Exclusive: OpenWeb launches forums for publishers
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Illustration: Natalie Peeples/Axios
OpenWeb is providing publishers a way to build Reddit-like forums on their own websites, the company exclusively tells Axios.
Why it matters: Online conversations that once happened in publishers' comments sections have moved to other platforms, taking readers' time and attention with them.
How it works: Forums by OpenWeb gives publishers dedicated discussion pages where readers can start conversations around topics and articles.
- Articles can automatically become topics within a forum, pulling their existing comments into the discussion, and readers can also start their own threads.
- OpenWeb uses moderation technology for automatic detection, with additional human and community moderation.
- Forum pages can create new advertising inventory, which OpenWeb can monetize or publishers can incorporate into their own ad sales.
Zoom in: OpenWeb says users who engaged with Forums spent three times as long on publishers' sites and were twice as likely to register during beta testing.
- OpenWeb also saw a roughly 21% increase in overall engagement among those users, senior vice president of partner success Steven Goldberg says.
- The closed beta initially included six publishing partners, including FootballCo and 9to5Mac. OpenWeb plans to roll Forums out more broadly across the thousands of domains that use its community products.
- Bradley Chambers, operations manager at 9to5Mac, says he only spends about 30 minutes per week moderating comments and forums across several active sites because much of the work is handled automatically.
Zoom out: OpenWeb began primarily as a commenting platform but has expanded into a broader suite of community and advertising products.
- Forums is part of a new offering OpenWeb calls Community Core, which combines its commenting, forums and moderation technology.
- OpenWeb has raised $393 million across six funding rounds since 2016, according to the company. Its most recent round, a $170 million Series F led by Georgian in 2022, valued the company at $1.5 billion.
The big picture: Declining search traffic is adding urgency for publishers to give readers more reasons to visit their websites directly.
- OpenWeb's tools also offer another reason for readers to register, providing publishers with first-party audience data.
- "We're not competing against Facebook. We're not competing against Reddit," Goldberg says. "All we're trying to do is facilitate the community aspect that is happening in other places to give those audiences that love going to 9to5Mac the ability to do that there."
