Mevio Inc. (formerly known as PodShow) was an American
internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
entertainment network, founded in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
in October 2004 by
Adam Curry and Ron Bloom.
History
PodShow Inc. was founded in
San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
on 1 October 2004 by
Adam Curry and Ron Bloom, as a digital media network, with the aim of helping people publish and market their podcasts, and to help listeners find podcasts that suit their interests.
In August 2005, PodShow received about $8.85 million in
Venture Capital
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
from the
Sand Hill Road firms
Kleiner Perkins
Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...
,
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
, and Sherpalo Ventures.
On August 23, 2005, PodShow announced the launch of the
Podsafe Music Network. The site allows musicians or record labels to upload
podsafe music into their system so that podcasters may download it for use on their podcasts, as well as the ability to sell music to listeners.
In September 2005, PodShow acquired Podcast Alley, a directory that can be used to help people find and subscribe to podcasts.
In February 2006, Curry announced Podshow L.A., a production division being set up by Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff. In September, BT PodShow, a service co-branded with
British Telecom was launched for the
UK and
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
. On September 29, 2006, PodShow Inc. announced that the company had raised a second round of venture funding from new and original investors, totaling $15 million, led by
DAG Ventures
DAG Ventures is an American venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. DAG Ventures works with startups in providing early stage and growth stage funding. Since its founding in 2004, by Tom Goodrich and John Cadeddu, the firm has backe ...
.
[PodShow Receives $15M From Leading Venture Firms as Company Accelerates Its Growth on the Internet and Beyond](_blank)
In July 2008, mevio secured $15 million in a Series C funding round led by Crosslink Capital and including
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers
Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...
,
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
, Sherpalo Ventures, and DAG Ventures. Mevio intends to use the investment to continue expansion of its broadband entertainment offering and to launch new vertical entertainment networks.
In December 2012, it was reported that Mevio's co-founder Ron Bloom was to move the company to
Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood ...
, California under the new name ''Bitesize Entertainment''. Bitesize acquired an 8,000 sq.ft. studio space at the
W Hotel
W, or w, is the twenty-third letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''double-u'',Pronounced in formal situation ...
at Hollywood and Vine and was to create a "set of channels geared towards a mainstream audience."
In April 2014, Mevio ceased operation and closed down their service, giving content creators and broadcasters 10 days to migrate their feeds and content to an alternative platform before losing it permanently. The website went offline, with no statement from the company.
In March 2016, Mevio's successor ''Bitesize Networks Inc.'' was fined for breach of contract after it failed to pay Vertamedia LLC for generating internet traffic for Mevio in 2013.
Bitesize was soon purchased by American television broadcaster
Media General
Media General, Inc. was an American media company based in Richmond, Virginia. The company's origins can be traced back to 1887 when Richmond attorney Joseph Bryan acquired ''The Richmond Daily Times'', which later became ''The Richmond Times-D ...
, and produced the syndicated series ''
Hollywood Today Live'' for Media General and
Fox Television Stations
Fox Television Stations, LLC (stylized as FOX TV STATIONS; also known as FTS) is a group of television stations in the United States owned-and-operated by Fox Corporation. It owns LiveNOW from Fox, Fox Local, and Fox Soul. It also oversees ...
from the Hollywood and Vine studios. It was ''de facto'' shut down at the end of April 2017, when
Nexstar Media Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarters in Irving, Texas, Midtown Manhattan, and Chicago. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 television station ...
merged with Media General and immediately shut down all of Bitesize's operations, as it considered the entire enterprise to be out of format with its broadcasting operations.
