Big news about GoPop
On February 13, 2014, we launched GoPop. We saw that the web was giving rise to a new visual language, a collective lexicon being invented by people recording media on their phones, writing phrases on top of still images, or mining cultural history to create GIFs. We created GoPop to try and make this shared vocabulary available to everyone. A year later, we have been blown away by what this incredible community has made.
Along the way, GoPop caught the eyes of some pretty interesting folks. In October, we started chatting with BuzzFeed and we were impressed by their vision for the future of media, a vision that goes far beyond viral cats and now includes serious investigative reporting. When they suggested we join forces to transform their existing apps and start a new group focused on mobile experiments, it felt like a great opportunity to continue exploring the core ideas of GoPop on a new scale.
Jesse, James, Joseph and Filipe will be joining BuzzFeed's amazing mobile team. Together, they'll be leading product on BuzzFeed's current mobile app, as well as launching a new team focused on the design and development of experimental apps. The prospect of joining BuzzFeed right now and in this capacity was simply too exciting to pass up.
Co-Founder Kara Oehler will be continuing her work in documentary and journalism. In 2011, Kara was named a United States Artist Rockefeller Fellow. This amazing honor — and generous grant — came right as we were beginning Zeega. Now, Kara is finally taking the time to carry out this fellowship. This year will be spent working on a film she started at the Harvard Film Study Center, and also laying the groundwork for a new radio show/podcast.
Ahmed Kabil, whom many of you might remember from the amazing Today in Zeega series, has always loved writing. And history. And news. So, when the opportunity emerged to join the team at Timeline, an app for providing historical context for current events, he had to jump in.
While we are incredibly excited about this next chapter, it is bittersweet. This does mean that we will no longer be able to support GoPop. You will be able to continue to create Pops for another two weeks, but the app is no longer available on the App Store. After that, we will be hosting a public archive of all Pops ever created, where each user will have a web profile with all of the Pops they’ve ever made. Have no fear! None of your amazing creations will be lost.
This year hanging out on GoPop with y’all has been incredible. For us, GoPop was not just another mobile app, but fundamentally changed the way we saw and connected with the world. And that’s because of you, the amazing global community, that invented this new medium together. We cannot thank you enough for joining this experiment and sharing so much joy, laughter and inspiration.
Sincerely,
- Team GoPop