Marketwire is a full-service newswire and communications workflow solutions company headquartered in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 with offices throughout Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. Marketwire was founded in 1993 and incorporated in the U.S in 1999. The company distributes press releases via traditional methods (Associated Press, Bloomberg, etc.) as well as new media methods and provides, multimedia (photo and video) distribution, conferencing services, media contact management and media monitoring service

Media monitoring service

A media monitoring service, a press clipping service or a clipping service as known in earlier times, provides clients with copies of media content, which is of specific interest to them and subject to changing demand; what they provide may include documentation, content, analysis, or editorial...

s. The company has more than 13,000 clients worldwide and has nineteen offices.

Corporate history

Marketwire, under its original name Internet Wire, began service in October, 1994, as the first Internet-based press release distribution company. The company was founded by PR agency owner Michael Terpin and online marketer Michael Shuler in Los Angeles, CA, and received $17.5 million in venture capital to expand operations in January, 2000. The company changed its name to Market Wire in April, 2003, after sealing a strategic deal with NASDAQ.

In 2006, Marketwire was acquired by CCNMatthews, a 25-year-old news distribution company in Canada. The company adopted the name Marketwire unilaterally. The company is now majority-owned by OMERS

OMERS

OMERS, officially the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, is a pension fund created by statute in 1962 to handle the retirement benefits of local government employees in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has become one of the largest institutional investors in Canada. About 70% of...

 Capital Partners, the private equity arm of one of Canada's largest pension funds. The company's history can be traced back to 1957.

In July 2010, Marketwire acquired Sysomos

Sysomos

Sysomos Inc. is a Toronto-based social media analytics company.The company uses content of social media sites including blogs, forums and Twitter to create a real-time picture on how products, people, and brands are covered in those media sites. Unlike other similar services, it also attempts to...

, a social monitoring and analytics service, offering customers the ability to track their social presence across sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Operations

The company's operations are categorized into four offerings.

• Press Release Distribution
• Multimedia
  Multimedia
  Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
  
  
• Media Management
• Monitoring Solutions

Corporate Affairs

Marketwire's President and Chief Executive Officer is Michael J. Nowlan. The company's headquarters is in Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. Offices locations include Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

, and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

. The company has more than 13,000 clients worldwide and has nineteen offices.

Controversial Events

On August 24, 2000, Mark Jakob, a former employee, used Internet Wire to send a fraudulent press release to the news media. The press release falsely reported that Emulex Corporation was suddenly in dire straits; several news outlets picked up the story the next morning, causing Emulex to lose 62% of its value in morning trading. The FBI later discovered that Jakob had shorted

Short selling

In finance, short selling is the practice of selling assets, usually securities, that have been borrowed from a third party with the intention of buying identical assets back at a later date to return to that third party...

Emulex stock, and he was sentenced to 44 months in prison.

Notable events

In 1956, a senior federal Department of Industry officer named Ted Bullock was assigned to promote Canadian businesses and industries involved in the following year's Brussels World Fair. A list of every media outlet in the country, he felt, might help him to do his job better. So he suggested his friend, Syd Matthews, compile that list.

In 1957, Canada's first media directory was published by Syd Matthews. At 13 pages, the list contained the mailing address and senior personnel for 23 daily newspapers and was mailed to 33 subscribers. Marketwire celebrated the 50th anniversary of this directory on October 10, 2007.