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When Revcontent was founded, it was founded on a vision of a personal Web, a Web powered by users and for users. For us, this meant doubling down from the beginning on what matter to actual people: a great user experience and engaging content.

3 years later, Revcontent is able to see that vision through to the next phase – this time, joined by the brilliant team at Rover.

The Story Behind Rover

Rover was founded by 2 Stanford graduates in the same research lab where Google was born. Named after the Mars Rover mission, Jonathan Siddharth and Vijay Krishnan built Rover on a vision similar to Revcontent’s – human discovery.

Our teams were introduced by Stephen Oskoui, Rover’s lead investor and a Venture Partner at Founder’s Fund, a top tier venture capital fund in Silicon Valley.

He said, “The synergy between the two companies was immediately clear to me. With the performance of Rover’s machine learning technology and Revcontent’s focus on the success of its publishers and advertisers, I expect the combined company to rapidly become the leader in content recommendation advertising,”

Rover is funded by visionaries – the creator of Google Adsense, the Former Director of Performance Ads at Twitter, and the Head of Product at Dropbox. Other investors include early execs from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Pandora, and more.

“After our first meeting with Chris Maynard, Richard Marques and the rest of John’s leadership team, it became instantly clear that this was a perfect fit in terms of culture, technology, and vision,” added Jonathan Siddharth, CEO of Rover and now Senior Vice President of Technology at Revcontent.

This is all great, but you might be thinking – Why does Revcontent + Rover matter?

-Together, our shared vision of a personal web will make discovery more personalized and relevant for users.
-Our brand partners reap the rewards – more granularity means more opportunities to discover their most valuable customers at the right time.
-Our media partners can better connect with their users – more engagement means more opportunities to get to know their users, creating content surrounding what they actually care about.

“The future is very bright, and we couldn’t be more ready for the next monumental step in creating a truly personal, engaging web experience for users across the globe,” said Chief Marketing Officer, Richard Iwanik-Marques.

Additional Press Coverage:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2017/02/24/revcontent-to-conquer-the-content-discovery-market-through-rover-acquisition/#5fca21da10fe

https://martechtoday.com/revcontent-buys-content-rec-engine-rover-195554?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/295715/revcontent-acquires-machine-learning-startup-rove.html

https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/valley-startup-rover-bought-by-revcontent/article17362819.ece

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58ae6fafe4b01f4ab51c76d9

https://marketingland.com/revcontent-buys-content-rec-engine-rover-207635

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170223006802/en/Revcontent-Acquires-Machine-Learning-Content-Recommendation-Company

https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2017/02/24/rover-revcontent-jonathan-siddharth-vijay-krishnan.html

https://pitchbook.com/newsletter/revcontent-acquires-vc-backed-rover

https://blog.revcontent.com/revcontent-acquires-rover/

https://www.martechadvisor.com/news/display-native-ads/revcontent-acquires-rover-to-do-for-discovery-what-google-did-for-search/

Recently, news has come out with Google and Facebook entering an age of censorship for deemed “fake news sites.” Some readers are blaming these “Fake news sites” for swaying the recent presidential election. As a result, two of the world’s biggest Internet companies have responded with action to censor these sites (see digiday.com and nytimes.com).

We at Revcontent have policies against this [intentionally misleading news sites] and take the enforcement seriously. We have shutdown sites for this in the past and if a site has a nefarious intent we do not want to allow that on our network, however we are very careful not to cross the lines into censorship.  In fact, what most companies won’t tell you out of fear is this challenge is a lot bigger than just a headline. If user protection is the concern, we need to look big picture before we go too far down this slippery slope.

My real fear is that the second companies like Google and Facebook become our editors, that is the second we have lost all hope for the freedom of the written word.

I think earlier this year when Facebook hired people to adjust the trending recommendations on their newsfeed, it quickly became apparent that all people are biased and that the bias of people is the risk in itself. I do not trust a company willing to aggressively cross over that line. I believe we have to be very careful to recognize our own bias and that we ourselves are the greater risk to journalism itself as the platform being engaged upon.

I cannot find a major news organization that has not had issues with accuracy and fact checking – so where is the line? Where is too far? How do you have a compliance team draw that distinction without creating bias themselves?

If you ask, “Does this hurt the integrity of journalism?” I counter that the current state of the integrity in journalism is what has led to this. I read articles from the most established news organizations in the world, and they are all opinions. They have misleading subject lines, which state things as facts and then fanciful writing to express “opinions,” even though most people don’t read beyond the original headline. I believe even in the state that journalism currently is in it is still the single most important institution in each of our lives and those voices and ideas are the single most important thing we need to protect.

I believe we shouldn’t be calling for more censorship; we should be calling for more transparency. We should be calling for transparency of bias, which is a concept our team at Revcontent has actually invented using our machine learning technology. We can run through any articles and now understand political bias and whether that content is left leaning, right leaning, or centrist. I envision a world where people are made aware of the bias and a world where people can see a counter points to the current article bias they are reading, a world where the media can once again build trust with their readers.

This is the future of journalism and protecting people – give everyone a voice, do not shut people’s voices down because it’s the voice you don’t want to hear that we need to protect the most. Those are the voices that change our culture, our democracy.

