Genius (company)

Genius
Type of business	Private
Type of site	Media company
Headquarters	Brooklyn, New York City, U.S.
Area served	Worldwide
Owner	MediaLab AI, Inc.
Founder(s)	Tom Lehman; Ilan Zechory; Mahbod Moghadam;
President	Ilan Zechory (former); Miki Toliver King (current);
CEO	Tom Lehman
Industry	Entertainment
URL	genius.com
Registration	Required for editing, annotating, and transcribing
Launched	October 20, 2009 (as Rap Genius)
Written in	Ruby on Rails; React; jQuery;

Genius is an American digital media company founded on August 27, 2009, by Tom Lehman, Ilan Zechory, and Mahbod Moghadam. Its website serves as an online music encyclopedia allowing users to provide annotations and interpretation to song lyrics, news stories, sources, poetry, and documents.

Originally launched as Rap Genius, with a focus on hip-hop music, the company attracted the attention and support of celebrities, and venture capital enabling further growth.^[1] The site expanded in 2014 to cover other forms of media, such as pop, literature, R&B, and added an annotation-embedded platform. That same year, an iPhone app was released. To reflect these new goals, the site relaunched as Genius in July 2014. An Android version was released in August 2015,^[5] and in 2016 and 2017, the company began producing music-focused original video content and hosting live events and concerts.

^ ^a ^b Wiedeman, Reeves (January 4, 2015). "Genius Idea". New York. Archived from the original on July 5, 2017.
^ "Brands | MediaLab". medialab.la. Retrieved June 7, 2023.
^ Connor, Jackson (January 12, 2016). "Genius: The Annotation Will Not Be Televised". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017.
^ "RapGenius.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info – DomainTools". WHOIS. Archived from the original on August 4, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2017.
^ "XDA Picks: Best Apps of the Week (Aug 1 – Aug 8)". August 8, 2015. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015.

[NYM-1] Wiedeman, Reeves (January 4, 2015). "Genius Idea". New York. Archived from the original on July 5, 2017.

[2] "Brands | MediaLab". medialab.la. Retrieved June 7, 2023.

[Voice-3] Connor, Jackson (January 12, 2016). "Genius: The Annotation Will Not Be Televised". The Village Voice. Archived from the original on November 7, 2017.

[4] "RapGenius.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info – DomainTools". WHOIS. Archived from the original on August 4, 2019. Retrieved February 15, 2017.

[5] "XDA Picks: Best Apps of the Week (Aug 1 – Aug 8)". August 8, 2015. Archived from the original on September 6, 2015.

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