Inside News Corp's $540 Million Bet on American Classrooms

Travis Andrews:

This piece is part of Mashable Spotlight, which presents in-depth looks at the people, concepts and issues shaping our digital world.
In the middle of Brooklyn's high-end Dumbo neighborhood, 20 inner-city children sit around two wooden tables at what appears to be a small summer camp. Tablet computers are scattered across the tables, punctuated by plates of corn chips and bowls of salsa. The kids are restless on this sweltering July afternoon, fidgeting in their chairs and asking the handful of twenty-somethings if they can play Temple Run or maybe just head home for the day.

These kids aren't technically campers, and these Millennials aren't counselors. Instead, the children are product testers (paid weekly in $100 Amazon gift cards) for News Corp., the Rupert Murdoch-founded media conglomerate that began Fox News. The "counselors" are News Corp. employees, tasked with recording these children's every reaction to the educational games into which News Corp. has poured at least $180 million, according to Bloomberg, on top of the $360 million it spent to acquire the technology.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 4, 2013 12:41 AM
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