Ten years ago, while Oren Peli was rising in Hollywood as the director of “Paranormal Activity,” he was also getting through a breakup — an experience that would ultimately be the genesis for his new networking app “Spot.“
At the time, the Israeli-born filmmaker was frustrated with the formulaic nature of online dating, and also upset he’d lost a number of friends as his relationship dissolved. He was simply looking to meet fresh faces.
“It kind of got old. You do the same thing — coffee, dinner, and tell your life story,” Peli, whose app launches today, told TheWrap. “More than meeting someone new, I ultimately just wanted to meet new friends, so I kind of just wanted to get out of the house and do fun stuff.”
Spot lets users create an event or join another user’s plans. It’s not a hookup app, but rather a meet-up app for people with similar interests — though you can check off meeting “singles” as one of your options.
“Spot” wants to be your go-to app if you need a new tennis partner or a group to go hiking with. And for users worried about creeps crashing their fun, Spot has a verification option through Facebook and Twitter, where users can accept or extend invitations to approved-only accounts.
Peli’s turn towards the tech world was actually a return to his roots, rather than a deviation from his movie career. He started as a programmer at 16, dropping out of high school to write code. The filmmaker now points to his tech roots as a useful foundation for his transition to Hollywood.
“When I was making ‘Paranormal Activity,’ my background in video games helped a lot because I was already familiar with the concept of working with actors from motion capture,” said Peli. “I was just very comfortable with computers in general… I think there’s a lot of synergy between those worlds.”
Spot is now available on the App Store and Google Play.
6 Tech Giants Shaking Up News, From Jeff Bezos to Laurene Powell Jobs (Photos)
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.
Jeff Bezos – Washington Post
The Amazon founder purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million in cash. President Trump has called the paper the “Amazon Washington Post.”
The Facebook co-founder purchased The New Republic in 2012, becoming executive chairman and publisher. However, he sold the venerable political magazine to Win McCormack in 2016, saying he "underestimated the difficulty of transitioning an old and traditional institution into a digital media company in today’s quickly evolving climate."
The eBay founder is a well-known philanthropist who created First Look Media, a journalism venture behind The Intercept. Inspired by Edward Snowden's leaks. Omidyar teamed up with journalists Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill and Laura Poitras to launch the website “dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism.”
The PayPal co-founder doesn’t own a news organization, but he makes this list because he essentially ended one -- Gawker -- proving once again the power of an angry billionaire. Thiel secretly bankrolled Hulk Hogan’s sex-tape lawsuit against Gawker Media because he was upset that the website once outed him as gay. Hogan won the defamation lawsuit against the site that sent its parent company into bankruptcy, and Gawker.com is no longer operating.
OK, so Facebook isn’t technically a news organization… yet. However, the company is preparing to launch its much-anticipated lineup of original content later this summer, and there are also signs that it's on the verge of becoming an even bigger media platform.
Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, confirmed last week it’s developing a subscription service for publishers willing to post articles directly to Facebook Instant Articles, rather than their native websites.
Tech is increasingly intertwined with news, for better or worse
Tech leaders are increasingly intertwined with the news business. While some want to support old properties, one set out to destroy a new one. Here they are.