L.G.: This, for you, is like a soft launch, isn't it. Maybe you can have a party in, like, a puddle somewhere, on a little traffic island, maybe.
T.B: Oh, I don't know, yeah, traffic island—that's a good idea. L.G.: I was amused: In your own interview with yourself, you asked yourself whether you could bankrupt Barry Diller. And you said, "Even I can't burn through money that fast." T.B.: It's true.
L.G.: Well that's very reassuring. You've had a number of good hits, as with our friend Christopher Buckley [whose endorsement of Barack Obama and subsequent resignation from National Review, the conservative magazine founded by his late father William F. Buckley Jr., received widespread coverage in the mainstream media].
T.B.: Yeah, that was like Christmas Day. Chris and I are really good friends. We agreed he was going to do a regular column a few months ago, and he said "I'm all yours once the Beast begins to roar." So up he goes with his first column, and it's great, and then I say, "Hey, what's the next column, Chris?" He says "I think I've got something that you're going to enjoy," and I said "Okay, great, we'll put it up on Monday." He said, "I have a funny feeling you might want to put it up right away," so of course as soon as it came in, we rammed it right in. Then the next thing is, he does the other one about the fact that he gets fired, and then of course it goes crazy. It's just been amazing. It's been a huge traffic driver. It's been picked up everywhere. Everywhere. It's amazing how it continues. It's one of the great fun things about the traffic metrics to be able to see. It's still driving. We published the piece whenever it was, and now I can see people are going back to the new piece about having left the National Review, but they're also then going to the other piece to see what he said in the first place. So it's been great for us.
L.G.: Have there been other things that have driven traffic to the Daily Beast?
T.B.: We've had a lot of good stuff, actually. Mike Kinsley's piece about McCain at the craps table got a huge amount of traffic.
L.G.: That was the one where McCain chewed out the old lady?
T.B.: Yep, that was great. We had a terrific Kevin Sessums' Jennifer Lopez piece that drove a lot of traffic. We had a wonderful piece where one of our interns got McCain's auntie on the telephone, [laughs] and she gave an exclusive interview to the Daily Beast about what she feels are the chances of her nephew—and that's been picked up everywhere today. I think frankly we're a very lively staff. As long as the ideas keep rolling, obviously people are interested in content, so it's the content that's driving the site, which is very nice for us. I think news is the best marketing budget. I mean, I'd rather have news than a marketing budget. If you have stories people want to read, that's the best way to market your site. It's much better than pictures, posters, and expensive advertising. Content Continues Below
L.G.: Do you have a marketing budget?
T.B.: Not really, no.
L.G.: I think Tina Brown is the best marketing budget.
T.B.: God, I want to go to bed, Lloyd. I was up at 4 a.m. blogging [about the final presidential candidates' debate].
L.G.: I read that. That was very amusing. T.B.: Thank you. I used to take two days to write a column for the Washington Post. Now I'm writing one in two-and-a-half hours. You're used to it. You've always been a kind of content monster, churning it out like a maniac. L.G.: Okay, the flattery portion of the interview is over.
T.B.: It's true. I used to wonder about that, but now I know what can be done when you're in a frenetic state.
L.G.: Here's a question I'm curious about: Are you paying your writers?
T.B.: We pay professional writers.
L.G.: At market rates?
T.B.: Certainly at competitive Web rates. Listen, let's put it this way, if I ever hear the words, "he's at Condé Nast," I'd put down the telephone.
L.G.: [Laughs]
T.B.: Condé Nast only competes with itself at the moment. But there's a hell of a lot of writers out there who are floating around who are looking for places to publish things.
L.G.: Right, but a lot of the people that you have featured are your A-list, right?
T.B.: Those are people I have very good relationships with. It's wonderful. I feel very touched that some of the old friends have sort of come forth and multiplied. I think the thing about writers is, most of all, they like feedback and they like to be read. And in this competitive place for eyeballs right now, it's so hard to make an impact with something, you get so overwhelmed with others' competing material that I think when writers feel that there is a place where they can put their stuff and get a response, it's quite remarkable what type of material starts to come in. One of the things I'm freaked out about—and it's wonderful—is I wake up in the morning and there's something in my inbox from somebody that I didn't actually call, to say, "I just read this," "I just came back from so and so," "I just wrote this," you know. I woke up this morning, and now I had a post from Andrew Neil, former editor of the London Sunday Times, and he's started to be one of our bloggers on the British economy. And, quite frankly, he's got a ton of other things he could be doing.
 Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 
|
|