Ashley Simon leads strategic partnerships for Upworthy. She currently focuses on those that advance the company’s content, audience development, and revenue channels.
Prior to joining Upworthy, Ashley was an early member of the Foursquare team. She created some of the company’s first media partnerships in television, music, film, and publishing, including MTV, Conde Nast, and Roc Nation. Then, as senior manager of platform business development, she focused on strategic data and API partnerships.
Prior to Foursquare, Ashley was one of the founding members of Viacom’s Scratch—an in-house group that connects brands like Pepsi and GM to the MTV audience through customized content, product design, and retail promotion.
Ashley earned a B.A. in social thought and analysis from Washington University in St. Louis.
journalism
Future Schlock or Journalism’s Next Golden Age?
While Jeff Bezos and Pierre Omidyar are putting serious money towards serious journalism, the professional news business seems more at risk every day. Yet the need for trustworthy information only grows. Meanwhile, every company wants to create “content,” since “ads” are increasingly distrusted, and expensive. Who will be the arbiters of accuracy? Will the public care? Could a new golden age of substantive journalism arise? Or is the future filled with cat videos? Justin Fox of the Harvard Business Review, Al-Jazeera's Abderahim Foukara, Salon's Cindy Jeffers, Alexandra Leo of IBT Media, Rem Rieder of USA Today, Upworthy's Ashley Simon, and Kaela Worthen Gardner of reddit discuss at Techonomy 2013 in Tucson, Ariz. Watch video and read the complete transcript here.
Conferences
Techonomy 13
A new society is coming into being. People around the world are building it using the rapidly-evolving tools of technology.
