CNN shutters Beme after Casey Neistat leaves the company

CNN took a chance with popular YouTuber Casey Neistat and bought his video-sharing app Beme, which he co-created with Matt Hackett. The app was released back in May 2016 but didn’t get a lot of users. Despite this, CNN bought the app for US$25 million back in November 2016 and they wanted Beme’s team new kinds of video for the news organization that would perhaps attract a younger audience to them. But this experiment didn’t seem to gain any traction and in a conversation with Buzzfeed, Neistat admitted he couldn’t turn Beme into the kind of video-centric organization he wanted it to be. He got more engrossed with making videos for his own channel. Now, the Beme team is breaking up and Neistat and Hackett are leaving the company and most of the 22-person team will be rehired in other roles within CNN.

Neistat posted a video that supposedly talked about his departure from CNN but this was quickly taken down. Hackett made a post on Medium talking about the products they developed while they were working for the network. One is Panels, an Android and iOS app that lets users upload video opinions on news items, and another is the unreleased Wire, which is said to be a “machine-learning-powered platform for journalists to cover live news in a world where your smartphone is always closer than your TV remote.” Features from these apps will be integrated into the main CNN app. Beme has its own YouTube channel, which only has 40 videos over its six-month life span. Hackett says this channel will continue to exist under CNN’s digital studios.

Source: Android Authority

Samsung Galaxy View tablet gets its own CNN News app

With a gigantic 18.4-inch screen, having apps that cater to this very specific screen size might not be too common. That’s the issue with Samsung’s new Galaxy View tablet. It’s up to them to forge partnerships to help make this a compelling device for customers. One of the companies they’ve tapped is CNN, who has made a News app specifically for the tablet.

The new CNN for Samsung Galaxy View app is already up on Play Store, but of course, this will only work with the new tablet. It’s probably up on the Play Store though so updates can be easily dispensed to the app. It features a large magazine type of format with a relatively small slide-out menu though. It emphasizes other areas though like video stories and photo galleries, to fully take advantage of the Galaxy View’s big screen. You can also expect alert notifications for breaking stories and local news and weather updates. The tablet isn’t out yet but we should expect to hear more about it soon.

Source: Android Police | Download: Google Play Store (Free)

CNN lets Google Glass users support its citizen journalism platform

Have a story to tell and Google Glass on hand? CNN is expanding its citizen journalism platform iReport by letting people submit stories using Google Glass. iReport is now available on Glass and it just needs existing Glass users to authorize CNN to send notifications to their unit. Once that is up and running, you can manage settings and submit photos and videos with the device.

Source: Ubergizmo