Suzanne Kantra knows gadgets. After spending 16 years writing about technology at Popular Science and another three as the tech editor at Martha Stewart Omnimedia, Kantra says she’s tried a lot of cell phones, tons of food processors and too many laptops to count. Which is why, she says, she’s good at her new job.

In fall 2008, she teamed up with Toby Grumet Segal, another editor with a tech background, and Josh Kirschner, who has the finance background to make sure a new project could get off the ground, to develop Techlicious.com, the tech site specifically for women.

The self-funded venture launched June 9 with its debut batch of tips and how to’s, buyers guides and reviews, and aggregated “fab sites” for techies on the Web. Fresh from the launch, mediabistro.com caught up with Kantra to hear her insights on why women need their own tech source and what it takes to see a project realized.

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What is it about the tech community that intimidates women, or makes technology less approachable for them?

I think that anybody wants to have technology made easier for them. No question. But you need to apply it to their everyday lives. Can dads take photos of their kids? Absolutely. But statistics show that women are the memory keepers. And our site is not about pink. Can a guy go on and get great information? Absolutely. It’s sort of like reading a cooking magazine — do men not like great recipes? Of course they do, but it’s sort of been a traditional women’s role.

It’s also about creating an environment. You look at Gizmodo, and it tends to be snarky, fast-paced, and not made for the unfamiliar. It’s implied that you can just learn the basics on your own, on the side. It’s very hard-core, as opposed to saying, ‘We don’t always have to use all the acronyms, and we can reach women at a lot of different levels.’

Where did the idea come from? What made you want to start a whole new project?
I had been working part-time while I was at Martha Stewart [Living Omnimedia], and then worked from home when I was on maternity leave there. I realized that I really liked the autonomy and flexibility of working from home.

But I didn’t want to stop working, or to give up tech. Previously, I had worked at Popular Science for 16 years. When I went to Martha Stewart, I had the tech background that allowed me to take the service approach, to write about how readers can use technology to make their lives easier, and to live better, more beautiful lives.

But tech wasn’t the most integral part of that company. So when I left Martha, I thought it would be great to work from home to create something where tech was the big focus. I love technology, and I enjoy connecting with people and helping them with tech questions and recommendations. Here we’ve tried to create something that was dedicated to tech from a woman’s service perspective.

“Techlicious is not about disposable content. We’re creating a foundation of resources and information that people can come back to.”

So that service background really informed Techlicious.

Absolutely. From a content perspective, we’re looking at delivering actionable items. We’re focusing on doing shorter, tip-based things, and presenting it in a way that people feel they can actually do that. We have short video tutorials, for example, one on how to convert your photos to an email-friendly size and format.

You see that it’s easy and we give you a little checklist on how to do it. We also try to be aware of the fact that people are using different platforms and operating systems. So by having combinations of those things, it makes people feel that they can do it.

What kind of products do you cover?

If it runs on a battery or plugs into an outlet, we’re interested! That means kids electronic toys, kitchen appliances, outdoor gardening, cameras and laptops, and GPS systems.

When you look at a product, you’re interested in how you, specifically, can use it. And the roles that women take on in their lives are different from men — mom, daughter, memory keeper. There are different roles that women take on. When you think about how tech is used by women, it makes sense that it would be different from how men use it.

Studies have shown that women are more impressed by functionality — they ask, what can it do for me? Men are more attracted to the flashy features — it’s not as much about solving a problem for them. Obviously they’re also attracted to things that work well, that are easy to use, but for women, that functionality is really more key.

“With Martha Stewart especially, I had a big brand behind me, and it was about representing the brand… Now I get to figure out what the brand stands with, and then act on that.”

What sites informed or inspired Techlicious?
I don’t think that there’s anyone doing women’s tech; we’re really doing something new here. Sites like iVillage, BabyCenter, Consumer Reports and Consumer Search all have a few features of our site, and we’ve looked at them extensively. There are some good Web sites out there, but we’re doing things differently.

We’re really a content portal, as opposed to a blog. Techlicious is not about disposable content. We’re creating a foundation of resources and information that people can come back to. We have a blog section, too, for things that are in the news and very immediate — the mandatory transition to digital television is one example. We put information on how to handle that issue on the blog; that wouldn’t be a main core for the site, because it’s such a here-and-now problem, so that’s what the blog is for.

What’s it like to move from established venues like Martha Stewart, Sirius Radio and Popular Science, to your own startup operation?
Before, with Martha Stewart especially, I had a big brand behind me, and it was about representing the brand, and delivering out what the brand promises. Now I get to figure out what the brand stands with, and then act on that. I don’t think that I could do this without my background — I do have connections in the industry. I’ve built a reputation as someone who gives good recommendations.

I have the background to be able to ask the questions that make sense and put it in context. And manufacturers are looking for the audience we reach. It’s about helping readers make smarter decisions so that they feel good about purchases. Techlicious benefits the consumer, because they’re satisfied with what they’ve bought. And especially with the economic climate we’re in, you want to feel good that you made the right choice and that you didn’t waste your money.

Can you describe the reader reaction to the site? Do you think Techlicious is making the bigger, older tech blogs nervous yet?
We haven’t made a big PR push yet, but we’re starting to build relationships. We’re trying to be very careful that we get everything right. When we put up a guide, it’s been well-researched. If you look at a lot of Web sites, they’ll do aggregations of professional reviews, but we want to give a fuller picture.

So we look at consumer reviews as well as professional ones, checking out how products performed from reviews on sites like Amazon. Or we’ll tell readers that it’s a new product, so you can’t expect there to be a consumer-reviewed history for it.

“I ask, ‘Did your husband pick out your phone for you? How about your camera?’ And the answer is always, ‘Oh, of course not.'”

You’ve been writing about technology for nearly 20 years. How has reporting on the subject changed?
I got into technology right out of college by starting as an editorial assistant at Popular Science. I had always been drawn to gadgets and technology, playing computer games and all that fun stuff. It was just something that I developed an interest in.

It’s changed a lot in the way that it’s been covered. Tech had been seen as a man’s domain for a long time. When I started, there weren’t a lot of women reporting on it, and it wasn’t covered in women’s magazines. I think people — men and women — do now understand that it’s a part of their everyday lives.

Sometimes, people say that they aren’t tech people, but then when they stop and think about the tools in their everyday life, they do make a lot of decisions on that. I ask, “Did your husband pick out your phone for you? How about your camera?” And the answer is always, “Oh, of course not.”

I need to educate people and say, ‘Look, you’re already doing this. So why not make the best decision possible?’ And there are more tech stories in women’s outlets than there used to be — some great stories that pop up in parenting magazines and so forth — but it’s very sporadic.

How important is product testing to Techlicious? What are you evaluating when reviewing a gadget?
We do experiential reviews for products. We don’t do lab testing — noise testing, speed testing, and all those lab things. We’re not out there to take the place of the hardcore review sites, like CNet.

As consumers who have used a lot of products, we know how to test gadgets. Our writers probably look at hundreds of cell phones every month! So we care about usability, interface, design in general, and what’s new about a product, and then we bring those features, which regular consumers might not even know are there, to light. Our reviewers do have that kind of background. Things like smile detection on a digital camera, for instance — we can tell you the basics and then apply them, explaining how it works and what our experience was when using it in tons of products.

What’s the oldest or most obsolete gadget you still have lying around? Have you acquired any bizarre products because of your job?
Unfortunately, I don’t hold on to stuff that isn’t useful to me. With the lack of space living in Manhattan, you can’t! But one thing I’ve had for years now is the MariVac vacuum marinator. You put your meat in there, screw on the top, put it on its back, and the vacuum mechanism sucks out the air and reduces the amount of time you need to marinate your meat. Instead taking a full day, I can do it in 10 minutes. We covered it in Popular Science when it first came out, and I still have it and use it.

Another thing I’ve kept is from back when Microsoft used to make kids toys. I have a little table with a round, interactive toy in the center, and buttons and a little music thing, and all three of my kids have now used it.

What’s on the horizon for Techlicious?
I like working from home, but I do miss the office sometimes. When I look long-term, hopefully this will grow into a nice big company. My dream is for us to have office space in the city that’s nearby, and then people can have that kind of fluidity where they can choose to come to the office, or not. They’re grownups and know they can do their jobs.

In the industry, people have been very supportive. It’s difficult when you don’t have the traffic yet, but we’re working on creating relationships with big companies who everybody’s heard of. We’ve been very happy with the reception in that regard.

For now, we’re waiting to get some feedback from consumers and concentrating on building more content. We launched with a good set of content, but it’s always going to cry out for more. There’s never enough on the Web.

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Five tips for launching a niche Web site:

1. Know your niche. Kantra’s been in the tech biz for almost 20 years, so she says it’s no coincidence that she recognized what the market was missing and knew how to fill in the gap.
2. Stay up to date — to the very second. “One thing I’ve found frustrating about researching products on the Web is that they tend to be very outdated,” Kantra says. “So much has happened since 2005 and 2006… models get replaced so frequently.” Tech writers have to stay current — and keep readers up to speed — to maintain their edge.
3.Work your contacts. Kantra met her co-founders and many of her writers because she’s worked with them, in some manner, before. When she was ready to launch Techlicious, they were there to join her.
4. Ditch the jargon. You’ll widen your readership if you don’t assume they all know acronyms, Kantra says. Not everyone knows what a GIF file is.

5. Feed the beast, healthfully. It’s a truism because it’s true: On the Web, content is king. But that doesn’t mean that quality has to be sacrificed for quantity, Kantra says.

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Megan Stride is editorial assistant at Portfolio Media’s Law360.

Jonah Sachs is co-founder and creative director of Free Range Studios, based in Washington, D.C. and Berkeley, Calif. Free Range Studios created the highly successful viral marketing campaign behind the Web-documentary “The Story of Stuff.” The 20-minute film takes a look at our wasteful production and consumption patterns, and examines the social and environmental impact it has on our lives. The documentary was written by Annie Leonard, who narrates the story in the foreground while stick-figure animation further illustrates the story-telling in the background. Since the Web documentary’s release in December 2007, it has been viewed more than 5 million times.

On March 9, 2010, The Story of Stuff book will be released. Sachs, who is also the creative force behind the critically-acclaimed Flash advocacy movie “The Meatrix,” gives mediabistro.com the inside scoop on how “The Story of Stuff’s” message spread like wildfire throughout the Internet.

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How did Free Range Studios earn its designation from Wired as a viral marketing leader?
Wired wrote an article in 2002 called “Watch our movie, join our cause,” and at the time we had produced a really successful string of movies for nonprofits. This was at a very early stage of social media where most people were just forwarding chain emails around. We used some simple flash animation techniques (that’s all people could download at the time on their 56k modems) to tell actual stories, instead of just sending out text. At the time that article was written, we had just developed a clean diamonds video ad for Amnesty International that got more than 750,00 views and made a real impact on Capitol Hill.

