Mark Cuban is famous for many reasons. He first gained notice as a streaming audio pioneer. Later, he earned fans through ABC (and, later, CNBC) airings of the show Shark Tank. He’s also the owner of the Dallas Mavericks National Basketball Association franchise.
Now, Cuban says he will be investing in a brand-new podcast platform — one that sounds a lot like News/Talk/Sports radio at its best.
In an interview with The Verge, Cuban revealed that he’s investing in Fireside Chat.
It’s described as “a socially responsible platform” on a placeholder website.
Importantly, it appears to be different from Fireside — a podcast service that dates to 2016, with metrics and analytics alongside hosting capabilities available. That similarly named company was founded by Dan Benjamin and is headquartered in Austin, Tex.
Rather, Fireside Chat is a project Cuban is co-founding with Falon Fatemi.
In an email obtained by The Verge, Cuban describes Fireside Chat as a “next-gen podcast platform” that facilitates live conversation.
Possible creator partners received the electronic communication.
As The Verge notes, Fireside Chat is similar to Clubhouse, backed by such social media and marketing stars as Gary Vaynerchuck.
The key difference is the Fireside Chat ability to natively record conversations.
A launch is in the works for sometime this year.
As Fatemi sees it, Fireside Chat creators “will be able to broadcast, record, and monetize conversations while using Fireside’s built-in analytics tools to figure out what content performs best,” The Verge says.
A source tells The Verge that creators “will be offered various deals and ways to monetize, and the app won’t let just anyone speak publicly. It’ll be a highly curated experience.”
Cuban and Todd Wagner in 1999 pocketed $5.7 billion from the sale of streaming audio innovator Broadcast.com to Yahoo!
