SquareOffs public polling pilot with Oregon TV station could be a new niche
August 14, 2018 | Austin Barnes
Opinions are constant, said Jeff Rohr, CEO of the Kansas City startup SquareOffs. As social media consumers look for new ways to voice a plethora of differing views, Rohr said he and his company have inked a major deal with News-Press and Gazette Co. (NPG), that could overhaul the public polling conducted by local news outlets.
Squareoffs founder Jeff Rohr delivers a pitch
“It’s a really great fit for us,” Rohr said of the partnership, which is now being piloted at KTVZ-TV in Bend, Oregon. “With local news, you know, you really want to get people involved in the community.”
Getting users involved in local conversations is a top priority for SquareOffs — a micro-debate platform that increases user engagement and revenue for customers and allows them to give in-depth commentary on public polls — Rohr said.
“Publishers, especially in the last six to eight years are really pressured to get content out quickly and it’s a 24/7 news cycle. The use of SquareOffs is kind of a quick way to gauge the audience opinion on breaking news topics as well as to get ideas for follow-up stories,” Rohr said of the product’s ability to enhance newsrooms and the overall process of newsgathering.
The application also allows news companies to turn social engagement into revenue, he said.
“We’ve seen so much conversation go down on places like Facebook and Twitter and these news sites don’t own the data or the monetization if they’re not keeping the conversation on their own website,” Rohr explained.
SquareOffs’ partnership with NPG connects the company to 45 TV stations across the United States, including NPG’s headquarters, which is located just outside of the metro in downtown St. Joseph — a connection Rohr hopes to foster in the future.
“We’d be very excited to work with the St. Joe site,” he said. “It’s always great to have local partners that you can meet face to face.”
Any future work with stations in St. Joseph and others in the NPG family will depend on the success of SquareOffs’ pilot program at KTVZ-TV, Rohr revealed.
The SquareOffs CEO said the station has so far been pleased with the partnership.
“They do about 2 million page views a month [and have] a very active audience and they do a very healthy amount of comments,” Rohr said of the station.
As the company’s pilot program progresses in Oregon, Rohr said he is focused on showing NPG what SquareOffs’ technology is made of. The CEO is hopeful the company has found its niche with local news but plans to take the prospect of any future partnerships one day at a time.
2018 Startups to Watch
stats here
Related Posts on Startland News
Why this KC esports startup is betting on a gambling app to scale into new NFT, cryptocurrency levels
The Kansas City Pioneers became the first professional esports organization to step into the head-to-head gaming and gambling sphere thanks to its pairing with PLLAY Labs — an AI-based wagering platform. “We see this partnership as a tremendous opportunity to tap into a community of folks who love competition — and then inject the KC…
Can tech save the family farm? E-commerce farmers market plants seeds in Kansas City
An Indianapolis-based startup is planting seeds of change it hopes can enhance the ways growers and producers get their products into the hands of customers. Kansas Citians are harvesting from it in bushels. “This is definitely a business of passion for me,” Nick Carter said, recalling his upbringing and days spent on his family’s farm…
‘Everybody at TripleBlind is better than me,’ founder says as top startup’s global team firewalls groupthink
Startup companies are on a continual mission to create, define and own the category in which they operate within, Riddhiman Das noted, and to do so — startup founders must build a proficient team. “If you’re not the category-defining company, then it’s not as big a win. Categories are typically defined at the global level,…
First bite of Tyler Shane: This spicy new pairing with Westport favorite Café Corazón has cacao lovers going nuts
‘I want people to sit down and really have a moment with their chocolate’ When Tyler Shane bites into a piece of chocolate, all of her senses come alive to fully indulge in the experience. “Food, for me, is almost like a religious experience,” she said. After spending seven years at Christopher Elbow Chocolates, the…