Podcasts
Mevio had a small stable of flagship podcasts, including Adam Curry's ''
Daily Source Code'', and latterly ''
No Agenda'' hosted by Curry and
John C. Dvorak. Other shows included ''
The Dawn and Drew Show'' (from October 2005 to October 2008),
Madge Weinstein's ''Yeast Radio'' (from July 2005 til April 2008), CC Chapman's ''
Accident Hash'', Chris Rockwell's "The Daily Download", Canis Lupus and Renamarie Villano's "BandTrax", Julien Smith's "In Over Your Head", Mark Hunter's "The Tartan Podcast", ''Podshow Radio'', PCH (Pacific Coast Hellway), UC Radio Podshow, Sonic Wallpaper, ''Reaching for Lucidity'' (from 2005 to 2010), ''The Frank Truth'', ''
Pop17'', ''The Scene Zine'', ''Naive London Girl Podcast'', ''Unleashed'', ''tech
vidcast'', ''GeekBrief.TV'' (from December 2005 to June 2010), ''Madpod'', Alex Balcerski's ''Ride The Pine'', ''It Could Be Worse...'', ''The Alex Show Podcast'' and ''Cranky Geeks''.
Criticisms and Controversy
After the release of PodShow+ on July 6, 2006, other
podcasts
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. Typically, a podcast is an episodic series of digital audio files that users can download to a personal device or stream to listen to at a time of their ...
's
RSS
RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many ...
feeds were copied and modified by PodShow, with PodShow copyrights overwriting original feeds. Instead of
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
feeds linking to the original, they linked to the internal cache.
Adam Curry addressed the issue in the following Saturdays episode of the
Daily Source Code in which he stated "We basically
cache that, no different from what
iTunes
iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...
does." Curry went on to explain by saying "What should have happened was that the link underneath the orange on white
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...
button should be a direct link to the original, with original information, no added bits from us, original
copyrights
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
etc, Instead of linking to the external feed, it went to the internal feed. It wasn’t a bug, it was a dumb mistake, it slipped through."
PodShow and the PodShow Network have not released broadcast metrics publicly. On March 3, 2007, Adam Curry stated "For the record, In
December 2006 the network produced 52 million download requests." This has created keen interest and rampant speculation by the public, due to the PodShow's notoriety. No clarification has been provided by Adam Curry or the PodShow Network on their use or definition of a "download request". This is of noteworthy interest, as a "download" is commonly interpreted as a single download request which results in a download, while a "download request" could include all requests made for a download (including failed download requests, system-to-system requests, internal administrative requests, or automated time-scheduled RSS feed requested). Additionally, "download requests" may include not only PodShow-owned podcasts, but any "download requests" made through links listed on the PodShow Network website to many independent podcasts.
PodShow's relationship with Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio ( SDARS) service that operated in the United States and Canada. Sirius launched in 2002, and primarily competed with XM Satellite Radio, until the two services merged in 2008 to form Sirius XM.
Li ...
ended on May 1, 2007, without any formal acknowledgment or media release by Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio was a satellite radio ( SDARS) service that operated in the United States and Canada. Sirius launched in 2002, and primarily competed with XM Satellite Radio, until the two services merged in 2008 to form Sirius XM.
Li ...
or the PodShow Network. Speculation is that Podshow, having no control over its podcasts compression consistencies, could not guarantee audio quality across the multitude of content being produced. According to P.W. Fenton, the producer of "Adam Curry's Podshow on Sirius", the contract Podshow had with Sirius Satellite Radio had simply expired without any acknowledgement by either company. In fact, P.W. Fenton continued to upload 4 hours of programming each day, hosted by Adam Curry, before learning from a tech at Sirius that the show hadn't been broadcast for weeks.[P.W. Fenton's personal recollections]
References
External links
* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140408051129/http://www.mevio.com/ , date=April 8, 2014 , title=Mevio.com
Defunct American websites
Defunct companies based in California
American entertainment websites
Podcasting companies
Internet properties established in 2004
Internet properties disestablished in 2014
Mass media companies disestablished in 2014
Mass media companies established in 2004
2004 establishments in California
2014 disestablishments in California
American companies established in 2004
American companies disestablished in 2014