“Most of our stuff starts out unsexy. That’s why people hire us: to figure out the hook when it isn’t obviously there.”

For something to be viral or lend itself well to viral marketing, the content has to be compelling. As producers of “The Story of Stuff,” how did you build a viral strategy about something as potentially unsexy and complex as the subject of a “materials economy system”?

Most of our stuff starts out unsexy. That’s why people hire us: to figure out the hook when it isn’t obviously there. What’s more unsexy than gross factory farming? But we made a campaign against it totally fun with “The Meatrix.”

The idea is to bring things to a human scale: All systems ultimately impact people, one at a time. When you take big abstract concepts and turn them into stories about characters, people begin to listen with a different part of their brain.

Joseph Campbell says all cultures share a common myth or story, populated by characters that live in our subconscious from ancient times. For instance, people evolved to run from woolly mammoths, not carbon dioxide. So if you tell them about CO2 in the atmosphere, they freeze up. Create a character out of it or those who emit it, and they will start to engage. Then there’s humor, of course, which helps us not take ourselves too seriously and pushes our pleasure buttons. These are all gimmicks in a way, but they really work.

“The Web unlocks tremendous opportunity for people to share things they love, to become evangelists for messages they resonate with.”

Why was did your team choose to use stick-figure animation in the film?

[Writer] Annie [Leonard] came to us with a long whiteboard lecture that people were really digging. We wanted to keep that feeling but activate it. The idea was almost as if Annie was illustrating what she was saying [in] real-time.

Do you think “The Story of Stuff” message is best served by the Web-based video distribution model, rather than making a true documentary film out of it and taking it out on the festival circuit or pitching it to television?

The Web unlocks tremendous opportunity for people to share things they love, to become evangelists for messages they resonate with. Love it? Just push forward and tell the world. This piece was originally designed to “arm the choir” so to speak, to help harmonize the message for activists. The Web has this ability to let limitless spread happen. If we had just shown it live to our “target audience” we might have reached thousands. By unleashing the power of Web sharing, we reached millions.

It’s also interactive. There are so many links from the movie to activist groups, and we really wanted to drive traffic to those groups. You can’t do that offline as easily.

Lots of people try to make viral videos, how did this one take off? What was the strategy to promote it?

I think “Story of Stuff” took off because it was a message that people intuitively understood. It’s like someone was showing them the water we’ve been swimming in. It was supported by a large-scale analysis that they couldn’t have done themselves, but we’ve all suspected that something is terribly wrong with our consumer culture. We just don’t know how to talk about it.

So the content was ripe to be picked up and run with, but it took the Free Range touch of making it more of a gift than a burden to see this heavy, potentially depressing information. We turned it into eye and ear candy with wacky illustrations and lots of subtle storytelling devices. Once we had what we thought was a great finished product, we reached out to all of our fans (about 125,000) and our friends in the blogosphere. That gave us the momentum we needed as a start, but viral hits are not really about promotion; it’s more like a natural blossoming that happens when the content is worthy of it.

How did you make the video easy to share, which is also key to viral marketing?

We did the usual tell-a-friend tools, created a non-interactive YouTube version for easy embedding and gave it a Creative Commons license so anyone could run with it. Everything on the Web is easy to share.

With viral videos, both amateur and professional, hitting the Web every day, what advice would you give media professionals so their Web-based videos are more than a hit-for-one-day wonder?

First of all, viral is not a strategy. If you set out with the hopes of something “going viral,” and do a million tricks to make it so, you’re likely to be disappointed. Create something that you think a smaller target audience will love. Focus on these people who you think are ready to hear your message and provide them something they wish they could have said themselves. Make it funny. Make a story out of it, with characters, plots and tension. Be respectful of their time. They are not your captive audience and can click off at any moment, so you have to delight them, not lecture them. If you can do this for a small core, they will begin to evangelize for you, opening their networks to the message. Now, if their friends and friends of their friends feel the same way, you get a viral hit.

The best projects are hits even if they don’t go viral. They ‘arm the choir’ with new ways to think about old issues and push the conversation forward by leaps and bounds.

“Creating an intentional, message-based viral video is like trying to make lightning strike. It strikes naturally on its own all of the time, but you can’t harness that. Making it strike where and when you want it to takes strategy and expertise.”

Do viral video-makers have to be controversial to be successful online?

No. That’s the mentality of old school media. Create a controversy and get on TV. Viral video makers just need to create something worthy of someone’s time and worthy of their address book. You can be more respectful of your audiences. You don’t need to be sensationalistic to get attention. I think fun, inspirational messages do better than controversy for the sake of controversy.

Do you need a large budget to create a viral video?

Let’s say “large” is tens of thousands of dollars, just to define terms. The answer, I think, is yes and no. Much of the most viral content out there is totally homegrown — moments captured on dad’s camcorder that catch fire or an unexpected mishap in everyday life. People actually are starting to prefer this kind of low-production value, honest-looking stuff. But these home video pieces don’t carry a message. Encoding a social message into a viral video takes a lot of thinking and the expertise of a great writing team. It also takes a great director and even for less fancy-looking stuff, a talented production team. Creating an intentional, message-based viral video is like trying to make lightning strike. It strikes naturally on its own all of the time, but you can’t harness that. Making it strike where and when you want it to takes strategy and expertise, and this often means spending more money.

“The Story of Stuff” is more than 20 minutes long, but most viral videos are shorter. How did you overcome that “length” hurdle?

We knew this message couldn’t be meaningfully delivered in five minutes, and because this was not meant to be a viral hit, we weren’t worried about making it longer. We figured that 10 years of peeling back the curtain that Annie had been doing was easily worth 20 minutes of someone’s attention, but not everybody’s. Well, it turned out lots of people felt the educational component was so strong that it was worth 20 minutes of their time. I get antsy watching anything on the computer after three minutes, but I think a lot of people sensed that there was something critical in the message and stayed tuned in. “The Meatrix” was designed to compete with things like “monkey sniffs own butt” on YouTube. But “Story of Stuff” wasn’t designed that way. It’s more of An Inconvenient Truth approach and, like All Gore’s PowerPoint presentation, it unexpectedly caught fire.

“The Story of Stuff” Web site obviously plays a strategic role in getting the film’s message across. How did you go about deciding how to design it so people could easily access the information they need to take action?

Full interactivity between Flash and video was emerging when we launched “The Story of Stuff.” So we did some fun experiments with putting the interactive components into the video itself. At any time you can click to stop the movie and find out which NGOs are working on the issues Annie is talking about. This innovative video approach got the attention of some of the tech geeks out there and that helped us expand into yet more circles.

What are the latest technologies or innovations available to viral video marketers these days?

I think you’ll see many more customized videos in which the viewer’s interests and personal information will be incorporated into the video itself. Look for something like this from Free Range this fall.

Interest in viral online marketing has yet to wane — will it ever? What comes after viral marketing?

Internet viral marketing is only beginning its run. It will no doubt evolve, but it will never lose its significance. Think of how blunt an instrument billboard advertising or a television ad is. Those are messages shouted out to everyone and their mother from sources that hold almost no trust in the mind of the receiver. The only virtue is that it reaches so many people that someone is bound to listen. Now look at an online viral message: It can be adapted, tweaked, commented on, mashed up and customized to suit any individual. It’s not shouted — it’s tactfully passed from friend to friend. And as long as people have been able to communicate, the most trusted source of information has been our own social networks. Online viral marketing doesn’t only have the potential to change advertising; I honestly believe it could be the technique we use to transform our society and create a sustainable future.

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Jennifer Pullinger is a Richmond, Va.-based writer and communications professional with more than 10 years of experience in marketing, media relations, and journalism.

What are your top five favorite albums, movies, or books of all-time? What about your top five favorite beers, things to have when zombies attack, or destructive world leaders?

Tim O’Shaughnessy, CEO and co-founder of LivingSocial.com, has watched as his “Pick Your Five” application exploded in users on Facebook over the past several weeks. Since March, LivingSocial.com’s “Pick Your Five” feature has gone viral millions of times over, attracting up to 150,000 new users per hour and more than 6 million new users in its first week launch alone. The application allows you to pick any of your top five likes or dislikes and share them with your friends. Currently, the application has more than 17,700,000 monthly active users on Facebook.

O’Shaughnessy co-founded LivingSocial.com, a “social discovery and cataloging network,” with Val Aleksenko, Aaron Batalion, and Eddie Frederick in 2007. Before creating LivingSocial.com, he ran the product group at Revolution Health and worked at AOL in product development. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, and has been in Washington, D.C. ever since helping build consumer Web products.

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How is the LivingSocial.com application different from other favorites or list-sharing applications on Facebook?

LivingSocial makes it really easy and simple for you to share with your friends. It’s worked so well because the lists are so broad and creative, and our database is so comprehensive that users can literally find nearly anything that they’re looking for.

The “Pick Your Five” feature is now all over Facebook. The idea is so simple, but why is it just now being fully conceptualized and launched successfully by an application developer?

I think there are a few reasons that it really took off. First, the new Facebook “stream” really made it much easier for users to share things with their friends. Second, many people who have tried something similar were usually trying to cram too many features into their versions. We kept it simple and have had great success because of it.

How did the “Pick Your Five” application take off so quickly? Was there a lot of promotion?
No, it was all organic. People just wanted to share their lists with their friends, and it really just grew from there.

“To let users more freely express themselves, we let them add additional items to the database. Overall, we really leverage our user feedback to shape the product.”

How does the content, design, and layout of the “Pick Your Five” feature promote virality?
There are a couple of key points: First and foremost, the fact that people can select, order and publish their five from the same page has gone a long way toward keeping users in a mode where they want to publish. Second, the content itself is oftentimes something people took care in selecting, so they really want to show it off! Picking the five movies you’d watch over and over again is hard, so when you’ve decided, you want to show it off.

Why are “lists” — whether it’s LivingSocial.com’s application or the “Notes” that people write and tag — so popular on social networking sites like Facebook?
Social networking sites are really all about communication and sharing. The examples you mention have been going on in some shape or form for ages. People have written notes to each other for ages… or played the “Best five actors of the 1990s” (or similar) game in conversations for much longer than social networks have been around. [Social networks] are just a new medium to communicate and share through that didn’t previously exist; what was popular before works in this form of communication, as well.

