Toxicity versus tedium?
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The public say they want positivity and good news. They don’t. That’s just one reason WeAre8 hasn’t worked
It’s one of the media economy tech cycles: A global platform opens an Australian outpost, then retreats. Think Buzzfeed, Pandora, Huffington Post, Mashable, Twitter.
From that perspective, the exit of WeAre8 from the local market is merely the circle of life. As founder Zoe Kalar wrote in yesterday’s email sharing the news: “As a result of the momentum in the UK, Europe, and the US, we are centralising the marketing functions into our London HQ and will no longer have any full time employees in Australia. We are grateful for the amazing work our team in Australia has done over the last two years.”
But WeAre8 has more Australian DNA than most platforms. Its founder is Australian. Back in the day, Kalar co-founded Standard Media Index.
WeAre8 has never really stacked up as a product though; and certainly not locally. It is defined more by what it isn’t, than what it is. Non-toxic, non-addictive and carbon negative, it’s what we would wish of the major platforms. However, it turns out that in reality, or WeAre8’s reality at least, that results in a dull product with no risk of habits being formed, healthy or otherwise.