A tip of the Frank turban to Jesse Brown.
The Canadaland obergruppenführer became an instant millionaire last week when his Bitstrips company sold to Snapchat for an estimated $100-million.
The Toronto-based Bitstrips, co-founded in 2007 by Brown and Michel Beaudet, created an app that makes personalized emojis or bitmojis–customized cartoon avatars shared on social media.
Bitmojis caught the attention of execs at Snapchat, the $10 billion photo messaging service that’s become a big fave with teenage boys for trading penis pix.
Happy days! The deal makes Brown not only Canada’s foremost self-appointed guardian of media ethics (wat dat?!—ed.) but he’s now the country’s leading cock shot tycoon.
Fortunately for Brown, Snapchat is bent on shedding its Anthony Weiner-esque image and is getting into deals with major news outlets in order to compete with the likes of Facebook and Twitter in the news content wars.
That sets up a spot of awkwardness for our Jesse, since holding a load of shares in such a company would create precisely the kind of conflict for which the noted paragon of integrity would crucify any other journo (see Amanda Lang, Leslie Roberts, et al.)
Strangely, news of Brown’s multi-million dollar windfall has gone conspicuously unmentioned by, er, Canadaland itself. Transparency indeed!
Presumably, Brown is trying to figure out how to convince Canadaland patrons to keep making donations, despite the fact the proprietor is now one of the wealthiest journos in the nation.
Frank urges Jesse to do the right thing and plow his millions into quality independent journalism, thus reducing the need for endless fundraising begathons.
100 million and ~20 employees. I’m curious if public funds went into this, given Brown’s constant, vocalized disdain for them.