This story involves nonstandard capitalization. eXp World Holdings is a Bellingham, Washington-based publicly traded company (Nasdaq: EXPI) that runs eXp Realty and Virbela, a cloud-based real estate concern and an “immersive technology platform,” respectively. Got all that? SUCCESS is a Plano-based magazine owned by a 123-year-old company that’s in the personal-development business. eXp now owns SUCCESS. The news came down last week, but I’m just now getting to it because I could stand some of my own personal development, if you know what I mean.
Most media outlets, as you likely know, are getting hit one way or another by the pandemic. When Southwest: The Magazine folded a few months back, the local scene suffered, especially on the magazine side of things. A bunch of us at D Magazine have made money in one form or fashion from Southwest (formerly Spirit). If you remember the names Alex Macon and Catherine Downes (as you should), they were working there when the plug was pulled.
All of which is to say that SUCCESS’ success is a good thing for North Texas. They pay real money to many of the same freelancers on whom we depend. So I asked Josh Ellis, the editor-in-chief of SUCCESS, what to think of the press release. He wrote back:
Where I sit, it’s a really positive thing for the future of the magazine and our writers. We’re expecting more resources than we’ve had, and the leadership at the company that bought us has a really big vision. We’re fully remote now, but most of the staff and many of our regular freelancers have local ties, like Mike Mooney, Jonny Auping, Tyler Hicks, Catherine Downes, Jesse Hughey, and a few others you may not know as well.
Overall I see it as hopeful news for the local writer/editor ecosystem, if that’s a thing anymore now that we’re not supposed to go to bars.
Yes, indeed. For the ecosystem to thrive, every scientist agrees, the bars must be fully operational. So mask up and keep to yourself as much as possible. Let’s get through this.