What kind of user feedback are you receiving to the application, and how are you responding?
The biggest piece of user feedback we received was within the first few days of the launch of the application. We initially didn’t let users add items to our database, but it was impossible to keep up with all the requests. So, to let users more freely express themselves, we let them add additional items to the database. Overall, we really leverage our user feedback to shape the product. We have a team that processes through all feedback we receive so we can better shape our road map.

How can other developers optimize their applications for Facebook’s new site features?
The biggest things are: No. 1, make it easy for users to create or find something they want to share, and No. 2., give them the opportunity to publish that to the feed.

“It’s not always the case that, just because we’re friends, we care about the same news. If somebody can solve that problem, there is a pretty big opportunity.”

How has the LivingSocial.com application performed with the iPhone and other social networking sites like Bebo.com and MySpace?
We’ve really focused on Facebook and LivingSocial.com, so we are not a great barometer of other platforms.

Quizzes and applications come and go on Facebook, while the LivingSocial.com application has stuck around for several weeks now. To what do you attribute its relative staying power?
I think we’ve done a good job of bringing fresh and timely content to users. For example, we just had 100,000 people take a poll, “Who is to blame, Jon or Kate?” after the TLC show [Jon & Kate Plus 8] began to get so much press.

Can you predict the next big social networking application phenomenon?
I wish. If we could, we’d build it.

What do you want the next big social networking application phenomenon to be?
I don’t think anyone has cracked the nut on delivering relevant news. Twitter is great from a breaking news standpoint, but it has its limitations with regards to accuracy, and it doesn’t really give content specific to me. In the Facebook world, friends occasionally share news, but it’s not always the case that, just because we’re friends, we care about the same news. If somebody can solve that problem, there is a pretty big opportunity.

Where do you see LivingSocial.com in the next five years?
Well, I don’t necessarily see it as a dot-com. I think LivingSocial is a brand that lives across a variety of platforms, the dot-com site being one of them, but Facebook, the iPhone, or the next big things being other platforms. People will come to view us as the pre-eminent place to share and communicate around interests.

Five tips for creating viral social networking applications:
1. K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid).
2. A/B test your products like crazy — text, images, everything. It’s amazing how much you can move the needle.
3. Make something people will want to share with their friends. If people don’t want to communicate about what they’ve just interacted with, it will be very hard to be viral.
4. The subject matter matters. You don’t see a ton of viral apps about banking or healthcare.
5. If a user can interact with the application for more than two minutes and not have had an opportunity to create something to share, you’re probably in trouble.

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Jennifer Pullinger is a Richmond, Va.-based writer and communications professional with more than 10 years of experience in marketing, media relations, and journalism.

Daniel Pinchbeck wants you to want your MTV — one that offers a 21st century hipster point-of-view and global consciousness transformation to the masses. Pinchbeck, a well-established New York City-based writer and editor, has launched several media initiatives to reach the people with this new outlook, including the Webzine RealitySandwich.com and social network Evolver.net. RealitySandwich.com attracts approximately 75,000 unique visitors a month, while Evolver.net, which is still in the alpha stage and hasn’t officially been released yet, brings in around 15,000 unique visitors a month. This is without any traditional marketing or promotion, says Pinchbeck, other than the word-of-mouth sparked by his talks and media appearances. In the fall, RealitySandwich.com will offer a premium subscription tier that will give users access to extra video and Podcast content and more. This winter, Evolver.net will begin charging for subscriptions, but both sites will continue to offer some level of free content.

Pinchbeck, who was born in 1966 and grew up in New York City, is the son of Peter Pinchbeck, an abstract painter, and Joyce Johnson, a member of the Beat Generation. In his 20s, Pinchbeck worked as an editor and reporter for magazines such as Connoisseur, Art & Antiques, and The Art Newspaper of London. He has also written for the likes of The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, and Wired. Today, along with RealitySandwich.com and Evolver.net, Pinchbeck is the executive producer of the Web video series Post Modern Times. The first episode in the series has garnered more than 400,000 hits on YouTube.com.

Both Web sites evolved from themes discussed in Pinchbeck’s first book, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism (2002), and are further inspired by his latest publishing efforts, the bestseller 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl (2007) and Toward 2012: Perspectives on the Next Age (2008), an anthology of essays that originally appeared on RealitySandwich.com. mediabistro.com recently talked with the media entrepreneur and author about how it all started, and where his online efforts are going in the future.

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How did RealitySandwich.com and Evolver.net start?
Basically, as these books [Breaking Open the Head and 2012] came out, I began to receive huge volumes of email from people who had similar experiences — psychic experiences, shamanic experiences, synchronicities, telepathic experiences — and it seemed like there was a cultural necessity to have a place for people to share essays and information around the type of material I discuss in my book, and that other writers discuss outside the mainstream. So RealitySandwich.com was kind of a natural development to create a real media platform for this new paradigm.

“Like a lot of Web media companies, we have been struggling with the question of how to create effective revenue streams that would allow us to stay in business, so we are now developing a subscription model.”

How have the books and online media helped each other?
[The Web sites] exceeded our expectations in terms of the amount of interest generated and the volume of content that was sent to us. We don’t pay for content at this point, so it’s been a great community of a lot of unknown writers, but also known and famous writers who have stepped forward.

So as that developed, we began to see there was this huge community that really needed a way to reach each other, so that then led us to formulate Evolver.net. [The books] and my work really look at this idea that we are in a global crisis, and that there is a necessity for a rapid evolution of human consciousness as well as new social structures that would allow for transformation to happen towards an ecologically sane and sustainable society.

When we launched Evolver.net, we immediately realized the best thing we could do would be to create a kind of scaffolding for social change. And so rather than just being an online platform, we are interested in Evolver.net as a way to build real communities and to help them find themselves. So we created a thing called “Evolver Spores.” We now have about 20 local hubs around the country and internationally who are meeting up every month and exploring the same ideas, and then hopefully also doing activism together, whether that is exploring complementary currencies, or permaculture, or doing shamanic work.

RealitySandwich.com is in beta now. What’s in the works for the full launch?
Like a lot of Web media companies, we have been struggling with the question of how to create effective revenue streams that would allow us to stay in business, so we are now developing a subscription model. With the content that’s now on the site, we will continue to have daily free articles and essays. We are also going to develop a subscription model so that people who want to go deeper or want to support the site can pay something per month and get extra content in the form of video and audio and maybe direct exchange with some of the visionaries who are developing content for the site. That will debut in the fall.

“We believe we’ve done something powerful in finding a juncture between the mass chaos of the blogosphere, and then the almost too over-edited and over-conceived content you get from traditional media.”

RealitySandwich.com is billed as “much more than a traditional online magazine.” In what way is that the case? What about RealitySandwich.com brings something new to the table?
What we have really been interested in is developing a juncture between traditional magazine media and the blogosphere and user-generated content. While we are utilizing the creative energy of our whole community who are sending us content, we are also professionally editing, copy editing, and curating that content. So we believe we’ve done something powerful in finding a juncture between the mass chaos of the blogosphere, and then the almost too over-edited and over-conceived content you get from traditional media.

RealitySandwich.com and Evolver.net are separate Web sites, but it seems they are interconnected. In what ways are they connected?
The two projects are published by my independent company, Evolver LLC. Evolver features RealitySandwich.com content, and we will soon relaunch RealitySandwich.com to include selections from popular Evolver.net blogs. We realized that RealitySandwich.com would only grow to a certain level, that perhaps there are 500,000 people in the U.S. deeply interested in the areas we cover. We publish short news pieces but also long essays on shamanism, consciousness research, aspects of visionary culture, and so on. The magazine was really meant to attract the attention of a specific community, and provide a focal point. We designed Evolver.net to reach a much larger potential audience. So in the branding of our social network, we sought a less specific and more open look and an ambience that could appeal to a broader section of the population.

How has your past personal and professional experience shaped your media business and online initiatives?
It’s a continuum for me. I’ve worked in magazines for my entire professional life, as an editor, contributing editor, and columnist. I edited literary magazines when I was young. I worked at Connoiseur, Art & Antiques, and The Art Newspaper of London when I was in my 20s, and wrote features for The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, etc. I also published Open City, a literary magazine that still appears regularly, though I am not involved in it. I love the editing and publishing process. Ken Jordan, my business partner, has a similar background in publishing and internet media. His father ran Grove Press and the Evergreen Review in the 1960’s, and he helped launch SonicNet, later bought by MTV. Our company is an organic development from our shared personal and professional interests.

The last few years have been a very exciting time for me. My last book, 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, was a bestseller in some markets, and has more than 150,000 copies currently in print. This is remarkable because it is a difficult book with lots of philosophical discussions and studies of abstruse areas of Mayan calendrics and crop circles. I have been able to use the increasing public interest in my ideas and my minor celebrity status to bring attention to the much wider group of thinkers and range of ideas that we showcase on RealitySandwich.com and Evolver.net.

What kind of promotion have you done to generate readership of RealitySandwich.com and Evolver.net? Why did you choose to go that route and why do you think it’s been successful for the site so far?
Our biggest problem up to this point has been operating without significant investment backing. So actually we haven’t really done much in the way of traditional marketing or promotion. Probably the main form of marketing promotion we’ve done has just been piggybacking on my appearances and media attention that comes to me. I speak at a lot of festivals; we try to spread the word that way.

“[Books] can be extremely catalyzing and galvanizing for people. I really haven’t seen any other media forum that has exactly that same effect.”

We really still have not had a budget to try out traditional marketing techniques and see how they boost our audience. We are hoping that is something that will be available to us in the fall. So word-of-mouth [and] we use Facebook and MySpace… We have a RealitySandwich.com Twitter [profile @realitysandwich] and so on, but it’s all been done whenever we can do it without having more capital at our disposal.

You are also the author of several books. Are books even necessary these days with so much information available online? Why did you feel like publishing books was important?
Last Christmas, we came out with an anthology of works from RealitySandwich.com that Penguin published, so that was another marketing tool for the Web site, and a really important one. I definitely think books are important. As I have experienced with my books, they can be extremely catalyzing and galvanizing for people. I really haven’t seen any other media forum that has exactly that same effect. So I think certain books — the right books — are still extremely valuable for people.

How do you see your vision for each online initiative playing out in the next five years, and what is your plan for getting there?
We have very big dreams and hopes and it’s definitely been a step-by-step process — and a learning process. I would love it if Evolver.net became a kind of hip, lifestyle brand that was associated with social evolution and consciousness change that comprised everything from music to sustainable development and ecological design and activation and participation; getting people aware that if we are to make the changes that are necessary in the face of this economic crisis and also the ecological catastrophe that we have created on the planet, we can’t look to governments or authority structures to make those changes. It’s up to individuals and local communities to transform their habits and practices.

Five tips for building a social network that supports social and ecological change
1. Put the global situation ahead of your personal desires for wealth and gratification.
2. Nurture talented people in local communities; inspire them to take on leadership roles.
3. Jump from online to off-line: Make it tangible. (We launched the “Evolver Spores,” more than 20 groups meeting monthly in the U.S. and abroad.)
4. Make partnerships and affiliations with likeminded organizations. Share resources.
5. Use graphic design to entice people, no matter what their backgrounds.

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Jennifer Pullinger is a Richmond, Va.-based writer and communications professional with more than 10 years of experience in marketing, media relations, and journalism.

Calling yourself a media empress is one thing, but actually being one is another altogether. Shira Lazar, a burgeoning brand in her own right, has managed to straddle new and traditional forms of media, catapulting herself into the tech and broadcasting worlds through online buzz, but always making sure to produce the creative content her audience expects from her. Being Lazar certainly seems exhausting: Her daily routine consists of a melange of conference calls, shoots, emceeing and meetings — and then, of course, coming home to blog all about it. Lazar is a veritable millennial multitasker, writing a blog on her own site, starring in Confessions of a Travel Writer on the Travel Channel, and working on the upcoming launch of her Web series, What’s Next, with RDF Media. She also just launched On the Scene, a pop culture blog on CBSNews.com, and joined Mo Rocca’s The Tomorrrow Show as contributor. Lazar took the time to talk with mediabistro.com from Los Angeles via Skype, where she discussed what it’s like to be a new media empress.

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When did you first realize you were interested in broadcast journalism and Internet culture, and what made you come to this discovery?

I think it goes back to my yearbook, I was the editor and it was the first time I brought a digital camera. I was the first one to do that in my school. So we did it all digitally, and I started learning Photoshop and Quark. After high school — I grew up in Montreal, and we have a different education system there where we graduate in the 11th grade and then have a two-year pre-university program — I did layout design for the newspaper, and I was also writing. I was mixing in the marketing and visual side of [journalism] with the writing portion, interviewing people and tracking down interviews with people even my teachers never thought I could get. I like mixing in the visual creative component to it with the interviewing and journalistic side. When I got to college, I studied communications with a concentration in TV and video production. I always loved news and video production and talk shows. While I was studying, I also created my own show called The Ladies’ Room. It was kind of a college spinoff of The View. I was hosting it along with three other women and producing it, and that’s when I really started doing both producing and hosting. Then when I interned for my last semester in Los Angeles at The Ellen DeGeneres Show, at night I was at a radio station called Star 98.7. One of the radio jobs was [to] voice-track a show that would air in Rochester, N.Y. in the morning. At midnight, after his one show was done in L.A., I would produce his other show, and then he slowly brought me on as his sidekick. He basically one day couldn’t read my handwriting and was like, “Just come on air and tell me what you meant.” I would leave doing that at 1 a.m. and I’d gotten no sleep — I was in school during the day and then interning, and then at night interning with him. I would come home with just butterflies in my stomach. From there, I felt like I had found my calling doing on-air work, but the fact that I had a production background helped. My first job out of college, I was hired as a TV producer, and I was having to book a daily morning show in Vegas. I wasn’t fully happy just producing, even though it was fun, so on-air and hosting and broadcasting and journalism was the best mix of being myself and interviewing people and being in the spotlight, but also bringing in my production background and writing.

“I’m always trying to be part of projects that really bridge the gap between traditional and new media and leverage both.”

New media was a natural extension to who I was, and I had a Web site since I was in college, but it was the only way for me to pretty much get into the industry and what I was doing. I started putting together a reel and auditioning, and I was getting little jobs here and there, but one of my first gigs was with a Web site called WiredImage. They were just starting their entertainment video wiring service at the time, so they started sending me out on the red carpet, and I started meeting all these other Web sites on the red carpet that needed hosts. They needed someone that wasn’t just a talking head but could write their own stuff and was smart enough to be very spontaneous and work with the situation. I just started getting hired by all these Web sites in Los Angeles doing the entertainment news type stuff. Everyone from WiredImage, to Hollywood.com, to Movies.com; I started working for Verizon V Cast– so a lot of those new media sites that were popping up, Yahoo TV, too. I became this kind of go-to person for all these Web sites. And then the rest is history. I realized that’s where my home was, and I couldn’t escape it.

Have there been any specific people in your life that you’ve met that have inspired you to go into your chosen field?

Definitely, there are those icons I look up to like everyone from Oprah to Katie Couric to even Ryan Seacrest, Dick Clark — people who were broadcasters but were also entrepreneurs and really revolutionized the media at the time.

I know that you have a lot of different projects going on right now– what’s some of the stuff that you’re currently working on?

I have a Travel Channel special [which began] airing August 10th at 9 p.m. It’s called Confessions of a Travel Writer. We were five journalists that went on assignment in Chile and I was the only new media person, and they follow us through the good, bad and ugly of travel writing. A lot of people think travel writing is a dream job, and being able to travel the world is incredible, but we show that it’s maybe not as glamorous as you think. We peel away the curtain and really show you what travel writing is all about — and you see it from different angles, different types of writers. Everyone from the high-end writer that writes for Virtuoso, to the food writer for Saveur magazine, we have a National Geographic writer, to me. I’m kind of the young, blogger, new media type. And I’m meeting with local bloggers in every city, and they’re giving me a tour of the city, which is really cool because I get to see these underground places that you wouldn’t find in tourist guides. I also use social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook to really see where I should go, and I use my community to guide me around the city.

So I have that going on, and I also have another project that I developed with RDF Media. They do shows like Don’t Forget the Lyrics and Wife Swap and Carson Kressley’s How to Look Good Naked, and they’re an international production company. Within their digital division, I’m launching a Web series called What’s Next, where we’ll be covering what people and industries are really shaping our culture, what people are buzzing about, and ultimately what’s next, what we need to know. What’s great about this is not only is it going to be online, but the interstitials are going to air on HDNet, which is Mark Cuban’s network, and I’m a big fan of him. So it’s going to be definitely a multi-platform experience. I’m always trying to be part of projects that really bridge the gap between traditional and new media and leverage both. I’m not about one extreme or the other, but about really finding ways to have the stories on both mediums.

“It’s important to put a face to an avatar. That goes a long way when you finally meet someone in person — those relationships become much more powerful.”

In your bio on your Web site, the last line is, “As a crossover personality and hybrid journalist, Shira Lazar continues to bridge the gap between traditional and new media and be a voice for the millennial movement.” What do you see as your most important goal as a millennial and social media advocate? What are you really trying to accomplish?
One No. 1 thing that I really try to step back and do is use my voice for bigger issues. I think there’s a responsibility there, whether you’re on TV on the Internet or “big on Twitter,” that besides entertaining and informing your audience, you inform them about bigger issues and use your voice for bigger things to create a better impact for our world. My passion and love is broadcasting and media, but hopefully in the end I’m using those tools to impact the world in a positive way.

You’re deeply involved with using social media for charitable causes, and have participated in events like Mashable’s Summer for Social Good and Twestival. What role do you see social media having in philanthropy, and how specifically have you harnessed social media for your own charity work?

If you have a platform and you have people listening, you have a responsibility to do something bigger than yourself with those tools, and social media is a perfect platform to get the message out quickly and to a huge amount of people. I’ve seen that within my community. I did this fun video project called “I am a Geek,” and I brought together a mixture of different people in the geek community, from the gamers to the Internet geeks to the social media geeks, and I put them all in one video. I was trying to see if a viral video can become a viral donation. We raised money for Room to Read through that.

I also think Twestival is a perfect example where it’s so easy to get the message out there — it’s not just about a local community and where you’re living, but you can really harness your online community in a global way to create an even larger impact. I’m all about using your virtual community, but then always putting a face to everything also.

You can do so much online, but I try to also be there in a real way, as well. That’s why I try to moderate and host events too, because I think it’s important to put a face to an avatar. That goes a long way when you finally meet someone in person — those relationships become much more powerful.

“To succeed in this digital world, you have to have a hyperactive insomniac personality… It’s not ADD, I would say, but it’s on the verge of ADD. It’s DigitalDD.”

What advice do you have for young journalists — broadcast or otherwise — looking to break into the field?
Don’t expect to get a job a traditional way anymore. Definitely try those channels, whether it be an online or print magazine — if those are still around — or whatever kind of traditional job, go that route, but don’t put all your eggs in that basket. Take advantage that you have the power to create and that you can create a Web site yourself. While you’re trying to get a job, whatever job you want to get, start blogging about those subject matters or those types of articles; start creating those things on your blog. Your portfolio can easily come from yourself now; it doesn’t need to come from outlets that we all already know about. Your work speaks for itself, and you can just as easily create that platform yourself. You don’t have to wait around for someone to create that for you. And just keep on going — don’t take no for an answer. Keep on creating and challenging yourself, and keep on learning. For me, I never get to a point where I think I know it all. You need to keep on adjusting your craft and learning and never say no. I’ve gotten paid for many things and I’ve gotten not paid for many things, so as long as you feel like you’re not losing your integrity by doing something, and it’s something new that will challenge you in a certain way and bring something positive, then do it. Never think you’re above anything.

Between hosting various Web shows, as well as 1st Look and Open House on NBC’s LXTV, blogging and travel writing, how do you manage to keep it all together? Does the “all digital, all the time” lifestyle ever get to you?
It definitely gets hard to disconnect, and when you do disconnect, you begin to have some sort of guilt, because I do live so much of my life online. You kind of need to step back, and for me I always need to feel inspired. I try to stay light about it and keep it fun because once it starts feeling like it’s work, you feel a drain. It starts to come out in the energy of your blog posts. I’m all about digital energy and keeping it positive. In terms of scheduling, it gets a bit difficult because I’m multitasking so many gigs and I definitely try to make sure I’m on top of my schedule. I also make lists — I’m all about the lists. I’m very big into meeting people and as much as I live online, I’m always making meetings for lunch or drinks or seeing people at events that I know they’re going to be at because, as I mentioned before, as much power as your brain can be online, it means a lot when people see and meet you in person. It makes you real, and that’s really important to me. I guess maybe to succeed in this digital world, you have to have a hyperactive insomniac personality because a lot of it happens at night or you’re just going, going, going. It’s not ADD, I would say, but it’s on the verge of ADD. It’s DigitalDD.

Who are some of the most interesting people you’ve interviewed either for TV or on the radio?
You have the entrepreneurs that are just really inspirational like Richard Branson, who is just an amazing brand and he’s done incredible things, to Queen Latifah or Al Pacino– those more Hollywood icons. Since I’ve delved into both worlds of Hollywood and technology, I’ve really been able to interview a wide range of people. I’ve interviewed Angelina Jolie; even interviewing Arianna Huffington recently, I felt so honored because she’s doing so much in the world of media and journalism. Sometimes I’m more excited or nervous for interviewing people like that, icons in the field, than even someone like a George Clooney, and I’ve interviewed George Clooney! Because those are people who are entrepreneurs and leaders and have really made a mark in the industry in a hard way. They aren’t just reading scripts, but they’ve really created their own mark and brand and they have tons of people following their sites or work or using their products every day in masses.

So is that one of your goals, to create Shira Lazar as a brand?

Definitely. I don’t look at myself as someone who’s just gig to gig. Even if I’m not on someone else’s clock, I’m constantly working and I’d definitely look at myself as a brand for the millennial movement. The basis of it is definitely broadcasting and then it goes into philanthropy, it goes into writing, it goes into other areas I feel I can bring my presence and knowledge of pop culture and social Web culture, and my love for telling stories and connecting people. This is who I am, and this is me, and it’s long-term and I can’t see myself doing anything else.

What’s a typical day in the life like for Shira Lazar?
Well there are ideal and non-ideal days. An ideal day I would actually get to work out in the morning and either do a jog or train or do Bikram yoga and have my green tea and be answering emails and having conference calls. I might need to do a live hit for Fox News or CNN, and then I’d have to drive off somewhere and do a shoot or interview someone. Then I have meetings all day, at night I might have to host or emcee an event of some sort, and then blog about it. And then come home and answer more emails and do more Tweeting and blogging. So that might be a typical day in L.A., but I was in New York recently for Internet Week, and that was not very typical. I was videoblogging all day as well, and going from one event to the next and then uploading it and you have events and parties. For some people parties are recreational, and they definitely are, my job is awesome, but they’re still a little bit of work. It’s not like I’m disconnected, you know;when you’re at parties, you’re meeting people, it’s networking. I’m also sometimes a video blogette, so it’s a mix of all those things. I’m lucky enough that a large part of what I do is who I am naturally, and so it’s an effort, but not maybe as much as for some people. At the end of the day, it’s sometimes exhausting. On the weekends, I try to do nothing and not be on a schedule, and do things like read or catch up on articles or just not get in my car. So it really changes every day, but it definitely involves a mix between conference calls, meeting, blogging, shooting. When I don’t have that schedule, I don’t know what to do with myself.

Your stepbrother is the CEO of American Apparel, Dov Charney. What bearing has he had on your career or your aspirations, if any?

Well he’s definitely had a huge influence, because growing up I saw him build a huge business from nothing and a brand and that’s why I also look at what I’m doing as a brand. Because I have that entrepreneurial spirit to me, as well, and I saw him go through times when people didn’t support his vision — and some people still don’t — but he still pushes it and he believes in his mission and there’s no compromising. He has a goal and he sits through it, no matter what, even if there are obstacles or downfalls or disappointment. And seeing that, when I have those little things that happen to me or challenges, I realize that it could be much worse, because I’ve seen it much worse with my own eyes. But I also believe seeing someone come through in such a huge way that it’s possible, and anything really is possible. It’s definitely been very influential. And it also makes me realize that if people think I’m crazy, then they should meet my stepbrother! And just being around people like that, you get desensitized to any kind of crazy factor. Anything is possible. We both have dreamer personalities. It’s amazing to see; actually, it makes me strive for more.

The Internet business and tech worlds are mostly dominated by men. Have you ever encountered any particular struggles as a woman in a world that seems to be very highly male populated? Do you think your gender harms or helps your ability to get jobs?
I think that as a woman in the industry we can be misjudged, unfortunately, but it is a reality. We just need to make sure that in all of our situations we step back and make sure that we maintain our integrity and always confront all of those situations — male-dominated situations, events or tech conferences — always with a head on our shoulders and knowing that we can offer something valuable. You need to maintain that. If you always go into situations knowing that you offer something and that you are valuable, then if they can’t respect that, then that’s their problem and you can’t let it bother you. And obviously, wearing appropriate things: If they’re not looking into your eyes because you’re wearing a low-cut dress, then you can’t get mad at them. It takes two to tango. So embrace being a woman and who you are, but then realize the repercussions and always maintain that integrity and always offer something real. Always offer your intelligence, and not just other things.

Shira Lazar’s Five Steps to Becoming a Media Empress
1. Be you! People can see through a fake brand or image, and it’ll drain you to maintain something that you’re really not. Once you embrace your authentic voice, you’ll find your audience and your audience will find you.
2. Balance PR/buzz with actual work, i.e. new content and projects. As much as it’s great for everyone to see you at that party or getting interviewed by a cool outlet, it can only go so far. If you’re not continuing to challenge yourself and your audience with some real projects outside of publicity than you’ll lose engagement. Your brand isn’t just about you, but the conversation you create and what you contribute.
3. Maintain a consistent presence on and offline. As powerful as all these online tools can be to make an impact and be heard, meeting your network and community in person is the icing on the cake. I can’t tell you how many jobs and relationships I’ve strengthened through conferences, meetups, etc. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind.
4. Think multi-platform. Whenever you have an idea, think of how you can integrate other mediums to get the message out there. If your project or brand is based online, brainstorm ways to integrate it on TV or in event form. Don’t just regurgitate, accommodate your audience and find a different way to engage people and tell your story.
5. Call yourself a media empress. Michael Jackson actually pegged himself the King of Pop, and he delivered that and beyond. Don’t wait around for someone to discover and brand you. You have the power to create what and who you are now — and as we all know, perception is reality.

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Jessica Roy is the entertainment editor for NYU Local, a culture intern at Salon, and writes her own blog, Jess and Josh Talk About Stuff.

Kate Everett Thorp, chief executive officer of Real Girls Media (RGM) in San Francisco, has had quite the diverse career. There’s her start as a TV news reporter, a stint in politics as a congressional aide, the founding of the digital advertising firm Lot21, and more recently, a role as president of worldwide advertising for AKQA. But, it was her time at a venture capital firm that birthed her true passion: developing user-generated content for women online.

“I was able to work closely with past investors who had confidence in me to take on this venture,” Thorp recalled. “What we did was pretty unique; we didn’t start a small site and show it worked and then try to get money — the traditional route. Instead, we boldly walked in and asked for $6 million to start a network from scratch with nothing going yet.”

Launched in 2007 with the assistance of strategic investors Walden Venture Capital and 3i and now the Meredith Corp., RGM’s flagship site DivineCaroline reported 5.3 million users in May. Cracking Quantcast’s Top 200 sites in the world, the site’s users generate the daily articles — from relationships to travel and money — along with some editorial contributions, which “guide” in tone and content. Thorp, a featured speaker at mediabistro.com’s upcoming UGCX conference, tells how empowering readers to express personal experiences while still offering them publishing validation is the key to a vibrant online community.

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How did you conceive and develop the idea for Real Girls Media?
With DivineCaroline, we sought to empower women’s voices on the Web. So 70 percent of DivineCaroline’s content is UGC [user-generated content], and you’re free to publish. We wanted a broad range of channels and sections, so there are many places you might want to contribute, and others you might want to resource. Then, we wanted it to be a beautiful destination, where you would be proud to be published [and] advertisers would be eager to be involved in a clean, well-lighted place.

Is the material edited, or does the site post text as submitted?
We read the articles and give a complimentary proofread. We want the women, and some of the men, to be super-proud of their contributions. We look for the usual mistakes. It’s more along the lines of making sure it’s real, not offensive to any person or group and not just “brochure-ware.”

We’ve had people published, getting book deals because they can show some audience traction. So we work hard to send millions of people through DivineCaroline to give people access. Starting a blog, creating content and getting an audience is a full-time job; a lot of people have wonderful things to share, but that’s not their overall passion.

“Our publishing platform allows for all of this editorial management on the fly. We can manage 175,000 authors; you can’t do that with a staff of six in editorial, who are also writing their own articles and moderating everything.”

Are the other 30 percent of contributors professional writers?
Yes, we have a small editorial staff to ensure that we’re covering some topics that require depth, as well as some fun, current events that would be interested people. We still write from a first-person and/or a narrative, so we try to write in the same way that our audience does.

Why did you select the title of your company?
More than half the people on the Web are female, so we’re looking at that target market. The feeling and passion at RGM is to empower the voices [of] women and girls. We want to remove the traditional barriers to that, which was the world of the gatekeeper. We have a lot of people ask how much it costs to publish with us. We say, “It’s free; just go.”

How were you able to get Meredith and the other investors involved?
I was with Walden, who invested in Lot21, so they had known me for years. We met with 3i, which is a global fund. We were able to raise the money in about a month and a half. We launched our beta within three months, from scratch, on a full technical network platform. It’s pretty sophisticated because our publishing platform allows for all of this editorial management on the fly. We can manage 175,000 authors; you can’t do that with a staff of six in editorial, who are also writing their own articles and moderating everything. Technology was very important to us.

Does the financial backing free you from the pressure of getting advertising?
We brought on a strategic investor Meredith Corp. We joined our sales force with their much larger sales force, and we co-sell both their properties and ours. Now, we have a very large sales force to monetize all of that inventory. Through that relationship, we were able to enjoy their sales prowess; alternatively, we were then able to share our platform with them.

So we have launched More.com on the RGM platform. They have the auto-publishing; they have the ability to do their layouts and everything on their own with no Web team.

“The definition of community for us was that it all had to be one community. It wasn’t going to be, ‘Here’s editorial, and then you guys are over there.'”

What was appealing about establishing this online community?
You were either fully censored and not able to participate, or you were able to participate, but you were over in this thing called “community,” which was never going to be the home page. All these sites were launching a section called “community,” which said, ‘Okay, you guys go over there.’ It was generally forums and boards, but there was no audience over there; they weren’t investing into it. You can see on these major properties that they basically fizzled. The last update was a day ago. It doesn’t feel vibrant.

The definition of community for us was that it all had to be one community. It wasn’t going to be, ‘Here’s editorial, and then you guys are over there.’ So the home page of DivineCaroline is UGC; it’s whatever are the featured stories and not about “who.” So we don’t tag an ID and say, ‘Here’s an editor or expert with 10 stars.’ It’s just one community; people can give each other props, but that’s not how things are selected.

Could you elaborate on the decision not to focus on men?
Publications and brands need to have a focus. Gender is one of those top demographic things you check off as to what need you want to fulfill and for whom. For us, we felt that women have a lot to say and didn’t have a clear-cut venue to provide that online. Those peoples’ voices as well as the power bloggers deserved a place to come to both read and absorb information as well as have the opportunity to share on an equal level.

That nuclear family is dispersed. Now, online you can find communities that make sense to you and find people who provide you that access.

What are your thoughts about equalizing the playing field for professional writers?
I think the opportunity is equalized, so the platform is there on equal terms for everyone. One writer over another is based on topic, quality and reaching an audience that resonates with them; they will have different groupings. One woman, for instance, has 90 articles, and every time she publishes, over a thousand people come because they all have alerts on her. The opportunity is there; knowing who is a pro and who isn’t, seeing the uptake in the audience is completely based on the content in the community.

But there’s a different ill effect that’s happening, especially in news coverage. I’ve spoken at the Knight Ridder School in Berkeley a couple of times with some amazing newspaper reporters who have all won Pulitzers. This investigative reporting aspect, it scares me that it could go away or not be valued with the decrease in newspapers.

Who is going to investigate the hospital and tell everybody they sent people away out the back door, and nobody knew? I don’t believe that professional journalism is going away. I think there’s a push happening, but I’m not sure that’s anything new since blog software was invented because everyone can do it. But not everyone can get [an] audience, and the institutions were the ones who drove audience. So that’s what gave those brands the ability to move their message.

One person writes, and another copies it; then, they go get the audience. That to me is not okay. That’s where, collectively, publishers of any content [need] to protect [it] fiercely. For instance, if we’re ever notified that something is not original, then things go tearing down. We’re happy to fully support the originating authors. If something looks familiar to us, we Google it instantly.

With an inundation of sites and blogs, how do you draw a large audience?
We view ourselves as the platform that’s open and providing opportunity. When people publish, we send them a “Congratulations, you’re published” email, and they send it to everyone they know because they’re proud. It’s a validation to be published; it’s something we’ve all grown up with wanting to do. Each of the different community members and authors often share their contributions extensively. We work very hard to drive audience. We have many syndication relationships from Yahoo! to Huffington Post. We also provide content to them, which is even greater because if we syndicate a piece on the home page of Yahoo!, it’s pretty exciting.

Are professional freelance writers paid for published articles?
We have a small pool of freelancers that we tap for specialized content, so yes. But it’s less than one percent. If we have a topic regarding psychiatry… it has to be specialized. The work has to be requisitioned.

We have a lot of popular bloggers who publish on the site. We also have 450 content partners, who we have no financial relationship with who publish on the site, and that’s everybody from Mental Floss to Forbes — from the profit to nonprofit variety.

Do you have plans to launch other sites?
We’re looking at a couple more brands coming in the year. Part of our mission is to always look for different age groups, as well. Currently, DivineCaroline nails the 25 to 54 age group. As those markets become more identifiable to us, we’re definitely interested in doing this across different age groups.

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Andrea K. Hammer, a freelance writer specializing in arts and business, is the founder and director of Artsphoria: Visual Word Artistry.

With more than 13 million registered users, Eventful.com helps people find, create, share, and promote events in their local market. Its main feature is the “Demand It!” service, a social media platform that enables audiences to request events for their local market that are not yet scheduled.

“Most of the presidential candidates including [Barack] Obama and [John] McCain and others used it in the last election cycle to give their supporters the ability to influence where they went on the campaign trail,” says Jordan Glazier, Eventful.com’s chief executive officer. “We’ve seen authors use it. We’ve seen comedians use it. Dane Cook used it recently, where almost 600,000 people demanded him in their markets. The rock band KISS just used it to route their whole North American tour.”

On November 11, Ryan Seacrest Productions became the site’s latest star client. In a strategic marketing and technology alliance, the radio and television host and producer will use Eventful.com to allow his audience to give input on programming topics, “Demand” celebrity guests, and enter contests and promotions like “Ryan, Rock My Town!” where fans will help choose the location of a free concert from season eight “American Idol” contestants.

But it is a little horror movie that has broken all records — box office and Eventful.com’s own — that first raised the Web company’s profile. The promotional concept for Paramount Studio’s Paranormal Activity was simple: If 1 million people demanded the film in their area, then Paramount would release it nationwide. It quickly hit that benchmark, expanded from 12 theaters to its current exhibition of 2,558, and is now the most profitable film of all time. Made for the paltry sum of less than $15,000, the movie’s return on investment reached a mind-blowing 433,900 percent on October 28, according to the TheWrap.com.

mediabistro.com spoke with Glazier recently about how his company helped Paranormal Activity find an audience — or helped audiences find the film, depending on how you look at it — and what’s in store for Eventful.com down the road.

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What role did Eventful.com play in the Paranormal Activity campaign?

[Senior vice president of interactive marketing] Amy Powell and her interactive marketing team from Paramount approached us; they were familiar with the “Demand It!” service. They really wanted to get the fans to participate in the process of releasing this film because they genuinely weren’t sure where to release it or how broadly to go with it. We worked very closely with them to develop a social media campaign using our “Demand It!” platform.

What that means is our team designed the micro-sites and the widgets and the landing pages and the whole flow of the competition. Then jointly, we marketed it to our user base to get our — at the time — 11 or 12 million registered users participating in the competition. And likewise Paramount leveraged their own outreach through the social media world. But basically it got viral very quickly. The platform is integrated into all of the social networks, so when you demand Paranormal Activity in your city, the next page you see is, “Hey, great! Share this with your friends!” And you can “Tweet” about it, you can share it on Facebook, you can post it on MySpace with one click — send an email to your friends, etc. So we made it very viral and very easy for people to share with their own individual social networks.

“When entertainment properties, event organizers, the studios, or the concert promoters engage the fans and give them the power to influence and be part of the process… we see that succeed time and time again.”

Why do you believe this particular film — this $15,000 film — was so well-suited for this type of grassroots “Demand It!” campaign?
First of all, I think the film is really good, and the early read coming out of people who saw it at the pre-screening at college campuses. It got a lot of good buzz that started from that. I think also it was the fact that the film was not going into a nationwide release and people really wanted it to. I don’t know that it’s specific to Paranormal Activity; I think fans in general thrive on being part of the process. When entertainment properties, event organizers, the studios, or the concert promoters engage the fans and give them the power to influence and be part of the process… we see that succeed time and time again. I think that Paranormal Activity benefited from simply the concept of letting the fans be part of the process and letting them have a sense of ownership and participation in the release platform for the film.

Is this the first major studio or even independent studio that Eventful.com has helped generate and engage demand for films?

Yes, this is definitely the first major studio and major motion picture release that we have participated in. We have seen some activity at a very small scale with some documentary films that have used it in the past to find out where they had demand for a release. This is the first time it’s been used by a major studio for a major release.

Do you think this type of online polling-slash-“Demand It!” campaign will be used in the future for more films?

I do think it will. We’ve had a high volume of interest from other studios. What’s interesting about it is the platform is incredibly flexible and customizable, so in Paranormal Activity‘s case, the question that was posed to the fans was, “We will do a nationwide release if this hits 1 million people demanding it.” I don’t expect that specific call to action will be replicated. What I would expect is that it can be used for everything from release and distribution to casting to content to where the premiere takes place or the time of the release, etc. There are so many different ways to use the platform.

“I almost fell out of my chair because we’ve never seen a campaign do 1 million… I was thinking it would take weeks to get there. It took less than four days.”

I read that the initial benchmark was at first 100,000 people demanding the film, but it quickly got up to 1 million and you set the benchmark higher. How did you know that this campaign was steamrolling its way to be even more successful than you had thought?

As the campaign rolled out, we were originally expecting to do it in one phase, but it ended up having multiple phases because it was going so successfully. It was really done on the fly and based on the ongoing success of the campaign.

The first phase involved Paramount using Eventful.com’s “Demand It” to determine which 10 cities got an early release of the film. And for that we expected — this is just based upon experience — we estimated that there would be about 50,000 people participating in that, but there was no benchmark, no hurdle that it had to go past for that release to take place.

But based upon how engaged the fans were and being part of the process and the word of mouth and the viral wildfire that was spreading, Paramount came back to us with another really creative idea. They said, “We are thinking about going nationwide with this, but we aren’t sure, so let’s let the fans decide. Let’s put a big target out there and if 1 million people demand the film nationwide, then we will roll it out nationwide.” And when I heard that number — I was out of town. Our head of marketing called me to give me an update on it — and I almost fell out of my chair because we’ve never seen a campaign do 1 million. KISS did over 500,000. Dane Cook did over 500,000. But those are some of the bigger campaigns we’ve seen, so 1 million was a large number for us. And I was very conservative in my expectations about whether we would hit that or not. That’s another way of saying “skeptical,” but we hadn’t seen it before, and I was thinking it would take weeks to get there. It took less than four days.

So it totally knocked my socks off how engaged the fans were in the process and how viral it got and how much people cared about it. Part of it is just giving people the ability to participate because they thrive on it, and a big part of it is because the film was really good and people are coming out of the theater and telling their friends, and their friends want to see it, too.

“Something we are on the cusp of rolling out is using our ‘Demand It!’ platform in conjunction with broadcast to enable listeners and viewers to influence broadcast content.”

How or why did you start Eventful.com? Did you know this type of platform would be the future, and did you always envision it as a marketing tool or just something for fun?

Eventful was started by Brian Dear, a serial entrepreneur. The concept was one which he had been envisioning for years which is (a) to help people “never miss an event again” by providing an easy to use and comprehensive service that informs users about what’s happening in their city and travel destinations — Brian was tired of finding out about events after the fact and wanted (for his own benefit as well as for others) the ability to be in the know in advance of events. Secondly, (b) Brian developed the Demand it! service out of a desire to have a say and an impact in influencing which events and performers occur in his local market. He wanted to help consumers be part of the process and to make it easy for event organizers to identify where demand exists for future, as-yet-unscheduled events.

What sort of innovations does Eventful.com have down the road or up your sleeve for the future? Are you working on anything new that expands on what you offer people to grow their audiences?

So far, the platform has worked really well around influencing the location of events, and something we are on the cusp of rolling out is using our “Demand It!” platform in conjunction with broadcast to enable listeners and viewers to influence broadcast content; in other words, which guests come on shows and things like that.

Tips for building online buzz for your event
1. Keep it simple. Contests and competitions should be easy for your audience to understand. Glazier says that a “creative twist” can sometimes serve as a barrier to involvement.
2. Enable seamless integration across key social networks. Once fans demanded Paranormal Activity in their cities, they were immediately prompted to invite their friends to do the same through Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.
3. Broaden the outcome to a large group of participants. Something that hundreds or thousands can enjoy as opposed to “two lucky winners” raises the likelihood of audience participation.

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Jennifer Pullinger is a freelance writer and book and film publicist in Richmond, Va. Visit her at JenniferPullinger.com.

When they first started We Media in 2007, entrepreneurs Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin had a vision: They wanted to turn ideas into innovation. But they didn’t want to do it in the usual way. “We had a lot of corporate experience,” Peskin explains. “We decided we didn’t want to work with assholes anymore.” Since then, We Media has helped media companies, universities and philanthropies create Web sites, perform research, and form a strategy for success in the digital world.

Nachison and Peskin also manage iFocos, a nonprofit media think tank and futures lab with partners ranging from the Associated Press and BBC to Ashoka, a global network of social entrepreneurs.

And Peskin says they are always looking for the little (or big idea) that could. “There are wows for us every day. I think it’s the scope of things that inspires us — the kind of society we live in where any smart person can have a chance.”

mediabistro.com caught up with the duo as they prepared to host their annual We Media conference in Miami March 9–11, where they’ll present “Game Changers” awards to people, projects, ideas, and organizations leading change and inspiring a better world through media.

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What led you to start We Media?
Andrew Nachison: We Media grew from our work for the news industry, first as journalists, then as strategists, advisers, and futurists. Our work early in the decade was with news companies and helping them understand the Internet, and that really led us to thinking about the changing shape of news and ultimately the changing nature of the culture — and a world in which information flowed through the digital mediascape. That changed our perspective from thinking about one industry in particular to literally the entire planet.

We commissioned a research report called We Media and then a series of conferences, which at the time were really more future-focused and forecasting changes to the news industry and to society’s relationship with information. And that forecast proved to be true. We anticipated massive disruption to businesses, critical changes in behavior, and sweeping innovation. We Media grew from that to where we are today — a global community of media creators, thinkers, investors, innovators, visionaries and game-changers.

What’s the idea behind the name “We Media”?
Dale Peskin: It’s really a phrase we coined back in 2002, although we had been using the expression probably prior to that. It was the title of that first research report we did. The forecast was about the change and about how citizens would influence the future. We looked at the technology processes, and those were the cultural behaviors that would grow exponentially for that proposition to happen. It was a sweeping phrase for that phenomenon.

“You can’t be too in love with your idea, products, or companies in the age we live in […] All companies fail, whether that takes six weeks or a year or a century. “

What makes your summit different from other media conferences?
AN: We focus on creativity, participation, and inspiration. And we hope that the conversations and the people who come to We Media are able to set aside some of their short-term, day-to-day obsessions to channel their energy in a creative way, and think about how innovation occurs and what it takes to be a creative game changer in the We Media culture. For me, most media conferences and most industry conversations are very incremental. They’re about best practices, they’re about short-term strategies, which vendors do I need to set up a relationship with next week. We Media takes the longer view and also the inspiring view about which opportunities are unfolding.

In the world of We Media, every institution is a media company, and the people who come to We Media get that, whether they come from government, brands, philanthropies, whether they’re senior executives or young media creatives working on their own. It’s an incredible range of creative, ambitious, smart people out there who are applying technology and being imaginative with media, and that’s what We Media is all about.

One problem a lot of companies face is that the larger they get, the fewer risks they’re willing to take. How can a media business grow and still be innovative?
DP: That’s essentially a question about leadership and vision and integrating those key elements into the processing culture of an organization. You can’t be too in love with your idea, products, or companies in the age we live in, and these are ultimately going to fail. All companies fail, whether that takes six weeks or a year or a century. In this environment of change, they grow exponentially very quickly. So growth is a factor in capturing more specialized audiences. You need to understand what’s occurring with those audiences and the access they have to information in the competitive landscape. In some ways, the question answers itself. We think creativity, innovation and problem-solving are the paths to success, not just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

“We bring companies and groups of people together in a way that trade and industry conferences can’t, and I think that smart companies like [the] AP value that kind of exposure.”

How does a big idea become a game changer?
DP: We set specific criteria by which we judge that and look at the world. One is pattern change: How does the idea really change things in a substantive way? What patterns have changed to this project? Second is social impact: What kind of problem are you solving for people or the marketplace? Third is design: How does the idea express itself in a creative way? The fourth is storytelling: We think that ideas are very much stories, and stories are really what brands are about. The last one is success: Is this a sustainable idea that will matter into the future?

How did you get the funding to form We Media?
AN: We didn’t start out looking for the funding, so in a sense, the question is backwards. We set out with values, ideas and a mission. And that led us to seek the funding and business partners to help build the idea. The funding, business partners, and financing came from a variety of sources. Through our nonprofit think tank, we had funding from a variety of foundations, and through the business-consulting and innovation process, we developed a small group of clients organically. We didn’t take investment, and we focused again on the values and mission of building something.

What are the key factors in getting a company like The Associated Press on board as a sponsor?
DP: I think that’s the common business proposition. It’s all about relationships. You seek and sort of migrate to companies and ideas that value your idea. And you cultivate those over periods of years. We’ve been fortunate to have sponsors like AP, the BBC, Thomson Reuters and many smaller companies in smaller ways. The other fact of that is this diverse group of people we try to reach. Most companies recognize that they’re internal organizations and they exist in cultural silos. We Media gives them an opportunity to really open their eyes to other cultures and other organizations dealing with the same kind of issues they are, but probably with a different perspective. We bring companies and groups of people together in a way that trade and industry conferences can’t, and I think that smart companies like [the] AP value that kind of exposure in a world where essentially all companies are media companies.

From the Tweentribune news site for kids to the Infegy blog aggregator, We Media has highlighted some obscure but up-and-coming players in the media world. How do startups such as these inspire your company’s success?
DP: Well, once upon a time there was this silly thing called Twitter, which was an obscure company. These brilliant, little ideas come up, and they’re inspirational to us. They don’t come from the institutional assembly line of incremental adjustments and changes to products. They look at things in a new kind of way, and they deliver a new story. Their thinking, problem solving, [and] execution are inspirational to us.

AN: They’re also creative and fun. There are some wonderful entertaining and inspiring companies out there. As a business proposition, we’re drawn to someone who makes us say, “Wow.” The element of pleasure and execution of those ideas is a big deal for us.

What are the keys to starting a think tank based on ideas compared with a company with more concrete services?
DP: I think the word “concrete” probably works to our detriment. [laughs] Yeah, life is about ideas; it’s not that concrete. We have to look at the skies and the pavement I guess. When you do that, there are maybe a million big ideas you have to pass on and focus on what has meaning to you as a human being, and if they’re a business, certainly as a businessperson. That’s a huge way to look at the world as either a think tank or a business leader. And I think either one can lead the world that way. There’s a lot of marketing. [laughs] Selling the idea is something as important and meaningful for how people live their lives these days — and understanding that you can translate that into something more concrete.

AN: We’ve built our business around ideas and the quest for ideas and inspiration, but we’ve done so, we think, in a practical way to extract meaning and business value from those ideas. ”Yeah, we’re a think tank — we collect and try to find meaning from the swirl of ideas in the digital culture we’re living in, but we’ve always thought that there’s a practical intent and business proposition. And the companies we work with get that.

Four ways to convert a big idea into a success story
1. Know when to say no and when to say yes. “We say no more often than we say yes because we’re looking for the one idea in a thousand that takes our breath away,” Nachison says.

2. Focus on values. “We launched We Media based on our values and our vision for how to do business in this digital culture,” Nachison explains. “I think any successful business needs to understand why it’s in business and what it represents.”

3. Use technology as a competitive advantage. According to Nachison, efficient, scalable growth comes when a company is faster than others that don’t implement technology as effectively. “Use that not only to grow but to manage costs and be massively efficient with your time,” he advises.

4. Eat your own cooking. “Conduct your relationships with integrity and creativity that respects what a lot of other people are thinking as well,” Peskin says.

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Brian T. Horowitz is a freelance writer based in New York.

Time recently observed that a bunch of marquee television events managed to avoid the prevailing ratings slump affecting many shows. This year’s Super Bowl, it noted, was the highest-watched television program ever. The Winter Olympics had more viewers this year than in 2006. And the Emmys, Grammys, and Oscars all enjoyed ratings boosts. Part of the explanation, wrote James Poniewozik, is social media. “Along with the decline of evening-news, drama and sitcom ratings, the fall of water cooler TV has been playing out for years,” he said. “When that happens, you can try to make better TV. Or you can find a better water cooler.”

One of the companies taking the lead in building a better water cooler is Bravo, whose vice president of emerging media, Aimee Viles, will be speaking at Mediabistro’s upcoming Think Mobile conference. The network started mobile fan clubs years ago, and in 2007, it launched a Top Chef game for mobile. Earlier this year, it partnered with Foursquare to enable fans to collect badges when they visit locations recommended by cast members from their reality shows. And last year, the network started hosting live “viewing parties” which enabled fans to interact — via Twitter, Facebook, and mobile chat — with cast members during the finales of the Real Housewives of New York and Top Chef. The events were so successful that they are now taking place weekly during the current season of RHNY.

Viles came to Bravo in 2008 from Portland, Ore.-based Ensequence, where, as director of creative services, she helped build interactive TV authoring solutions for the likes of NBC, MTV, and ESPN. Before that she was at UK-based Vodafone, where she worked on the mobile provider’s Internet applications and strategies.

mediabistro.com caught up with Viles to ask her how Bravo is using social media to stoke viewers’ passions for the network’s shows and, ultimately, contribute to the bottom line.

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What are the viewing parties like?
We’ve just recently rebranded them as the “Talk Bubble.” They’re really a social media hub for fans. Viewers can go to one destination, either on BravoTV.com or on the mobile Web site. They can Tweet in comments as they’re following the show (using the hashtag #realhousewives). Same thing with Facebook — they can log in and see who of their friends are there during the event. They can post comments to the RHNY Facebook page, which then automatically get posted to their Walls. We’re going to have different Housewives join us on a weekly basis, and we’ll Tweet their exclusive thoughts about what’s happening in the episode. We’ve had fun comments in the past like, “I totally forgot that that happened. Here’s what I was thinking at the time.”

We’re going to have polls, so fans can vote for things like which Housewife is their favorite, which Housewife they think will be in the most drama scenes that week, or which Housewife is the most fashion-forward at the moment. There will be a little slider on the bottom so you can see how the feelings about the Housewives change during the course of the episode. And there are going to be viral videos you can share, so that after a moment happens on air, you can see it online and immediately send it to your friends.

“If somebody Tweets out, what’s the end social reach of that Tweet? One person might be able to affect the awareness of 20,000 other people.”

How many people participate in the viewing parties?
For the Real Housewives and Top Chef finales, we had tens of thousands of people. But one of the things we’re trying to understand is the “social reach.” We’re working with Twitter to really understand, for example: If a fan Tweets a comment, and they have 500 followers, so 500 of their followers saw it, and maybe 25 percent of those retweeted out, so then it reached another X percentage.

Are you working directly with the Twitter team on that?
Yes, we’re working directly with them. They’ve been really fantastic in terms of giving us feedback about what works best with their audience. We started the experience internally. But more recently, we’ve had a deeper relationship with Twitter and have been getting deeper feedback.

All of this costs money. How are you evaluating the impact and the success of the social media projects?
There are a couple of top-line engagement factors: How it enhances fan loyalty and how it drives ratings. Secondarily, we’re looking at buzz and the social reach. Things we’ve measured in the past include the number of people coming to the Facebook group who then send an invite to friends during the event. We look at how many friends that brought in. Same thing on the Twitter side. If somebody Tweets out, what’s the end social reach of that Tweet? One person might be able to affect the awareness of 20,000 other people.
As for buzz, during the Top Chef finale, we had three of the top Trending Topics on Twitter. That tells us a lot of people are out there talking about it. We’re going to be measuring that on an ongoing basis: How many Trending Topics do we have? And what exactly are the topics? For example, is the buzz about the Real Housewives show in general, or is it around a particular Housewife?

All of that is in addition to the general performance metrics, like page views, growth in Twitter followers, and growth in Facebook fans.

Do you have the algorithms down for figuring this all out? Or is it still a work in progress?
We’re working with a partner on the algorithms for things like social reach.

“My team has to be a profit center. It can’t just be about doing cool things.”

What has been the impact of the mobile fan clubs?
We found that that was one of the strongest platforms to get engaged fans. They could sign on, and then once they signed up, they remained a loyal follower.

People in this business are increasingly talking about the need to focus on the “engaged user,” the person who can potentially influence many others through social media. What’s Bravo’s philosophy on that?
We’ve always thought about our fans as passionate and loyal about their shows. We’re thinking about what we can do that enhances that passion. It’s been a philosophy that Bravo has had for a long time. It’s just part of how we relate to our fan and how we give them a deeper relationship with us as a brand. It’s understanding what they love about the show, and then understanding what you should then do with them. [In addition to social media interactions,] it might be merchandise, or it might be a Top Chef tour, where fans can meet Top Chef contestants.

How does all this drive revenue?
My team has to be a profit center. It can’t just be about doing cool things. One of the great things about Bravo is that many of our sponsors and advertisers come to us because we do these new things. We are seen as innovators and leaders. Brands that want to be seen as doing something that’s new and unique and interesting come to us because they know that we create those types of experiences.

What’s the key to doing mobile right?
At a certain point in their day, people are looking for bite-sized content. So you don’t want to just repurpose things you have elsewhere. You should be smart about your consumer and what they’re looking for from mobile. The big question right now is whether you should build a specific app or simply use mobile Web. To me, the answer is you use them differently to achieve different goals.

“Mobile games are showing that, if you give consumers the right experience, they will participate — either with micro payments or by looking at little bits of content.”

Such as?
We’re still working on that. One of the things we look at is: Is what we want to do entertainment? Or is it utility? Will an app allow me to do something that I can’t do with the mobile Web? If you’re looking at the iPhone or some of the new Google phones, you ask: Does the touch display allow me to do something that really adds to the experience? If so, I probably need to build it as an app. If it’s something I want to make more broad-based accessible, I’m probably going to need to build it as a mobile Web site. In some cases, we’ll build both and see what our audience responds to.

What else is on the horizon for Bravo?
You’ll see more things like the partnership we recently announced with Foursquare. We’ll be partnering with some innovators in this space. There will be a few other things like that that will be coming out in the next few months.

Where do you get your inspiration?
I find gaming really fascinating. Gaming on mobile phones used to be a really painful, slow experience, but there are some really fantastic things that are going on out there, that I look at as an entertainment brand and go, Hmm… there’re some interesting things I could do, whether it’s the social gaming or the virtual goods side of things. Mobile games are showing that, if you give consumers the right experience, they will participate — either with micro payments or by looking at little bits of content.

Tips for using mobile platforms to extend your entertainment brand
1. Know your audience and know your brand. “If you start there and stay true to what those values are, it’s easier to understand the direction you should go.”

2. Less is more. “Pick one or two areas you want to try out, and then innovate and play in that space. Don’t try to do everything. Pick one or two things, do them really well, and learn from them.”

3. Look at it from the business perspective. “It’s great to put out cool things but you have to ask yourself: How does it bring value to an advertiser? How does it bring value to a sponsor? How does it bring value back to your consumer?”

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E.B. Boyd is a WebNewser contributor and San Francisco-based freelance writer.

In 2002, The Young Turks became the first original talk show on Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2005, with the emergence of video, founder Cenk Uygur and his crew purchased some cameras and started the first live, daily webcast on the Internet. Four years later came a Podcast Award for Best Political Podcast, one from Mashable for Best Political News Site, and a nomination for the Audience’s Choice Award at the 2010 Streamy Awards. All of this with zero backing from traditional broadcast networks.

“The goal is supposed to be on television. We say, ‘No, we can build a television network ironically not on television,'” says Uygur. “In TV, you have the pressure of ‘every single minute has to deliver ratings gold.’ Whereas we just let the audience pick. If people want to watch the story about Kim Kardashian more, we don’t judge them; that’s their choice. If they want to watch the story about Obama more, that’s great. Everybody wins.”

Today, The Young Turks has a sponsorship deal with Netflix, plans for a spinoff YouTube channel focused on bloggers, plus — count ’em — 250 million viewers and growing. Take that, Team Coco.

How did you secure and sustain funding for The Young Turks?
When we started on radio, we didn’t need much. In fact, we started in my living room. But we did need some radio equipment: mixers, mikes, etc. I got that tiny bit of seed money from a friend of mine; we technically call them “angel investors,” but they’re really family and friends. Then, we wound up getting the contracts from Sirius, so that sustained us for a long time. Once we left Sirius to do online video, we needed more seed money; that, again, we got from more angel investors.

“We kept experimenting with what works and doesn’t work. In the beginning, we weren’t on YouTube and realized, along with a lot of other people, that most of the audience was there.”

We raised a little bit of money, and we’re very frugal. We know how to get the most bang for our buck. We’re not in over our head. We have reasonable, solid goals. And we rely on our audience. A lot of our bills are paid by our members, people who podcast the show. They feel like they have ownership over the show, and they do.

What is the significance of the show’s title, and how does this concept shape content?
We selected “The Young Turks” because it means young rebels looking to overthrow the established system. That’s what we fancy ourselves. When we started out, we were basically the only liberal show on radio. In ’02, everything was wall-to-wall conservative. Almost no one in the media was speaking out against the Iraq War — partly because if they did, they got fired. I couldn’t believe we were the only ones saying, “This war is absolutely crazy.” You have to find your audience and be willing to take risks — and not do things the established way. It’s just in our DNA that we challenge conventional wisdom wherever we find it.

The show focuses on an “honest” delivery of news, but how do you deal with the influences shaping every reporter’s viewpoint?
There’s a difference between the truth and honesty. We don’t claim to have a monopoly on the truth. Sometimes truth is relative, depending on your perspective. But you can be completely honest. We’re not biased by all of the other factors that might be involved with the party, sponsors, contributors; all the things that bring bias into the press — access. We strip all those things away, so you know that what you’re getting from us is really what we think about the situation at hand.

Our priority is trying to deliver the real news to our audience. So we don’t give a damn about access. We end up getting the top politicians and celebrities anyway because we found such a large audience. But we don’t bend our program to their will and needs. We try to serve the needs of our audience.

Why do you think the show has reached a mass audience?
You start with a passion in whatever field that might be. For us, it was news and current events — and that’s not just politics; all of the current events. I deeply care about the news, even if it’s goofy news, I’m fascinated by it, to a fault probably. Once you do that show, you find the audience that is attracted to that.

We kept experimenting with what works and doesn’t work. In the beginning, we weren’t on YouTube and realized, along with a lot of other people, that most of the audience was there. We experimented with the size of the clips, titles and tags. Online, if you do a good video clip or write a good article, people are going to forward that to the people they know will like that and bring the audience to you.

“I have no desire to turn down a larger audience and more money. We’re just not willing to compromise for the money.”

How do you work extemporaneously without relying on writers?
I read voraciously — every article imaginable, ranging from dense financial news to light entertainment news. I have a way of organizing it in my head, and I print out the stories that we’re going to talk about. Then, I put them in a stack of papers in the order that I’m going to go in the show. If I need to refer to a number, I’ll usually remember it; if not, I’ll just look down at the papers in front of me. In my mind, what I do is I tell a story. I don’t know how I keep it all in my head, but I do.

Will The Young Turks go mainstream?
If somebody says, “We’ve got a TV show for you. Stop what you’re doing, and just do our show,” I would say, “No way.” I love what we’re doing and would never shut it down just to do TV. But if someone asks, “Do you want to do this on TV, as well?” then I’m definitely interested. I have no desire to turn down a larger audience and more money. We’re just not willing to compromise for the money, and I think that’s an enormous difference.

Do you have any stories about The Young Turks inspiring others to do good work?
Usually someone in college says, “I’m going to switch my major to journalism or political science.” This morning, someone said he was going into pre-law because he wants to make a difference; his dream is to be part of the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union]. I guess we inspire them to go for it; to live out their dream and make a difference in the world. That’s, by far, the best part of the job.

What are your future plans for The Young Turks?
We’re going to start a network of other bloggers who are like-minded and we think are smart, interesting and entertaining. We’re going to start a new YouTube channel and a new show on our website surrounded around them. So it’s not just me anymore, and it’s not just The Young Turks anymore; it’ll be this network of people we think are stars or who can be stars.

Then, we’ll start a similar network on YouTube for our listeners. We’re going to call that one The Young Turks Nation; it allows the audience to pick who they like. So if someone who is a viewer does these terrific blogs, we’ll move them up to what we’re tentatively calling The Young Turks Stars. If they do really well from that, then we give them their own show. We eliminate the middle man.

Uygur’s tips for rising bloggers and video stars
1. Find your passion. If you’re not intensely passionate, you’re not going to put in the gargantuan number of hours that you need to find the audience that’s going to enjoy your work.
2. Work hard. I don’t want to delude anyone. It’s really difficult. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work.
3. Figure out all the ways for people to find you. Do all the nitty-gritty hard work behind the scenes: tags, titles and SEO [search engine optimization].
4. Be responsive to your audience. If they say, “Hey, have you covered this, or did you think about that?” have a real interaction with them. If I do something wrong, I’ll get tweets and emails on it. The first thing I’ll do is correct it and give credit to the guy who emailed or the many people who did.
5. Become a trustworthy expert. If you do all of that, eventually people will say, “OK, he’s good at this. When I want X, I’ll turn to him.”

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Andrea K. Hammer, a freelance writer, is the founder and director of Artsphoria: Visual Word Artistry.