By Jordan Gass-Poore’
The mastermind behind Vox Media’s new platform “Chorus,” which has been touted as the future of content management, Trei Brundrett, discussed the company’s evolution during Texas State’s Mass Communication Week.
“Chorus is not a CMS.” — Trei Brundrett
Brundrett, chief product officer for Vox Media, said Vox Media started as the sports blog-turned-website SB Nation. When he joined the company seven years ago it had grown to encompass about 60 websites.
But it was SB Nation, now the fifth largest sports website, that drew Brundrett to the company.
Brundrett said SB Nation (and Vox Media as a whole) is about “building community,” whether that’s the arts (The Verge), the foodie (Eater), the real estate (Curbed), fashion (Racked) or news (Vox) communities.
Members of these communities reflect a “new class of talent,” Brundrett said, one that grew up online.
“Media is technology driven,” he said.
Community is important to Vox Media because it’s trying to build meaningful brands, Brundrett said.
“Give the talent, tools and direction and then get out of the way.” — Trei Brundrett
When a company takes a community seriously they are “raising their voices up” and “respecting their voices,” he said.
An example of this is embodied in Brian Floyd, the managing editor of sbnation.com, who, Brundrett said, was hired by the company after working his way up the writing ranks.
SB Nation currently has 1,600 contributors worldwide.
Brundrett’s Chorus helps deliver this content and more to Vox Media’s some odd 70 million users.
He heard the call to create this platform four years ago.
The platform started in his basement, he said, adding that it took seven months for him and his team of four people to build it.
Now that they’ve faced the music, everyone is welcome to join the chorus.