How Famous Birthdays managed ‘Google Zero’

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I am Brian Morrissey. I was just discussing with Evan Britton, CEO of Famous Birthdays, whether he's been on this podcast once or twice, 'cause sometimes, sometimes things run together, Evan, but I think it's only once. It is once. It is, yes.

But you know what? In media, and it was a couple years ago, it's like dog years, right? Yep. Like, they're...

The year is not like one year, it's multiple years. So- Yeah, yeah... we were, we were probably having a totally different conversations back then. Definitely.

Definitely. I love the Famous Birthdays business. I love the story. I l- I like how you've, you've scrappily built it.

But for those who missed our first one, give us the compressed ver- Yeah... give us the compressed story of Famous Birthdays. Famous Birthdays, my vision in 2012 was that Wikipedia was too much content for mobile. Simple vision.

You know, I went to Wikipedia on a mobile phone. It was way too much content. Obviously, mobile is used by a younger demographic. Wikipedia was also too scientific.

You could look up Tom Hanks, and it would be, you know, written very, very long in a very, you know, serious type of text. So we started Famous Birthdays to be, you know, concise Wikipedia, and at the same time, IMDb wasn't very mobile-friendly. So our vision kinda morphed into IMDb for mobile, and you know, we've got used a lot by Gen Z, and we just have continued to, you know, have that defining platform. We're now kind of known as, you know, IMDb for Gen Z or Wikipedia for Gen Z.

And then at the same time, the creator economy has risen. We got lucky in this. All the creators back in 2012 were on Wikipedia. So if you had a speaking line in the movie and 50 Twitter followers, you were on IMDb or Wikipedia, but if you had a half million followers on Twitter or Vine at the time, you weren't on Wikipedia or IMDb.

So we've really turned into, you know, IMDb for creators, where IMDb focuses more on movies and entertainment, we're more for the creator economy. Yeah. So you saw a gap in the market. Yep.

You ran to it, and I feel like back then, you know, the gaps were in search traffic. I mean, the se- You know, the great thing about search was, like, you know, John Battelle called it the, the database of intentions. It's like people... It was the opposite of that Seinfeld episode where Kramer, who, who's back out there, by the way, now, I've noticed.

He's, he's, he sort of [laughs] went under, and now he's, he's s- he's clearly concertedly back out there, if that's a word. But like, you know, he, he is, you know... There, there was a thing where he was movie phone, and he was like, "Why don't you tell us what you want?" I mean, Google was telling you what, what people wanted, right?

And so it was good because a lot of people rushed to, to fill in those, those gaps, right? The most powerful gap is internal data. I think that we saw in our internal searches. You know, the search engine on Famous Birthdays still today is searched about 700,000 times per day on our site.

So that's raw real-time gold to see what people wanna learn more about. Back in 2014, you know, two years after starting Famous Birthdays, we saw these Vine stars being searched, and then at VidCon in Anaheim, we saw them being- Yeah... rushed by fans, and they weren't on Wikipedia. So I think, you know, search traffic to us, looking at the internal data is the most powerful 'cause you can see raw, your own audience, what they want more of.

R- right. But you called it Famous Birthdays because you were gonna, like, tell people when people's birthdays are, right? Well, I think that Famous, there's a reason our logo is bolded and famous. It was...

Birthdays was just a fun theme. You know, Wikipedia has a hard time showing content on the homepage or on social 'cause it's very... It doesn't really change, what's Wikipedia? So Birthdays was just a fun theme.

That's not our core brand. On social, it's fun to wish folks happy birthday, but the real, you know, vision was what I just explained. Yeah. I guess what I, I, I end up thinking is y- with all of these businesses, like, I don't think in media, like, having, like, five-year plans make- makes any sense, 'cause I don't think you can.

So I don't understand the- Yeah... I guess they say it's the planning, not the plan. Yeah. But I even get this in my little area.

People are like, "Where, where is the Rebooting in, in, like, five years?" I'm like, "I have no idea." I think you just set off in a direction, and the market's gonna push you in all kinds of different, different ways, and as long as you keep going in a, a direction- Mm-hmm... you kinda have to be a little bit flexible about, about what lane you end up ultimately taking, I feel like.

For sure. I mean, 2012, we've changed so many times. I mean, I think you have to focus on things that- So what, how do you think about it? Like, w- how many times have you changed?

So then, like, how would you, like, say the different versions of Famous Birthdays? Well, we've never changed in that our core focus is always, what are those internal searches? What do people wanna learn more about, discover, and filling that. We've always had an amazing user experience.

So first on desktop, then mobile web, now iOS and Android, then in different languages. You know, then we have social. We've had over a billion views on s- YouTube, long form, not short form. Long form and short form are two different creator economy vectors.

Long form is harder, and that's where the money community is. So obviously on social, but then, you know, I think in the data and the, the community, meaning that being a publisher has a lot of pros and cons, but one of the pros is that you can develop a community authority and trust with users. So the main way it's changed is not just a programmatic ad business. Where can we use our leverage and community to build businesses outside of just a core website?

