The Hoopla
The Hoopla was an Australian news and opinion website founded by Wendy Harmer and Jane Waterhouse.
History and profiel
The Hoopla was launched in mid-2011[1] to present "news through the eyes of women" to women over 35 whose children were grown, or who had never had children. At the time, many websites targeted towards women were parenting websites. A sister website, Birdee, was aimed at younger women.
Citing a lack of advertising revenue as advertisers were reluctant to spend money targeting over-50s, the website introduced a hard paywall in April 2014[2] making articles accessible to subscribers only. This saw subscriptions plateau and visits slump. The paywall was later softened in October 2014 and subscriptions began growing by 20% month to month to 5000 overall.[3]
On 23 March 2015, Wendy Harmer announced in a post at website that The Hoopla would cease publication, citing increased competition from big players and her desire to pay contributors fairly.[4][5] The website is still accessible and contains an archive of previously published articles.
In almost four years, The Hoopla published 300 writers and 5000 articles.[4]
References
- ↑ Simons, Margaret (5 December 2011). "New Kid on the Block: Wendy Harmer talks all things Hoopla". Crikey. Private Media Operations. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
- ↑ Robin, Myriam (7 April 2014). "After jumping through enough ad hoops, a paywalled circus begins". Crikey. Private Media Operations. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
- ↑ Robin, Myriam (23 March 2015). "'When elephants go to war, the ants get trampled': The Hoopla closes as field gets more crowded". Crikey. Private Media Operations. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
- 1 2 Harmer, Wendy (23 March 2015). "The Hoopla … Last drinks! Alley oop!". The Hoopla. We Magazines. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
- ↑ a post on the website