First Round Capital

news

Cory Booker's #waywire gets new video tools, partners with collegehumor, huffpost live

About 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Some of it is compelling, informative content that could enrich one’s personal and professional life. Lots of it is completely useless. Enter #waywire, a curated video sharing service launched last year. This morning #waywire co-owner, Newark, New Jersey, mayor and presumptive candidate for U.S. Senate, Cory Booker plans to announce the beta release of waywire.com. With it come tools that make it easier to pull individual videos from YouTube, Vimeo, and other social sharing sites--plus every video you have on Facebook, Twitter, and Vine--and organize them into single channels, or “wires.” Wires can then be shared with others.

April 18, 2013 Fast_Company

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Waywire founder Cory Booker has YouTube in his sights

#waywire hopes to wean viewers from YouTube by making it easier to find new videos, via friends' recommendations.

"Video is clearly the way the next generation is communicating," says Howard Morgan, a partner with First Round Capital, which provided the initial financing needed to get #waywire off the ground. "Cory had a vision for getting this generation involved and having their opinions shaped."

November 22, 2012 USA_Today

news

Cory Booker Opens Video Service #Waywire In A Public Alpha

#Waywire (yes, the name comes in hashtag format), the video news-sharing service co-created by Newark Mayor Cory Booker, just opened to everyone in a public alpha. Booker made the announcement on-stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, where he pitched #waywire as a way to democratize the news and upend the “oligarchy” running the media.

September 10, 2012 TechCrunch

news

Hands On With #waywire, Cory Booker's Video Service That Turns You Into A Newscaster

Don't let big media decide what's important. #waywire enters private alpha today to let you collect, curate, and share video news from across the Internet. Clips from top-tier broadcasters, citizen journalists, and original web content creators can be cobbled together to let you share your perspective on what's happening in the world.

August 13, 2012 TechCrunch

news

Cory Booker's Personalized News Startup, Uses Video To Give Youth A Voice

"There's an oligarchy in the media and that needs to be broken up," Newark, NJ mayor Cory Booker tells me. So he's building #waywire, a news site that features original and syndicated video content, but that also lets viewers record and share their responses. "Traditional news sources aren't in any way talking to millennials," Booker says, so #waywire is designed to deliver them content from their perspective. It's now taking registrations for its upcoming private beta.

June 30, 2012 TechCrunch