However, the core website needs to be the anchor 'cause that's what gives leverage into the other vectors that we're doing. Right. So I think the focus is always on the core, but then that core can lead to different branches. I think the one change is I initially thought, "Oh, let's get Famous Birthdays to 100 million users.

Let's get to top 50 global website," and I've pivoted from that, you know, even though that would've been fun. Okay. [laughs] Let's talk about that. Yes.

Okay, I don't know. There's this, there's this thing people talk about, Google Zero. Maybe you heard- Yeah... about it a little bit.

I've heard- Yes... I've heard that there's some fluctuations that, that have been going on with traffic patterns. Yeah. Walk us through your journey 'cause a lot of times people talk about this, like, in the abstract, so if you could get as specific as possible because, you know, before we began this, I- Yeah...

I said, you know, Famous Birthday strikes me as a brand that would be just straight in the bullseye of, uh-oh, search is changing- Yeah... because search probably led a lot of people to famousbirthdays.com. We've been doing this for 14 years, so the thing about search is that it's...

Whene- whenever people come to search, there's opportunity to convert users, and by us doing the same thing for 14 years, our brand has similar mind share as some of the major social platforms in our demo. So when a creator goes on Instagram and says, "I just got added to Famous Birthdays," because adding, getting added to our site's a rite of passa- passage, so it was a form of verification. The Economist wrote about us and saying that we're the last form of unbiased verification 'cause you can pay to be verified on social platforms.

We add people based on our notoriety. And when creators emote about being added on Famous Birthdays, there's hundreds of comments that they're happy for them. That's from the brand we built from all the traffic we've gotten over the years. So that doesn't change.

Search traffic, like I mentioned, the knowledge graph came out, you know, and I remember that one of the head Google product managers said, "If you're answering one plus one, you're in trouble." So obviously 'cause that's gonna be eaten by the knowledge graph. Yeah. So I see Google changing- Or if you're telling people when Charlie Demers', like, birthday is- Yeah, that's not gonna-...

like, they're gonna also be... Yeah. Yeah. They're not gonna do it.

100%, but we're not, we're not concerned about that being- Right... how we're gonna grow our traffic is by that. Exactly. I think that we have a community and a brand.

Searches for our brand on Famous, on Google have always gone up, meaning if people... How many people are searching Famous Birthdays to get to us in Google now versus five years ago, that continues to increase. Our app traffic- Okay, that's a [laughs] very, that's a very... I gotta, I gotta jump in there, otherwise I'll get angry emails coming.

Yeah. 'Cause people are gonna be like, "Well, he didn't answer your question." They're gonna say, "Well-" Well, I, well, do, do you- The, you know... W- how much is search traffic down now versus three years ago?

I, I do... One thing I've done with the business is look at our internal search analytics. Okay. I, I, I don't...

Look, our overall traffic is probably maybe 20 million uniques now, whereas maybe 3 years ago it was 25. Like, I would say- That's not that much. That's not that much. Yeah.

I feel like a lot of people give me, like, lowball numbers on this, but okay. Well, and but again, that, that's... I think our page views are probably the same. I think I heard the USA Today CEO, product manager on your podcast, and I like what he said, that traffic might have stabilized, but the engagement and the community and page views are going up.

Yeah. So- Sure... I, I think that's where maybe search might send less top funnel traffic, but the traffic that gets through is gonna be more engaged traffic that goes deeper. So that's why I mentioned instead of trying to get to 100 million users, let's just keep our traffic levels but make, get the retention up, and then we can use that to grow the community outside of the web.

Okay, so you were seeing traffic tick up, tick up, tick up, tick up, tick up, and then when did that stop? I would say our overall unique numbers flattened maybe three years ago, but it- Okay... certainly hasn't fell off a cliff. It's basically stayed pretty much where it's been- Okay, and now-...

in terms of page views. Yeah. Okay, so- Oh, no, uniques may have went down 15, 20% from three years ago, but I think our page views engagement has been very stable. Okay.

So was there, like, a period, and maybe you didn't have to because of the model, where you were like, "Hmm, this... Yeah, we're not, we're not going to 100 million"? Like, I think a lot of people saw the writing on the- Yeah... wall a couple years ago.

Maybe it was two years ago, maybe it was three years ago, depends on it. Yeah. But, you know, very few people, unless they were, you know, in a, like, Harrison Ford in, like, Empire Strikes Back and Frozen, you know, were like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're totally... We're up and to the right with, like, our search traffic."

Yeah. "This is it." [laughs] So what, what did you, what did you do to, like, mitigate that, and how did that change- It didn't-... your strategy?

Word mitigate it, it's, it's a good thing overall. Like, we put so much time into our app. And like that's probably 10% of our page views- Yeah... our app.

That's very hard to get app traffic, very hard. Yeah. And that's 10%. And then of the other 90% on the web, a lot of those users are coming to our site 'cause they know Famous Birthdays.

They didn't just randomly stumble onto it. So that's when I- Okay, so direct traffic went up. Or do- their direct traffic went up, so did searches for famous birthdays went up, so did just intentional traffic. Yeah.

Meaning traffic that stays on our site longer or people in the cohort that have been here 28 days ago increase. Like our brand has been around so long, and our user experience has gotten better and better, and we focused- Yeah... on our core. Plus, our industry has grown.

You know, the creator economy, as you know, is not what it used to be. I mean, MrBeast's right-hand man texted me to up- grade, update his headshot a few months ago 'cause our brand matters, you know? And I think we get tons of requests to get added to our site. Big talent and talent agencies wanna improve the roster of their talent on our site.

So that hasn't changed. So I think traffic numbers, like I said, it's fun to get to 100 million users. Yeah. But that's just to share a similar web number, and I think I learned that, okay, it's not growing anymore.

I need to focus on where the leverage is and not be concerned about it. Okay. Where is the leverage? And I, and I haven't seen that, I haven't seen that, like, increase more.

Like, ChatGPT came out, what, three years ago. I'm not seeing this increasing more now, and I do think that, I think Google just said that their search traffic was the highest it ever was, and then, you know, I'm a ChatGPT user, where I constantly see a source there, so I'm sure that's sending traffic. So I think in the future you're gonna have search sending traffic and AI sending traffic, so it'll be two traffic drivers in addition to all the social and email and anywhere else you can drive traffic.

It might not be as much, but the traffic that comes, if you have a brand that's been around and you're focused on it, you're still gonna build a, you know, loyal following. Mm-hmm. So, like, does that... So that should show up then in like RPM, right?

Like, I mean, are you... So I think a lot of this is, like, how do you do more with less? How do you make more? Yeah.

How do you, how do you make- It's not ads... more money with less traffic? It's not ads. Well, we don't sell direct ads.

I've never found to selling- I- [laughs]... direct ads at our level, especially, like, maybe direct ads can work elsewhere. Remember, we're so user experience-focused. A lot of direct advertisers want high impact.

So that means even if we got a big ad deal, I'm not gonna want, like, a Ford truck driving over my homepage, which I think I told you three years ago, that same line. [laughs] So yeah, we don't wanna sell direct ads. Programmatic, the beauty of it is we spend no time on it. We don't activate the high impact formats.

So, you know, I do think one mistake publishers are making is to help offset traffic losses, they're turning up the dial on the aggressive programmatic ads. We are not doing that. So- Yeah... but we're, we're finding ways to monetize outside of the website so our users aren't impacted.

In fact, we have no ads in our app. A big focus for Famous Birthdays is drive app. Well, not a d- I mean, part of, like I mentioned, 10% of our audience is on the app- Mm-hmm... and we've made our app a great experience.

We took all the ads out- out of the app because the app is just to build our community, and long-term, the web might just be to build our community. I'm sure we'll monetize it somewhat, but that's not gonna be an area of monetization growth, and CPMs have not grown even with our traffic being more repeat. So how do you... Let's use the three years ago, like, as- Yeah...

like, how is your, how is your, like, revenue profile changed- A lot... from three years ago? So we've, we basically have three revenue levers now. One is ads, programmatic ads and YouTube ads I'll put into there, and s- you know, social, social ads we get on video.

Yeah. No sales team. So that- This is all done- No sales team. Yeah.

We, we might get a direct deal once every year. Someone comes to us. They really- Sure... wanna hit our audience.

We're not gonna go out and sell that, but we'll get a direct deal once a year, twice a year, which obviously is good because that just goes into the auction. So that's A, is ads. Now, if, if I went... We don't do any arbitrage to buy traffic.

We're not putting on these high impact ad units on the website, but you'll see ads on the website, not in our app. Second way is licensing data. As I mentioned, we have 700,000 daily searches on our site per day. Charlie D'Amelio, when she had 200,000 followers, we emailed her to interview her in her office.

She flew with her dad from Connecticut to our office for an interview when she had 300,000 followers. She had no management at that time, maybe one brand deal ever. We discovered her, and obviously, we have our first ever interview on her profile, which is good content. But more importantly, talent agents notice that.

So our data is gold for signing folks. We know who was the most searched person on Famous Birthdays last month that does fitness content, and then we can compare that to the social data to see, okay, who was the most searched on Famous Birthdays last month that does fitness content that has between 100K and 500K on YouTube? So they're kind of not already super scaled. We also have talent rep data.

Since we've reached out for headshots, we respect copyright law, which I'd like to get into, because we've, we've had to protect our copyright, which we've successfully done- Mm-hmm... which is important for a publisher. But so we respect copyright law, so we've reached out for headshots. So from interacting with talent for their profile, we've try- we've cataloged who's got management and who doesn't.

So we can basically send a talent management firm, "Here's creators with a million to five million followers that don't have management yet, that are most searched on our site." So that data is driven by our community and our web, but those types of deals don't affect our user experience, obviously. Hmm. So we found that licensing our data to talent management firms is a great revenue 'cause we, we could have signed Charlie D'Amelio, but that's not our business.

You know, we stay in our lane. But we're happy to have talent managers sign up-and-coming talent that we, that, that show rising on our platform and on socials. So that's data number two- Yeah... um, and revenue number two.

Revenue number three is acquisition. So we've interacted with 100,000 creators or more via, directly or via their management to improve the profile. You know, we can license headshots of Tom Hanks on the red carpet. These creators, you know, with 200,000 followers, aren't on the red carpet, so we have to contact them to get a headshot for their Famous Birthdays profile, and we have a whole team, and we've scaled how to interact with creators.

So we've been hired by multiple companies to do acquisition for them. If they have something very relevant to offer a creator, not an affiliate deal or not something that they're gonna have to, creator's gonna have to pay for. But for instance, a few social platforms have had very relevant offers for creators, and they've enlisted us to get the message out to creators. Just like I mentioned MrBeast's team contact us to edge- update their, his headshot.

Mm. That's one creator, but we've interacted with 100,000, so we can activate creators at scale for an offer or a program. Is that some kind of, like, you know, influencer marketing agency? I, I, I don't see it as that 'cause we're not gonna go scale and try to sign up 50 brands.

If, like, if a social platform has a huge program they're scaling, not just a one-off campaign, where, you know, any creator within a criteria they'll give a bonus to or put into a VIP program, or if there's, like, a creator economy platform that raised a lot of money that has an ongoing need to onboard creators with a very relevant offer, you know, we'll activate for that. But I'm talking- Is there, like, an example? You can even anonymize if you don't have the- Well, we, yeah, we've worked with three social platforms to help them...

You know, we're a verified network of creators. You know, there's 40 m- 50 million creators or something. We only have 350,000 on our site, and half are celebrities, but we have a verified network of creators that we've interacted with, with 100,000-plus followers. So we've been hired by three separate social platforms to help, you know, do acquisition for them.

Okay, so to get these creators to try some product or to do something- Or to onboard... but you're not... Yeah, to, or onboard- Okay... a cr- you try a new product or to get into a new VIP program that they're offering.

Okay, so what is the breakdown between those three buckets, like ads, data, and... I mean, I'm gonna... This is, like, a services bucket. I don't know how you see it.

It, it, it, services- I probably don't like the word services... but again, it's, it's, it's nuanced services because we have this trust, and we have a database that we've already interacted with via profiling- Yeah, yeah... them. So yeah, I, I would say they're all healthy, the three.

Maybe half is ads. The other half is the data and services if you wanna call it that, but that's what I see growing. You know- Okay... we, we don't even have...

Like, we could easily, we could definitely enhance that part of the business. Unfortunately, I'm more motivated by the website. Like, I love fixing bugs, making a website fast, improving our app, all this stuff that's maybe more of an art project. But how I see it is by having the data and the services revenue, it gives me a license to work on the core website- Yeah...

which is whatever. I mean, it's interesting because the website, yeah, is, like, more of, like, a data and, and marketing to... Like, rather than, like you were saying, RPMs are not going up. Yeah.

Traffic is not going up. Well, then that's not a growth business, right? Well, it's not a growth- But it's still critical... but I also see it as, like, a pillar of the web.

Like, any time we meet, like, a high school or college, like, like, like, student, they all know our website and use it. So this is not... Like I said, when a creator says they're made it on Famous Birthdays, they'll get 400 comments congratulating them. And you know, we- Does that continue?

So I- I mean, like, I- Yes... I'm like, I mean... I, I- Well, it does because- Okay... because ChatGPT, people don't wanna live inside ChatGPT.

You know, our platform has original photos, Q&A videos, proprietary rankings, our own custom bio, our own custom UX. We're a platform. So you know, Famous Birthdays is gonna be a pillar of the web, just like IMDb's not going anywhere. Look at IMDb's traffic.

They have 500 million users last month. Wikipedia, probably two billion. So maybe we're, we're not... We're essential.

Like, I, I see it as, like, a pillar of the internet. Yeah. So that's not going away, but it is essential. It's just not gonna 3X.

Yeah. So I mean, a lot, it sounds like you don't think, like, this death of the open web kinda thing is, is a real... You're laughing, so that's clearly- Yeah, absolutely not... [laughs] I'm trying to be provocative here.

Yeah. No, it's not. Nothing dies. The web is definitely not dead.

You know, it's not. But how is it gonna... I, like, how do you see... I mean, obviously you're seeing the growth area in, in your business i- is in the data, and then- Mm-hmm...

whatever we wanna call the services bucket. Yeah. Yeah, I see that, the growth, and I see, I see the influence and the authority of our platform increasing in the AI world. You know, we, so, like, we manually write all of our bios, which I'd like to get...

You know, we'll get to. And you know, we have an experience that we've crafted. We see those 700,000 searches per day. A lot of that's a search for something on our site, but a lot of it's a search for something not on our site, so we prioritize- Yeah...

you know, getting that content up. So I, I think- Wait. Do, do you want your, do you want your information to show up in ChatGPT and Claude and other, or are you blocking those bots? Well, no, we're not blocking it.

We, we wanna... We're an open platform. Whatever's easiest for our users will be great. Obviously, there's copyright laws, so, you know, if they take- Are there?

Exce- There are, yes. [laughs] We've be- we've been successful multiple times legally. It's protecting our copyright. So there is a copyright.

So we, we would not, we're not gonna block any- So wait, why do I go to famousbirthdays.com? Why don't I just go to, to, to ChatGPT and just ask them about, like, whatever I wanna find out? You can ask them what someone's age is, but- Like I said, you're not gonna get the original photo gallery.

You're not gonna get our full bio that we've written on them. You might get a snippet. You're not gonna know if it's factual unless- Mm-hmm... we're sourcing a link to us.

You know, like Sam Altman said, the biggest issue with ChatGPT is sometimes it hallucinates. Yeah. You know, we've manually accurately fact-checked all of our bios, and we're updating them. We also have our own proprietary rankings.

We have video with the creators, and it's a fun experience. Yeah. Talk to me about the, the data business and the growth there. I mean, look, everyone wants a data business.

I mean- I'm, yeah. Well, data business is- Being the, being the Bloomberg of the creator economy sounds, sounds amazing on a, on a, in a- Yeah... pitch deck if you're gonna raise money Data business, there's a lot of competition, so it's almost a where do you have the perfect product market fit. I mean, like w- we, our core focus is on the Famous Birthdays platform for users.

That's our focus. So the data platform's not gonna work unless we really have a white space where, you know, we have the best offering. So we're not going very wide with it. We don't ch- we don't pitch brands on our data or marketing agencies 'cause...

But for talent agencies, for just signing folks, we can consistently see who's breaking out that doesn't have management yet, and they come through our office, and we see it in our searches, and our team sees it when we add them. So our data business, we, we pitch a lot of clients for FB Pro, Famous Birthdays Pro, but for talent agents, that's where we really saw the best value. Mm. So that's what the da- Now, we work with the major talent agencies.

Like, most of the major agencies use it, and then some of the smaller ones as well. And this is, like, a self-serve tool that they, they log into a dashboard. They, they do. We have an API which a few companies- Okay...

use, but the way the tool has worked best is a scheduler. People don't wanna log into a dashboard. So we'll find out, okay, this firm has five managers. Each manager has a different target.

We'll schedule PDF or CDF reports every two weeks that automatically- Mm-hmm... are sent to them based on their targeting. So if you're a manager, you just get the custom PDF or CSV with us with maybe 50 targets of unsigned talent you haven't seen yet. Okay.

That's an interesting learning. How did you come across- Yeah, 'cause that's what we found. People weren't logging in. APIs sometimes is technical for them to integrate, so the schedule works.

Yeah. And that, that cuts down on churn. You know, making sure that people understand the value and just get it. You deliver it to them rather than wait for them to come, you know, to get it.

Like- Yeah... I feel like you've always, like, when we've talked, like, you've been very intentional about how you build these businesses and not getting, you know, like, like the sales team thing. Like, I remember you were always like, "No way. I'm not getting it.

I'm not, I'm not doing that. We're gonna just do all programmatic because I don't wanna raise a bunch of money. I saw my brother raise a lot of money," and [laughs] I don't know whether that was it. I don't know.

You just s- seemed like you didn't wanna raise money, and look, when you started Famous Birthdays, you know, there's a lot of people who went out and raised, and raised a fair bit of money, and then they ended up in a world of hurt. That, that's one of our asset, uh, one of our assets is the fact that we've been around for 15 years. VC can't put you back in time, so we've been around for 15 years. We have the brand, but we're, you know, we're efficient and we're profitable, which makes us strong, so we can scale up or scale down, you know?

Yeah, but how do you think of... 'Cause it seems like, look, as you said, you go in one direction. You can go, you go towards something, but then you can go in a bunch of different, you know, directions as you go towards it. And I, I just think about that because you have a lot of opportunities that are a lot more heavily in the services bucket.

Like, you're like, "I don't wanna, I don't wanna-" Yeah... compete with agencies. I don't wanna compete with... Like, I wanna do what we do but not add on too many things that are outside of our core competency."

Yeah. I think it's also conviction. Like, we need to have conviction before we do something because it's gonna be a journey, and I wanna- Like, you're not talking-... uh, focus it...

about doing, like, events and being like, you know, we- we're the new VidCon. We're gonna, like- Yeah. No. We're not...

We, we go to... We've... VidCon's been good for our business, but I think, look, doing the stu- the working on the services revenue, we acquire... We already interact with 100,000 creators.

That's something unique. We're in their inbox. They trust us. So it's really about leveraging where we have an unfair advantage.

Doing a conference, many people are doing that, and that's, I don't wanna launch a conference. So, you know, I also think the other key with AI, everyone... AI gives us a lot of benefits, too. So there's tailwinds and headwinds that come from AI.

But for development, like, building technology with AI makes us much better and much more efficient. Improving the user experience on our website with the help of AI has been fantastic. Reviewing analytics. So there's, there's a lot of ways where AI...

Like, I can talk to ChatGPT myself about our code. I'm not a developer. Five years ago, I, I couldn't understand anything about our code or wh- why things are working the way they are. So I think, you know, A- yeah, AI's really been empowering for us to be able to scale our technology and, and do a lot of stuff we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise.

Yeah. So you think that, I mean, there's still... 'Cause I, I wonder about, like, open web businesses, like, whether... Look, there's a lot of people who are operating them, and they've got a lot of built-in advantages.

Like, I, I don't see as many people, like, starting open web businesses. I think in, in many ways the sort of, quote-unquote, "long tail" now is actually creators. I think creators- Yeah. And so-...

are the new long tail. Well, I, you know, the way I kinda look at it is I love DigiDay, and I, all the publishers go there, but let's just say you wanted to launch a open web business in a given genre, you know, like climate change. By being a publisher, you can get a lot of leverage where instead of, of going to DigiDay, if you go to a climate change conference, you can meet creators you can work with, advertisers. Power users.

So I think giving- being a publisher gives stature and gives, can give you leverage if you f- get deep into an industry and, and use it the right way. So, so I don't think the open web is going away. I think there's gonna be a huge fishing platform that is, like, really good at helping people in that industry, and they're gonna show up at conferences in that, in fishing, and figure out ways to use that leverage. Yeah.

So e- everything... It's not gonna all happen inside ChatGPT. That's not practical. Yeah.

Agreed. And I, I just wonder, like, with... I mean, you're close to the creator economy, and that was, like, a, that was a, that was an important bet, right? Like, back, back, you know, back when you started, it, it was not...

It was still something that was kind of tangential. It was like- Yeah, it was... oh, there's these YouTubers and some, some other people. But now, it's, it's moved kinda front and center.

Well, it wasn't a bet. Again, the internal searches. When we first start- saw creators searching our search engine, we didn't even know what was going on. I didn't even know what Vine was.

So I think that, you know, looking at the internal searches, maybe it'll be Substack stars or LinkedIn stars that get searched next. You gotta do B2B creators. Yeah. I'm happy to supply an, a original photogra- photography for it if you'd like.

Yeah, we'll see if the users are interested. [laughs] Oh, shit. Yeah. No, yeah, I, I think that the creator space, we got...

We backed into it. I didn't have that vision, but, but we had a platform where we can respond to what users were looking for. Oh, that's interesting. So you didn't...

That, that wasn't, like, a conviction thing at all. No. That was just something- It was just-... you were just like, saw.

We saw the user data, then I went to VidCon, and I was like, whoa, like, these people are on Wikipedia, and they can't even, you know, walk through the event. But some- but, like, somebody with 50 followers that had a speaking line in the movie is on Wikipedia. Yeah. So we saw that gap, but the original way I noticed it was by looking at our internal search data to seeing- Yeah...

where the demand was. But there is something kind of like, I guess it's ironic in that you're, you're not a creator business yourself, right? [laughs] And, like- Yeah... you're the o- the, I guess the, like, almost, like, the opposite of, of a creator business.

There, it isn't, like, you know, individual, and you see... On the one hand, you see a lot of the heat and the action and sort of the energy- Yeah... going towards creators and kind of away from websites, like, with- Yeah... you know, faceless brands.

Well, although a lot of creators, there's been a lot of money raised that's getting invested into creators to build a side business. Like, the number-one barbecue YouTuber can launch a barbecue media company or sell their own barbecue equipment. So I think that's gonna happen in the inverse, where there's gonna be creators that have a lot of leverage and trust in a given- Oh, yeah... genre, and they become a media platform from that.

Yeah, well, because, look, distribution is everything. It's not everything- Yeah... but it's a lot of things, and- Right... distribution's getting harder.

You know, Search was great for distribution- Yeah... and it's still good, it's to, very good for distribution, but I don't know, it's not the same as it used to be. And so if you're looking for distribution, people have a strong connection with an audience are great for, for that. Right, and if a creator- So you can distribute lots of things.

[laughs] Yeah, and if a creator's gonna distribute, they're not gonna distribute users back into ChatGPT, so where are they gonna put them? On the open web, so, 'cause that's where they'll have the control to do what they want. So open web's gonna be here for sure, so we'll still be able to talk three, three more years. [laughs] So you're lo- Yeah...

you're long on the open web. Yes, I am. So I think a lot of times people are, are... Now I hear just more, like, you know, it's like people link reports, like non-session revenue.

People are very- Yeah... attuned to making sure they are not as exposed to ads on websites as- Yeah... as, as they used to be. And, and obviously Neil's done amazing in this space.

Also, I've, I've heard him on your podcast many times, but he talked about it as well, like, each of his publications have thorny, more unique revenue models that they bake in that, you know, aren't just about growing traffic, but they're doing great, you know? So... Yeah. I mean, and then, and he said, like, you know, you can't have one playbook anymore.

And I- Yeah... that's why I think, like, for all of the changes that are going on right now, I think a more interesting business emerges, and it's gonna be a painful transition for a lot of people who, you know, are over-indexed in- Yep... you know, whether it's on Google for distribution or whether it's in, you know, then webpages and programmatic for, for monetization- You already raised too much money... or even texts- Yeah, or if they've raised too much money too...

and they raised search money. Yeah, yeah. So that's, you know- That's the thing. It's like, if you don't raise, if you don't raise money, it's gonna be painful, and it's gonna be hard, but it gives you a lot of optionality.

Well, and that's why we've had 14 years of building our platform and doing so much. And we were at VidCon in 2014 with a booth meeting creators. You know, and look, the internet's growing, and we'll see. You know, so there's gonna be opportunity if, if you, you know, put the chips in the right place.

Yeah. There's, like, kind of a new pivot to video taking place now that people have discovered this thing called Clips. Yeah, I'm, I'm- I'm hearing some... I'm, I, I'm a little disturbed because I'm hearing some very similar chatter where people are talking about these massive numbers that they're getting- Yeah...

on, on video views, and then I ask them about the RPMs on those videos- Yeah, well, I'm, I'm-... and they change the subject. [laughs] Well, that's because, like I mentioned, there's two types of creators: vertical short-form creators that get mobile phone traffic- Right... horizontal long-form creators that get YouTube connected TV traffic.

Two totally different types of creators. Yeah. So it's much harder to get horizontal connected TV viewership, but that's who gets the CPMs and builds the community, and they can then sub-license their content to the other OTT platforms, and those are the creators buying private planes right now. But getting, getting short-form vertical viewership is good to grow a brand and to get awareness and engagement, but you're not gonna generate revenue from that.

Right. Yeah. So- So what is your... So, so you're, with video, I mean, you're focused on getting the horizontal- Yeah, the hard one.

We do. We use our data to get, like, rising creators like Charli D'Amelio into our office. We have a format called Guest to Post where they, we film a 25-minute video with them in our studio. We only film, like, maybe once every three weeks 'cause it's gotta be the right creator.

But, you know, we're doing very solid on YouTube without it being, like, our core focus. Right. And then the clips are a way to, to drive to- Yeah, the clips are just for the brand. Like, we'll clip up the content- For the brand.

Yeah... we film, but that's not the focus, and we would be okay- Yeah... not doing that, but we do it just for engagement. But we- Yeah...

I don't think it makes sense to film video if you're just doing it for the vertical clips because- Yeah, yeah, yeah... you're not gonna- But I just think people, like, mix it in, right? Like, they, like, everyone l- no matter what people say, everyone loves big numbers. We don't care.

Some of the best YouTubers are, they, they really invest their time in long-form. That's where they're making money, and they don't wanna clip up their long-form content on the short form because then- No, I mean pu- I, I mean at publishers, you know? Yeah. Like, I mean, they're, they're looking at, at, at their dashboards, and, like, I, I see it.

It's like you, you, you see the shorts on YouTube- Yeah... and the numbers get so much bigger. You're like, "Oh, this is great. This is great."

Yeah. These, all, look at all these people. It doesn't monetize. Yeah.

Yeah, it doesn't monetize. That's the [laughs] problem. Well, and okay, that's good to build a brand. If you're gonna stay in your lane for a decade, then that's gonna be good 'cause you're gonna get, build your community from that, but it's gonna be a long-term strategy.

If you care about your short-term, short-form views, it's not gonna do anything for you. Yeah. And that's the other, you know, the advantage of, you know, just sticking around. I mean- Yeah...

not to use a ChatGPT-ism, but it does compound. I wonder if you'd... It, it claims everything compounds. Right.

That's one of its- Yeah... one of its weird ticks. [laughs] Yeah. I agree.

Staying around- I, even if you don't get, I mean, usually, and, I mean, look, it still matters, but, like, you know, getting all of that search juice, you know, just being around and publishing a lot for years, that has always had a lot of advantages when it comes to the index. And, and that is, like, I guess it's, it's lower now, but it's still, it's still relative. It's also about respecting the user. Like, if, if you've been around for a while and had a lot of traffic and you've always prioritized the user experience, then users come back to you and can expect that same experience and build the habit and rely on you as a, as a, as a destination for them.

