A year or two ago, some noise was being made by Clickwheel, a UK venture which hoped to develop comics content directly for iPods, presumably in a downloadable form via iTunes. Everyone agreed it was a good idea, but at least over stateside, it never became much more than a rumbling. Now, the company has been acquired by Rebellion, the publisher of 2000AD, and England’s premier comics producer:
Clickwheel Ltd, the comics to iPod company, has been acquired by computer games super-developer, Rebellion, developer of such video games as Alien vs Predator and Rogue Trooper.
“Being already involved in the next gen video game market, we know well the pace of development in world of entertainment”, says Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion/2000 AD. “With the acquisition of Clickwheel, we look forward to pushing the boundaries of innovation even further”.
“With user-generated content set to augment the mainstream, new media is becoming ever more key to success,” says Chris Kingsley, CTO of Rebellion/2000 AD. “Our acquisition of Clickwheel is a natural extension of our existing focus and we look forward to helping pioneer a new way of reading comics.”
Throughout its 15 years of developing video games, Rebellion has branched out into other media, most notably comics. In June 2000 Rebellion purchased the UK’s premier Sci-Fi Comic 2000 AD and its entire character portfolio consisting of characters including Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, ABC Warriors as well as 700 other unique IP’s.
Founded in 2005, Clickwheel Ltd is an online media company that enables users to create a media channel for their comics or movies and broadcast them live on Clickwheel.net or, from the iTunes Music Store, via an RSS feed.
The acquisition will be accompanied by a site-wide relaunch of Clickwheel.net, which will include a full redesign, tools to streamline the user experience, easier previews of downloads, customizable creator profile pages, new types of content, ratings, forums, and other community features.
“This is very good news for Clickwheel and comics generally”, says Will Simons, Creative Director of Clickwheel. “2007 promises to be a very interesting year for digital media with more new products and services than most of us will know what to do with, so it’s very exciting to be re-launching at the beginning of it.
Along with acquisition, Clickwheel is pleased to announce some personnel changes. The development of the Clickwheel website site will be handled by Big Newt Software Studio Ltd., led by Dave Astels and Nancy Blenkhorn. Big Newt is a boutique web application development and hosting company with a strong focus on quality workmanship, delivery of business value, and open-source tools & technologies. Additionally, Tim Demeter has been promoted to editor and will oversee all creative content matters.
Throughout its 15 years of developing video games, Rebellion has branched out into other media, most notably comics. In June 2000 Rebellion purchased the UK’s premier Sci-Fi Comic 2000 AD and its entire character portfolio consisting of characters including Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, ABC Warriors as well as 700 other unique IP’s.
Founded in 2005, Clickwheel Ltd is an online media company that enables users to create a media channel for their comics or movies and broadcast them live on Clickwheel.net or, from the iTunes Music Store, via an RSS feed.
The acquisition will be accompanied by a site-wide relaunch of Clickwheel.net, which will include a full redesign, tools to streamline the user experience, easier previews of downloads, customizable creator profile pages, new types of content, ratings, forums, and other community features.
“This is very good news for Clickwheel and comics generally”, says Will Simons, Creative Director of Clickwheel. “2007 promises to be a very interesting year for digital media with more new products and services than most of us will know what to do with, so it’s very exciting to be re-launching at the beginning of it.
Along with acquisition, Clickwheel is pleased to announce some personnel changes. The development of the Clickwheel website site will be handled by Big Newt Software Studio Ltd., led by Dave Astels and Nancy Blenkhorn. Big Newt is a boutique web application development and hosting company with a strong focus on quality workmanship, delivery of business value, and open-source tools & technologies. Additionally, Tim Demeter has been promoted to editor and will oversee all creative content matters.
