Platinum Studios - WOWIO

WOWIO

In June 2008, Platinum Studios announced that it had begun talks to acquire the online comics publishing company WOWIO. WOWIO is an American-based online destination that provides users the ability to share and consume digital media content, such as eComics and eBooks, while providing revenue generating opportunities for creators and publishers through advertising and merchandising programs. Its stated reason for the acquisition was that acquiring WOWIO would be a "major cornerstone" of "a global digital publishing distribution initiative" and help the company expand. In a press release on the Project Fanboy website WOWIO CEO, Dr. David Palumbo expressed his avid support of the acquisition when he was quoted as saying,

Joining with Platinum Studios would allow WOWIO to fulfill its founding mission of increasing access to free books to all and would significantly enhance reaching our goal of becoming the world's leading digital content distribution source for the publishing world.

The companies projected that a transaction would be concluded early in the third quarter of 2008, and that appears to be the case. Since then, several publishers have not been paid their second quarter 2008 earnings. It appears third quarter earnings for the year, calculated on a new formula more favorable to Wowio, have been paid. Platinum Studios has since sold WOWIO, without paying second quarter royalties. WOWIO was acquired from Platinum Studios in July 2009 and has since paid all partnering publishers in full. Platinum no longer has ownership or any percentage of WOWIO as it was acquired by Alliance Acquisitions, LLC in 2010.

In June 2010, WOWIO raised an additional $1.7 million in funding led by WOWIO CEO Brian Altounian and purchased the online community WEvolt. WEvolt enables comic book artists to create and share their work with their fans. Its online platform allows creators of comics, and soon other media, to generate revenues by participating in ad sales and other activities such as merchandising. Users can create and submit their original material for broader distribution consideration, or they can simply use the site as an aggregator of their favorite online content. WEvolt was created by Jason Badower, a comic artist from Australia who has illustrated and colored several Heroes graphic novels, and Matt Jacobs.

WOWIO later acquired the Web comics community site, DrunkDuck. DrunkDuck lets its 95,000 members post comics they have created and connect with fans.