I believe we need to be transparent with users about the trust of the source – we are working on a technology that will do just that, and using our same machine learning, show the trust level of the source before they click on it.

I predict that Facebook will use this same idea, and eventually its own Edgerank algorithms, to bring more transparency to users before they click on links, and this is just one of about a thousand potential editorial issues this will begin to address. I believe transparency is what saves the world as we know it, not censorship. I have to look at this situation and some of the current anti-free speech headlines in our culture and think ahead and think of a world where the greatest protection of our democracies and our freedoms is put at risk through censorship. I believe in the power of the written word and giving people a voice. I believe people are upset right now and looking for people to blame but now, now is the time we need to think bigger picture. Once we begin the tide of censorship, it will not stop, and I do not want to live in a world like that.

John Daniel Lemp
CEO Revcontent

Revcontent has continued its growth in 2016 and we wanted to take some time to recap a few of the recent news stories, articles, and blog posts from around the web.

Continuing forward with several notable publishers, Revcontent has officially reached a new milestone of 250 Billion Content Recommendations per month!

From announcements by John Lemp to national news and advancements to our platform, we are making 2016 one of the best years ever!

Here is a quick recap of what’s new in case you missed it.

25 Inspiring Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017

Read More

How One Entrepreneur’s Vision Is Changing the Way We Consume Content Online

Read More

Ad Age Names Revcontent Top Places to Work 2016

Read More

Content Recommendation Takes on Facebook

Read More

John Lemp on Monetizing Content

Read More

Powering Personal Relationships with Users

Read More

John Lemp and The Future of Native Ads

Read More

Revcontent’s Parental Control Feature

Read More

Native Advertising

Read More

Interest Targeting

Read More

Partnership with Fast Company & Inc. Magazine

Read More

Revcontent | Yahoo News

Revcontent Personal Web Ushers in Future of Open and Personalized Web

Revcontent Continues Focus on Control and Transparency with the Development of Interest Targeting

SEE ADDITIONAL ARTICLES FROM SEPTEMBER BY VISITING OUR PRESS ROOM

It’s important to recognize that Revcontent came into the market much later than Outbrain and Taboola so there was a period of time where Revcontent was aware of the industry and where it was going.

“The goal was never to create a company or service that was identical to existing competitors.” – John Lemp

One of the most important things for Revcontent was to be in a position to innovate the industry through adding room for customization and realizing that “one size fits all” technology doesn’t consider the future of how brands will approach online advertising.

Revcontent expects to earn $280 million in revenue in 2016 outpacing Taboola’s more than $200 million and Outbrain’s approximate $240 million in revenue in 2014, according to the Wall Street Journal on March 19th 2015.

Revcontent claims big name customers like Forbes, CBS Television properties, PayPal, Blue Apron, Jack Daniels, GE, Reuters, Newsweek, IBTimes, PCWorld, Inc, Fast Company, In Touch Weekly, Woman’s World, and “hundreds of other premium publishers” said the Wall Street Journal.

According to the recent feature on Geektime.com, “more precise content recommendations are likely the only way Taboola and Outbrain will survive the rise of new competition.”

According to recent coverage, Revcontent signed an exclusive deal with HT Media, the second largest Indian publisher. Founded in 1924, the Hindustan Times is the flagship publication of HT Media, and it is widely regarded as one of India’s most trusted & respected brands.

Revcontent’s superior technology will allow HT Media to build a stronger connection with its readers. Both parties are happy to announce this partnership based on honesty, transparency, and integrity and when combined with Revcontent’s superior returns, this partnership was a no-brainer for HT Media.

Revcontent CEO, John Lemp Praises HT Media

John Lemp, Founder & CEO of Revcontent was proud to announce this recent partnership as well. He stated,

We have the utmost respect for HT Media and the brands they’ve built in India, while operating with the highest values. Revcontent is proud to partner with their influential voice to continue growing their brand.

With superior technology and superior returns for publishers, this international partnership is sure to be just one of many for Revcontent.

Listverse specializes in bizarre content or lesser-known trivia and currently serves over 30 million pages a month. Thanks to Revcontent’s proprietary technology, Listverse can serve the highest quality content to their visitors based on thousands of data points gathered by Revcontent.

One of the most important factors that led to this mutually beneficial partnership between Revcontent & Listverse was data integrity. Listverse has the ability to match Revcontent’s performance dashboard to Google Analytics, which brings a level of trust and honesty to both companies.

On what this partnership means for Revcontent, Mark Hendrix, the current Business Development Executive at Revcontent had this to say,

Jamie and the Listverse team is keen on integrity and their partners. We love the quality and level of content that his team consistently generates, and I’m excited that Listverse has turned to Revcontent for the performance and integrity needed to significantly expand his operation and reach to new levels.

Listverse is arguably one of the world’s largest trivia sites and it has already been featured on BBC Radio, Gizmodo, PBS, and the New York Times.

This partnership adds another huge partner to Revcontent’s already existing base of publishers. Within the last six months, Revcontent has partnered with the likes of Forbes, Patch.com, and Newsweek.

