Nizel Pradhan
Media technology startup Zette announced that it was opening a private beta onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt on October 20, 2022. Select beta testers now have access to the Zette browser extension, where they can access paywalled articles across a wide range of premium publishers—all while sharing revenue with newsrooms.
Since the start of its private beta in October, hundreds of users have been pre-approved to sign up for Zette’s browser extension. Zette offered its beta users three months of free membership to trial the service, where they can access over 100+ premium publishers. Beta testers have generously given product feedback and feature requests to the team.
“Early user feedback will be instrumental in shaping our product roadmap,” says Zhu. “This ensures we’ll be in good shape for when we launch to the public in January 2023.”
The majority of readers today do not pay for premium journalism due to cost, inconvenience or subscription fatigue. Zette empowers publishers to activate new revenue and audience opportunities by enabling today’s digital-first consumer to easily read and pay for the stories they crave.
Zette is a venture-backed startup founded by CEO Yehong Zhu, a 27-year-old former Forbes journalist, Twitter product manager and Harvard alumni, who credits the idea behind Zette to her time working in the Forbes newsroom.
Ahead of its anticipated public launch, the startup encourages curious readers to join their waitlist to stay informed about upcoming products, news, and promotions.
