Yahoo Announces The Hollywood Reporter as New XR Partner

Expansion of the Yahoo News XR Partner Program and Immersive Platform continues Yahoo’s rise as the leader in 5G next gen XR storytelling

Today, Yahoo, a leader in innovation, content and commerce, announced legacy entertainment trade The Hollywood Reporter as the newest partner for its cutting-edge Yahoo News XR Partner Program. Yahoo, part of Verizon Media’s massive ecosystem of trusted consumer brands, has been leading the digital media industry in XR storytelling, transforming content through unique and scaled immersive and democratized experiences, offering passionate consumers the unique opportunity to further immerse themselves in the stories they love. Through the expansion of its XR Partner Program, Yahoo joins forces with other top digital publishers, such as The Hollywood Reporter, to continue to pair its leading tech and creative capabilities, as well as massive distribution, with talented journalists and storylines that experiment with formats and explore what XR news and immersive journalism can be in a 5G-powered world.

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This new innovative partnership between Yahoo and The Hollywood Reporter (THR) will enable hollywoodreporter.com to deploy augmented reality experiences on desktop and mobile web browsers through Yahoo’s Immersive Platform. The Immersive Platform, which launched last summer, is a proprietary technology platform powered by a powerful combination of creators, in-house 3D-savvy storytellers of all verticals, feed-the-beast producers, and product, engineering and operations teams, which create XR experiences across news, sports, finance, entertainment and wellness content – further immersing audiences into the stories they enjoy consuming across its platforms.

“Our Yahoo News XR Partner program was created in an effort to support our partners with groundbreaking technology that embraces immersive storytelling and experiences,” said Joanna Lambert, Head of Consumer, Verizon Media. “We are thrilled to join forces with an incredible partner like The Hollywood Reporter as we continue to connect our audiences to their passions and expand celebrity coverage and entertainment conversation in innovative new ways, using immersive technologies to allow our audiences to be active participants in the topics and issues that matter most to them.”

“The Hollywood Reporter is thrilled to evolve our iconic entertainment legacy by joining forces with the Yahoo News XR Partner Program,” said Matt Bravmann, Senior Director of Marketing at THR. “By bringing Hollywood’s biggest stars to audiences’ living rooms and recreating the excitement of the red carpet, we’re able to capture the emotional connection audiences are craving now more than ever. This is truly a new frontier of entertainment technology and storytelling.”

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The launch project with THR, “The Immersive Red Carpet and Roundtable Experience” is a spin-off of THR’s Oscar Roundtable video series profiling this year’s Academy Award nominees. Hollywoodreporter.com and Yahoo Entertainment visitors are able to view and interact with top nominees for Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress through an audio-enabled augmented reality (AR) experience. The execution brings the red carpet experience to audiences through their mobile device or desktop using webAR, featuring 3D versions of favorite stars walking the carpet and sound bites taken from THR’s Roundtable series. Exclusive clips from The Hollywood Reporter’s roundtables series will debut on Yahoo Entertainment as part of this partnership, creating an immersive experience that will both drive news, and surprise and delight readers.

The Hollywood Reporter joins established publications such as: USA TODAY, Reuters, The Associated Press, NowThis and LA TIMES in the Yahoo XR Partner Program, which launched in 2019 and is powered in part by Yahoo Ryot Lab, Verizon Media’s award-winning innovation creative content studio.

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