A new, venture-backed publication with a staff full of Grantland, Pitchfork and Maxim writers is churning out an SEO-friendly, viral-sounding story about every two hours and no one has noticed?
The mystery site, Inverse, looks like it will compete in the same market space with Elite Daily, Maxim and GQ and it’s been live and chock-full of content for upwards of a month. It has received absolutely no mention in the media.
But it’s not as if it’s a secret, either. The founder and CEO, Dave Nemetz, who cofounded Bleacher Report has “Founder & CEO @inversedotcom” right there on his Twitter bio. Every writer I searched also has their Inverse affiliation in their Twitter bios.
A job post for a news editor (which comes with equity) describes the site, based in Brooklyn and San Francisco as, “An early-stage, venture-backed digital media startup staffed with experienced journalists and developers working together to continuously refine an evolving product. As a team, we obsess over one question: What could happen next? To provide answers — for both ourselves and our readers — we search out emerging ideas, new technologies, and simmering trends as well as fearless innovators, designers, and thinkers.”
An email to Nemetz and the managing editor was not responded to.
Bizarrely, Inverse has 15,000 likes on Facebook, but only 180 followers on Twitter. Its first Twitter post is from June 1:
It's literally lit
— Inverse (@inversedotcom) June 1, 2015
There’s no announcement or explanation of what to expect with the site. The hundreds of posts on the site itself go back at least into mid-May, but are not in chronological order, so it’s tough to tell just how far back. Recent posts on the site include: Millennials Need Emojis to Feel Anything Anymore, Worried About Salary Negotiations? Here’s How to Do It Right and The New Macklemore Song is Good.
Inverse appears to share some DNA with the women’s site Bustle. It appears to focus on high-quantity shareable men’s content, as Bustle does for women. Nemetz cofounded Bleacher Report along with Bustle founder Bryan Goldberg. But their rollouts have been tremendously different. Bustle was started with much attention when it announced that it had raised $6.5 million in venture money in 2013 to disrupt the women’s news industry in a similar way that Bleacher Report had done with sports content. Its first few months did not go well.
But Bustle has rebounded and is now thriving.
A recent story titled, “How Bustle Proved the Haters Wrong” in the New York Observer states that Bustle has more than 30 million unique visitors a month, more than 40 editorial employees and has raised a total of $27 million.
Will Inverse have the same success? Why is it ghosting everyone? Is it set to be Bustle’s brother publication? And if so, why on earth is it not called Hustle?
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