartz Media, will more than double its staff of 40 with the infusion of capital and build video-production facilities. It does not currently do much video. Tribune will also assist him with ad sales.
In return, Tribune gets access to Dose’s technology, “which can be used to crank up traffic for the content produced by its TV stations and 42 websites.”
Spartz appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in early October and was pushed to distinguish between “clickbait” and “viral content,” with a show host appearing to be unconvinced.
“I consider anything that makes me click on 33 different pages to see something, that sounds like clickbait,” said host Becky Quick.
The New Yorker profile, which also tagged him “The Virologist, likened him to a day trader, investing in content that seems ripe to go viral. Regardless of the thinly-veiled condescension, he’s now made what could be a mutually beneficial deal with a major broadcaster amid a clearly topsy-turvy period for all media.
