RE:RE:Two questions on Friday the 13thThanks for the inside perspective. It adds some valuable puzzle pieces. I'll say that the original idea of consolidating 100 North American alt-weeklies was impractical from the start, and the execution was upended by Covid -- but it really wasn't the stupidest concept ever. It became the stupidest concept ever after the money dried up, Kalish was deservedly deep-sixed, and Kirk started his three-card monte game known as CreatorNews. Alas, Alice wound up stiffed for half the money she was promised by this seedy crew of gunsels, but such is the lot of the entrepreneur.
Our good friend Mr. 1236 raises the idea of a new alt-publication picking things up where NOW has fallen. It's an interesting thought. Michael Howlett is in a good position to do that with his new venture, Next Magazine, but it's a far worse product than NOW ever was. It looks and reads like a committee of granddads was tasked with concocting a print vehicle intended to take money from the millennials. It reminds me of nothing so much as when the dying Eaton's department store moved out the linens and tweeds and began stocking band T-shirts for the Gen Xers. Eaton's elderly management installed a Coke machine (!) for the kids, so they could repose in beanbag chairs, chill and rap about their fave raves and maybe drop $40 on some righteous threads. Well, that's exactly how embarrassing NEXT is.
NOWemployee wrote: Kirk didn't want to be a director of a publically traded company because he didn't want to be held responsible. Marcus Vanmanson was briefly named VP of Operations at Media Central, he also didn't want to be held responsible which is why his name wasn't inlcuded in the managment team even though he was working with Kirk at NOW when Alice Klein was still the owner. You'll see a photo of Marcus with Kirk's daughter in his pinned tweet. Marcus was fresh off his T.A.M.I. Capital Investment fraud and Kirk was let go from the Star. Kirk and Marcus promised Alice a buyer. They met Brian Kalish at a bar and over a few shots founded Media Central. It was always going to be a pump and dump. Brian Kalish, Igor Kostioutchenko, Anton Tikhomirov and Wei Lin are went to Xigem and have done the same thing. They even used the same cheesy promo videos from [paid promotional message] to pump up the stock. It's over. They took your money and they are onto the next. Rinse and repeat.