Watchup, a free video news app that allows users to cobble together their own personalized newscasts from local, national and international sources, partnered with Fusion, The Verge, Vox.com and Al Jazeera’s AJ+ Tuesday, TheWrap has learned exclusively.
The four news outlets join a select group of featured partners on Watchup, and will be among the first seen when users begin curating their own newscasts. Once logged in to the app, users can sift through these and 100 other news sources to refine their own feeds, choosing the ones they’d like for their featured list, which ultimately becomes a newscast. Watchup is available on smartphones, tablets, streaming media devices, gaming consoles and wearables.
“Watchup is disruptive in the sense that it offers a brand new way to consume and curate high quality news video,” the company’s co-founder and CEO Adriano Farano told TheWrap from the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “Nevertheless, Watchup wants and needs our partners to thrive as news organizations to provide a diversity of high quality video news our users can depend on whenever they want it.
“We want to inform, engage, and entertain our audience everywhere they are consuming media,” said Boris Gartner, Senior Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at Fusion. “We are excited to work with platforms like Watchup who share our commitment to delivering high quality content to today’s video-hungry news consumer.”
Raja Sharif, Strategy and Development Manager at AJ+, said, “We are rethinking the way news is consumed in the digital age, and we are excited to support an innovative startup that shares our vision.”
“Partnering with Watchup is a great way for our brands to reach audiences wherever they are,” said Chad Mumm, VP, Creative Director at Vox Media. “We’re excited to have this new distribution tool to work with as we continue to grow our video content.”