If you haven't heard of Casey Neistat before, chances are you have never heard of his company, Beme. Beme was founded by Neistat to create an app, taking the name of the company, that would allow users to upload unedited videos of their lives to followers. From how Casey described the app at launch, his intention was to get people to share their lives exactly as they occur - no editing, no retakes. The concept of the app seemed extremely intriguing at first, and the app itself received massive support at the time of launch.
Once again, if you don't know who Casey Neistat is, he has built a huge audience of nearly six million subscribers on YouTube. Up until about a week ago, he had been uploading daily video blogs for about a year and a half, meaning his channel has close to 500 videos from his daily series alone. The man has become a social icon, especially amongst millennials and older members of generation Z. In his video in which he announced the end of daily vlogs, Casey ascribed the cessation of daily uploads to his desire to find new ways to challenge his creativity. If you want to hear more of his explanation, here is a link to his video:
At first, even I was slightly confused as to why Casey would stop uploading his immensely popular videos, especially since in the video before this one, he mentioned that it was his number one source of income. Then on Monday, November 28, I saw headlines all over google news that Casey Nesitat sold Beme to CNN. At that point, it all made a lot of sense to me. I am not in any way suggesting that Casey is selling out. I just now understand that he has an opportunity to move in an awesome new direction.
There is little to no detail on what CNN plans to do with the company, but we do know that they will be partnering with Neistat in some fashion in order to reach younger audiences with relevant news stories. On top of that, it's also pretty clear that CNN will create some sort of branch company with those employees of Beme, bringing some other employees in as well. There are speculations whether the company will produce an app, a website, or even possibly a YouTube channel. I assume that they intend to use video within the company, as that's Casey's specialty.
In my opinion, this may be one of the best business decisions I've seen from a company in my lifetime. Having such a substantial icon within their company, CNN has the opportunity to reach a huge, young audience with this new company. I plan to write on any further details about the deal whenever they might be released. Casey did release one last video on Wednesday discussing the deal a bit, but still without much detail. Here is the link to that video:
