Kyle
Ken Lerer, one of the co-founders of the Huffington Post has embarked on a new video startup. He is going to deliver the news via the web and has his eyes set on traditional tv cable news outlets like CNN and Fox News. According to AllthingsD’s Peter Kafka Lerer is looking to provide a news outlet for those who watch Jon Stewart, and a generation that consumes most of their media from the internet.
It’s obvious that people are moving to the web for news, and real time events especially when there are live events and breaking stories. That’s evidenced in a 20% upswing in NCAA tournament viewing online.
Lerer who, with co-founder Ariana Huffington, sold the news giant Huffington Post last year to AOL for over one million dollars. Of course the Huffington Post is a more traditional new media outlet.
More after the break
Kafka highlights what he knows about Lerer’s stealth startup in this post.
He says that we can expect a launch of the new service during the summer as the Presidential election starts heating up. It’s a joint venture between Lerer’s Lere Ventures and Bedrocket media which is a video start up Lerer himself invested in last year. Bedrocket has Youtube channels deal for four channels, but Kafka says from what he knows Lerer’s new news service won’t be confined to one platform.
While some may think the idea of a 24 hour video news service on the internet was crazy, everyone pretty much thought the same thing in 1979 prior to Ted Turner’s launch of CNN.
source: AllThingsD
