| Static Media | |
| Type: | Private |
| Industry: | Internet |
| Location City: | Indianapolis |
| Location Country: | United States |
| Products: | Contextual advertising |
7Hops.com Inc., doing business as Static Media,[1] is an American internet company established in 2012 based in Indianapolis. It operates ZergNet, a content recommendation business that promotes paid content across their network of brands.[2] [3] Each site the company owns uses the same website model and design, sometimes dubbed "infinite scroll," whereby content is loaded continuously as the user scrolls down.[4] For example, scrolling down on the homepage loads more articles in perpetuity (until the user reaches the very first article written for the site). Scrolling down on individual articles also does not reach the page footer, instead loading a different, related article, so the user can continue reading content from the site indefinitely without needing to click a new link. This is also called "infinite-content pages" or "endless pages." The title of one of the brands, Looper, refers to this design.
Established around 2011,[5] ZergNet has been compared to Outbrain, Adblade, Taboola and similar companies,[6] and the fact that the site itself has become popular with some end users invited a comparison to BuzzFeed. Zergnet aims to distinguish itself from its competitors by focusing on high quality, less spammy offerings.
The company's investors include Mark Cuban and Greycroft Partners.[7]
Static Media owns and promotes entertainment websites:[8]
all of Static Media's brands had over 170 million site visitors per month, with an additional 20 million subscribers on YouTube, 15 million followers on Facebook, and 8 million subscribers on Snapchat. The majority of those siteviews come from its film sites, Looper and /Film, which have a combined 54 million site visitors a month. Both sites' critics' reviews also appear on Rotten Tomatoes.
Looper was the first site acquired by Static Media, in 2015.[9] Mashed, Nicki Swift, Grunge, and The List are original Static Media brands, and all four launched in 2016.[10] [11] [12] [13] Nicki Swift's name is an in-joke from editors, who simply took the names of two trending celebrities at the time — Nicki Minaj and Taylor Swift — and combined them. The next site Static Media added was SVG, an original brand, in 2017. The brand's game reviews are featured on Open Review.[14]
SlashGear was launched in 2005 and was acquired by Static Media sometime after the company's debut in 2015.[15]
Health Digest is a Static Media original site, and it debuted in the third quarter of 2020.[16] Alongside general health reporting, many of the brand's early articles covered the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tasting Table was launched in 2008 and was acquired by Static Media in 2021, as well as /Film, which began in 2005.[17] [18] House Digest is one of the site's newer homegrown brands, launching as a Static original site in 2021.[19]
Wrestling Inc. is the second-oldest of Static Media's branded sites — it was founded in 1996. Wrestling Inc. and Glam, the latter of which was founded in 2003, were both acquired in 2022 by Static Media.[20] [21] The Daily Meal, a pun on the name of British tabloid the Daily Mail, launched in 2008 but was also acquired by Static in 2022.[22]
Explore, a travel-focused brand, launched as a Static Media original site in November 2022.[23]
Women.com is the oldest brand that Static Media owns, having been founded in 1995, but it wasn't acquired by Static until early 2023.[24] Also acquired in 2023 is Food Republic, another food vertical for the company, which was founded in 2010 but launched in 2011.[25]
In September 2023, Static Media launched another food site, Foodie, bringing its total food brands to four.[26]
On October 3, 2023, Static Media launched its first financial journalism site, Money Digest.[27] [28]
Static Media continued launching and acquiring brands in 2023. On October 26, 2023, the company launched its second homegrown travel and outdoors brand, titled Outdoor Guide and focused on outdoor living, including camping, gear, travel, and wildlife.[29] [30] The company followed up the launch of Outdoor Guide days later with the relaunch of Chowhound in early November 2023. The site was originally founded in 1997 by writer Jim Leff and Bob Okumura.[31] Leff and Okumura left the site some time prior to the Static Media acquisition, and the company moved team members from its other food brands to Chowhound to oversee the relaunch. Chowhound marks the company's fifth food brand.
In early 2024, the company launched its third travel and outdoor brand, titled Islands and more focused on exotic destinations, cruises, and travel than Outdoor Guide. The print publication of Islands had been around since 1981, owned by Bonnier LLC alongside Outdoor Life, Popular Science, Marlin, and Salt Water Sportsman. The website was originally launched in 2000. Though the print publication shuttered in 2014 and the publication shifted exclusively to digital, the site continued operating through the pandemic, growing to even house special Islands-brand "All-Inclusive Awards"[32] for resorts. These annual awards ran in 2019 and 2020 and recognized resorts that had the best food, bar, rooms, pool, overwater bungalow, spa, butler service, and amenities, among other categories. The award system was not brought back in 2021, and it has not returned to the brand under Static Media's purview, either. Editor Allaya Cooks-Campbell, who previously worked at Health Digest, was appointed lead editor of Islands and Explore in summer 2023 and led Islands through its acquisition and relaunch under Static ownership.[33]
In 2024, Static Media acquired its sixth food brand, The Takeout. The Takeout originally launched in 2016,[34] owned by the same company as The Onion and The A.V. Club. Those sites were sold to a private equity firm in 2019 and combined with Gizmodo under a new company name; and later in 2024 each publication was individually sold off to other companies.
On April 4, 2023, Novacap Management Inc. announced that it had partnered with Static Media.[35] Novacap is a North American private equity firm founded in 1981. While the firm has invested in over 100 companies, primarily in financial services and technology, media, and communications, Static Media appears to be the first major digital media partnership Novacap has engaged in.[36] The purpose of the partnership for Novacap is to allow the firm to branch out into content creation.
While it is unclear how this has affected the company, Static Media launched or acquired three brands the same year the partnership was announced — Women.com, Foodie, and Money Digest — the most growth of any year since 2016, the year Static Media acquired or launched four of its flagship sites. The company grew at a rapid rate after the partnership with Novacap began, with Static either launching or acquiring seven sites — Women.com, Food Republic, Foodie, Money Digest, Outdoor Guide, Chowhound, and Islands — in under one year. A total of eight new sites have launched since the partnership began.