Following a number of leading content publishers, Render Media announced it has partnered exclusively with Revcontent to serve visitors with recommended content on all of its properties including Opposing Views, America News, Watch This and Cooking Panda. Much like Forbes & Newsweek, Render Media chose to partner with Revcontent because of their “powerful, industry‐leading technology” that allows Render Media to have control over their content.

After testing content recommendation on their web properties, Render Media quickly chose Revcontent because of its’ superior performance over leading competitors.

Vic Belonogoff, CEO at Render Media said,

“Revcontent puts incredible thought and care into building out publisher control and brand protection tools. Our team can set restrictions that put the content our audiences will love most right in front of them, customizing it for each media property.”

Richard Iwanik­-Marques, Vice President of Marketing at Revcontent, said,

“Seeing a media brand like Render engage with and love our technology is a humbling feeling. Our mission is always to put publishers in complete control with our tools.”

Render Media uses social content to inform, power, and entertain an audience of over 30 million per month, and this partnership adds another major publisher to the impressive list of

existing publishers that have signed exclusively with Revcontent. Just a few months ago, Forbes announced an exclusive partnership and in May Patch.com also signed an exclusive deal with Revcontent.

Revcontent is the world’s fastest growing content recommendation platform, serving over 200 billion impressions daily to visitors across the world. In a recent article on GroundReport, Keith Tully highlighted a few ways Revcontent is changing the native advertising game for the better. Specifically he mentioned that Revcontent is:

• Deepening engagement with website visitors
• Maximizing EPCs for publishers
• Continually increasing content quality for visitors

Essentially, Revcontent is working non-stop to create the best possible platform for both publishers and website visitors. Given native advertising’s somewhat negative reputation thanks to a number of other services, Revcontent is breaking the norm of native advertising by engaging visitors and delivering content they truly want to see.

In addition, Revcontent has launched several features over the past few months, such as:

• RevExit, a pop-up that gives a user a chance to see the content when exiting away from a page on their first impression every 24 hours.

• RevFlickr, a tool that enables publishers to change the layout of the content slider based on device.

• RevSlider, a carousel that can showcase Revcontent ads on a particular website.

• RevShifter, a tool that monetizes premium sections of a site using touch support and navigation.

Revcontent continues to raise the bar for native advertising, and its commitment to serving both its publishers and their website visitors is improving how native advertising is perceived. With spending on native advertising continuing to rise significantly, the industry needs a company like Revcontent to improve quality standards so that everyone benefits in the long run.

Revcontent was recently listed as one of the best places to work in Tampa Bay Business Journal.

According to the recent rankings, which are published yearly, Revcontent was ranked as the 5th best place to work in the Tampa Bay area. After learning of their award, several Revcontent team members shared their thoughts about the prestigious achievement,

“The culture at Revcontent is second to none and that’s what separates us from the others. Every single person here has a drive and passion to achieve our goal to be the biggest and best at what we do. I’ve worked for many different companies in different industries, and this is by far the most fun I’ve ever had while grinding every single day. I can truly say that not a day goes by that I’m not excited to walk through the front doors and get to work.” – PJ Lange, Advertising Executive

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“The remarkable culture Revcontent has created goes far beyond arcade games, beer cart, and team building events; employees here feel empowered to succeed and contribute to the growth of the company as a whole. The dedicated, passionate people I get to work with every day are not only brilliant, but also inspiring. Each day I know I will learn something new that will help me grow in both my personal life and professional career.” – Sharon Lyon, Director of Operations

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Revcontent continues to grow and prosper in the content recommendation industry, much in part due to its’ company culture set by CEO & founder John Lemp.

This culture will only continue to enable Revcontent to succeed, and this award from the Tampa Bay Business Journal is likely going to be only one of many other awards to come down the road.

Patch.com, a top 100 Alexa site, and Revcontent, the world’s fastest growing content recommendation network, have announced their exclusive, strategic partnership. Under this new partnership, Revcontent will bring new, engaging content to Patch.com’s news sites.

Patch.com is composed of 900 local news sites, which receive an average of 20 million monthly unique visitors and 59 million monthly page views. With Revcontent’s superior ad quality, Patch.com users can now receive the highest quality experience with native content that truly interests them.

When asked about the new partnership, Charles Hale, CEO of Patch.com, had this to say, “Patch has worked with multiple players in the content recommendation space, and after extensive evaluations, Patch concluded that Revcontent was able to deliver the best combination of content control and monetization. Patch values Revcontent as a partner.”

John Lemp, CEO & Founder of Revcontent, shared his thoughts as well:

“Charles is a transformative genius – his passion from the very beginning has been focused on the user and how he can create a better user experience in everything he is building. I have so rarely come across a person that simply ‘gets it,’ and it’s refreshing to see someone so passionate about users and then using the information our systems provide to better connect with them.”

With this partnership, Revcontent has added yet another major publisher to its’ already impressive list of partners including Forbes, Newsweek, and the International Business Times.

Read the full press release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160504005167/en/Patch.com-Chooses-Revcontent-Exclusive-Content-Recommendation-Partner