AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

The Los Angeles Times

The website is now less of an online community and more of publication platform that aggregates users’ pages for free.

Los Angeles-based artist Glenn Kaino’s gigantic sculptures have been installed in such prominent places as Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum and New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art.

The 35-year-old Cerritos native also has designed websites for such entities as Fox television network, the Disney Channel and Mars Inc. rice brand Uncle Ben’s. He envisioned creating a digital canvas, or gallery, online and had shared the concept with his cousin, Scott Sassa, a former president of NBC Entertainment who had been chief executive of the online social-networking site Friendster.

The pair created Uber.com after joining forces in 2006 and recently shifted the site’s strategy. Initially, the cousins built Uber as a social hangout for the uber-cool. But over the last two years, their strategy shifted. Uber is now less of an online community and more of a glossy Internet magazine — a publishing platform that aggregates individuals’ websites for free.

Uber has vertical networks organized by such disciplines as photography, music and style. It has a group of bloggers and a recently added index, which regularly compiles new posts and commentary of contributors on the site.

“The consumer trend has been moving toward developing these sites that provide a richer and more engaging experience,” said Bobby Tulsiani, an Internet analyst at Jupiter Research. “It’s a good space to try to lean into, and they have some impressive things.”

Uber’s latest goal is to draw more users and advertiser support, said Sassa, 49, who declined to say how much the partners had spent on the website.

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