Newsmonkey

Newsmonkey is a Belgian newswebsite which focuses on reaching the younger generation of news users. The so called generation y, the digital natives.
History
Newsmonkey is an idea of Mick Van Loon, Patrick Van Waeyenberge and Wouter Verschelden. Together, they invested more than half a million euros in the company, and in 2013 they collected more than 315.000 euros via crowdfunding. That was three times the amount of money the expected to collect, a new Belgian record. More than 1.500 people invested in the website. Other big investors were Jan Poppe and Toon Coppens, the founders of Netlog and Twoo in Flanders.
The site went online the 7th of January 2014. Back then, the company had 15 employees. Nowadays almost 30 people are working there.
Editorial office
Mick Van Loon is the chief editor of the website, Wouter Verschelden is the publisher. Other editors of Newsmonkey are: Annelies De Becker, Stig Geukens, Gunther Brants, Elke De Pourcq, Lien Buyck and Inge Ringoot.
Content
Newsmonkey's target audience are people between 18 and 34 years old. The so called 'next generation', the digital natives whom live by the rhythm of the web. The website offers different subjects. News about politics and economics or news about our society and our planet. On the other hand visitors are able to read entertaining articles, for example viral articles.
Social media
Newsmonkey sees social media as the ultimate way to reach a young audience. Seventyfive per cent of Newsmonkey's visitors come via Facebook or Twitter, not via their homepage. In March 2015 they launched a WhatsApp-newsservice, unique in Belgium.
ZOO
Visitors are able to write articles for Newsmonkey themselves . That's called the ZOO. Before these articles appear online, the editorial office has to approve them.
Podcasts
On the 20th of April 2015 the first Newsmonkey-podcast came online: 'Mensbrugghe op de koffie' (Mensbrugghe on coffee). Every day Tim F. Van der Mensbrugghe drinks coffee with superstars from all over the world and brings reports of these meetings. 'A daily satirical meeting'.
Algorithm
Together with VRT, the University of Brussels and the University of Ghent, Newsmonkey is building an algorithm to predict what kind of articles go viral. The purpose is, based on a lot of historical data about published articles, to be be able to say which articles go viral and which not.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu