L.G.: Arianna Huffington doesn't pay her writers, as you know—her bloggers particularly.
T.B.: Don't forget, Lloyd, it's a completely different model, because that's a come-one-come-all, multi sort of present site. We are commissioning and not just trying to publish every blog that comes in as a post. It's going through editors. It's not people posting without an editor, it's people writing for either a commission or a particular editor. We accept and we reject.
L.G.: Some people have written that yours is sort of a "voice of God" internet site.
T.B.: No, no, because there's still comments, an interactive nature of the site, there's a lot of free exchange. Let's put it this way, it's a much more free marketplace than a magazine where you have to kind of harbor your print pages. We want to cultivate our own voices, and as the site grows, there probably will be many voices. We really want, first of all, to establish a literary standard and a level of thought and conversation, which then in a sense becomes self-replenishing, with people who are attracted to the site because they're those kinds of writers and thinkers and people. And then you could establish a roster of people that you particularly love to hear from, and then they, in turn, attract others like them. So it's really, at this point, about establishing the tone and quality and standard of the site.
L.G.: There's always been a tension, on the internet and within various internet companies and journalistic enterprises, between democracy and editorial control. You are an editor, obviously.
T.B.: We are in between. We do feel that our service is to be discerning, so we're kind of in between a site that is really an edited, fully commissioned site and one that is wholly kind of user-generated. We have user-generated content, and we also do stuff about user-generated content, and we aggregate user-generated content. But we're not just looking to simply post everything in the world that's close to the door right now, because we're trying to say this is a site that will save you time, so we're only going to give you stuff that interests us.
L.G.: What about the notion that, as your old "friend" Michael Wolff—who I gather went to Barry and asked Barry if he would back his site [Newser.com]—.
T.B.: I didn't know that history.
L.G.: But he was saying that buzz doesn't get you the kind of traffic you want, that the businesses that make money are the ones that you don't hear all that much about.
T.B: I certainly think he's hoping for that.
L.G.: [Laughs]
T.B.: Listen, that's his story and he's sticking to it. What can I say?
L.G.: But even Arianna—
T.B.: Arianna makes a lot of buzz. That site has made itself on news. It's done great things and made a lot of news. That's why it's succeeded.
L.G.: She says, in the Los Angeles Times piece, which you probably saw, that "I agree with Michael that buzz is not something you plan for, and it should never be your goal. You should follow your heart, speak the truth, and work to connect with your readers."
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T.B.: This is like the election: Is anybody anywhere telling you the truth?
L.G.: I hope you are!
T.B.: I am! You know what buzz is?
L.G.: I want you to define it for me.
T.B.: Buzz, contrary to what some people think, is not something you graft onto a site. Buzz is just another word for providing interesting things that people wish to talk about. That's buzz, and that's what an editor's job is, to provide material that is stimulating, provocative, and interesting enough to make people actually want to converse about it. So if we're generating buzz, it's because we're actually appealing to what makes people involved and interested.
L.G.: That word has been most associated with you.
T.B.: Yes, in the case of me, they tend to call me "the erstwhile queen of buzz." In fact, I now sign my letters, The Erstwhile Queen of Buzz.
L.G.: But it's a term that's used derisively.
T.B.: I know it's been used derisively by people who've never been able to create any.
L.G.: [Laughs] Very funny. What is your view of the climate for the media business. The economy seems to be heading into the dumpster. Wall Street is a horror show.
T.B.: It's pretty scary. It's scary, scary, scary.
L.G.: It's scary, and isn't it a crappy business environment to start up anything these days?
T.B.: But you know there's one kind of liberating thing about it—nobody's pretending to be doing well. So it's a kind of liberating climate for experiment and go-for-it [mentality]. So since nothing is working anywhere under the sun, you may as well play your best ideas. I mean, let the Darwinism begin!
L.G.: I think you're very much somewhere in the middle or perhaps the end stages of survival of the fittest here, aren't you?
T.B.: Survival of the fattest. Thanks a lot for that, by the way—am I really, it's unbelievable—I'm not that much of a dinosaur, for God's sake! I'm here writing my books and getting on with my life.
L.G.: Yeah, well you're the one who called yourself a dinosaur.
T.B.: True, but I'm going to keep going. My husband is still 25 years older than me, he gets up and blogs and swims 80 lengths, finishes his book, does a lecture, and gets on a plane and does a panel.
L.G.: That is truly frightening.
T.B.: It is pretty frightening. We have a lot of fun over our work. Actually, part of our thing is if you love your work, it's not work. We just love our work, we always have. I love our work, I love being creative, I love writing and editing, talking to creative people. It's not onerous, it's really fun.
L.G.: IAC is partly a media company, and there are all these media behemoths that have been having trouble. News Corp., Time Warner—
T.B.: I love what Rupert's done with the Wall Street Journal, by the way. I think it's great.
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