Whiskey Media
 |
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| Online, mass media | |
| Successor | Whalerock Industries |
| Founder | Shelby Bonnie |
| Headquarters | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Products | Websites |
| Available in | English |
|---|---|
| Editors |
|
| Website | tested |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | March 8, 2010 |
| Current status | Online |
Whiskey Media was an American online media company founded independently by CNET co-founder Shelby Bonnie in 2008. It was the parent company of Tested, Screened, and Anime Vice, and the former parent company of Giant Bomb and Comic Vine. Whiskey Media websites are community based, while maintaining an editorial staff. The company's target demographic are focused primarily on males between 10 and 30. The name "Whiskey Media" is a reference to a Kentucky distillery that was owned by the family of Shelby Bonnie before prohibition. Whiskey Media operates in San Francisco, California, after previously being located in Sausalito. On March 15, 2012, Whiskey Media was acquired by Lloyd Braun and Gail Berman's BermanBraun along with Tested, Screened, and Anime Vice while Giant Bomb and Comic Vine were bought separately by CBS Interactive.
Whiskey Media was created in 2007, after Shelby Bonnie resigned as the CEO of CNET in 2006, a website he co-founded in 1994. Joining Bonnie and business partner Mike Tatum were former CNET programmers Andy McCurdy, Sean Coonce, Ethan Lance, and Dave Snider. Lance and Snider at the time were running their own joint venture known as Enemy Kite, in which they had created Comic Vine. Comic Vine would become the first Whiskey Media website, complete with a full conversion from the PHP format to Whiskey Media's de facto framework, Django.
Later in the year Jeff Gerstmann also left CNET after being controversially fired from his position as Editorial Director of GameSpot. This began a chain reaction in which Ryan Davis, Alex Navarro, Brad Shoemaker and Vinny Caravella would leave after the incident. This led to Whiskey Media and Gerstmann getting in touch with each other and with Ryan Davis they created the video game website, Giant Bomb, which Caravella, Shoemaker, and Navarro now all work for.
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