You know, so I think that's, I, I think that's what's important, is if you stay around for a while, are you consistent with the user and offering value? You know, that's why we have our app and, like, keep our website fast and the fantastic experience and make sure our internal search engine is good so users keep coming back and getting a great experience. Yeah. So, I mean- Yeah...

you're trying to get people into the app when they do arrive at your site. Like- No, 'cause that's friction. I, I don't want friction, so we're not gonna have a pop-up over our website saying, "Go to our app." No.

Like, we could grow our app numbers if we did that. We wanna do what's best for the user in any given situation. So f- users find our app on their own, and it's growing. We're, we're, we might run some house ads saying, "Check out our app," but I don't like when publishers have this big pop-up and force them to install an app because they're gonna hurt that initial experience that they can have.

Yeah, and it's probably not a great way to build, to build loyalty. Some people do it because they're just, they wanna get people into their app, but we haven't, you know, done that. Yeah. How much...

Do, do you measure how much is indirect versus direct traffic, like, whether it's to an app or whether it's through a newsletter? You know, I guess it's, like, control... I, I think Bridget Williams from Hearst Newspapers a couple years ago on this podcast called it controllable audiences. Yeah.

We don't, I don't... Again, we're very efficient. We don't spend resources doing that type of measurement. We look at our internal searches and make sure that we're helping the users on our platform and, you know, I think then they'll come back if we have a good experience.

But I'm not gonna sit there and, like, analyze- So you really focus on internal searches. Like, I'm surprised- That's it... like, at that- That's it... because, like, are, are people using, like...

I, I just assume that, and maybe, maybe your users are, are way younger, but that, like, people have been trained never to use internal search 'cause it always sucks. Well, that's why we've made our internal search a priority from day one. I know, but they won't know. If they go to every other website and the, and the, and the- Yeah, they know...

internal search sucks- I mean, it's, it's in the sticky header. It's right there. It's the first thing they see, and we don't have a search results page. So if you search LeBron James, 76er, it's gonna go right to LeBron James.

It's not gonna go to a page that shows all the pages on our site that mention LeBron. Like, we get people right to where they want in extremely fast search experience. But then they look, and that's how we noticed Charli D'Amelio in 2019 because she was- Yeah... being searched even before she was on the site.

Are you trying to develop, like, AI search tools? I mean, a lot of sites are doing that. No. No.

Because we can see. Like, it's not, we can see what they're searching. We wanna take someone directly to there. So, like, Nicki Minaj might be searched 500 different ways on our site.

We've seen that, so we're gonna take the user right to her page when they get searched. Right. So you still wanna get people onto the page. Right away.

But we can, you know, we can analyze what was mis-searched and make sure we match it for the next time or, like, have fuzzy matches so if someone, like, searches something close, then we know what they want. Yeah. So- So what do you... Like, just a final thing is, you know, what's something that you've learned about the media business over these 14 years that- Yeah...

a lot of people don't know? Or d- or, or that you, you think people get wrong? Copyright. Our copyright has helped us multiple times.

You know, we manually write our profiles. We have our own prose, the way we do it, and that has value. There's obviously gonna be gray areas with copyright, which you're seeing in the New York Times lawsuit and so forth, but there's other times where it's not a gray area, and it's more... I haven't even looked at the New York Times lawsuit, so I don't even know if that's gray area.

I don't wanna... But, like, there will be times where- So you sick, you sick lawyers on people? Is this what you're saying? No, I mean, we're, we're, we're not litigious, but we understand the value of our copyright.

So if someone... Like, you can't just take all of our data from our website and just steal the entire database and all the 380,000 profiles we've manually written by our team. We have a copyright on that. Wait, hasn't, hasn't Anthropic and ChatGPT done just that?

There's a difference between training versus publishing. So if you go to Anthropic, they're not gonna print our entire bio on there- Right... and not source us. The robot wrote it.

They're not gonna, they're not gonna launch a competitor and, you know, that, like, has its own standalone platform that publishes all of our content and competes with us directly. So look, there's, there's a wide scale of how it's gonna happen, but there is value in copyright. I mean, look, Reddit licensed to Google. Yeah.

And I haven't followed that closely, but they've write licensed... And that's user-generated. They've licensed it, and I've read an article that they might pull that back because they wanna get paid via meter- Yeah... not via licensing.

But that's 'cause they have a copyright on their platform. But what I wonder is, like, you... Clearly, Famous Birthday's content has informed Claude and ChatGPT and, and any number of... But they're not paying you, and, you know- We don't have a deal with them, no.

Neil- But if we did-... is out, like, cutting deals. Yeah. And New York Times, maybe they cut a deal.

When do they get to famousbirthdays.com? We'll see. I don't see that happening.

I mean, that's... I, I, you... I do see it happening. I mean, we, we have one of the largest copyright database in the world, 380,000 manually written profiles.

I don't... It's probably the largest manually written database in the world, all fact-checked and accurate. So I do see them interested in our data, 'cause we can help their LLMs be better. But we're okay if it do- Like, we're gonna...

You know, like I said, like you mentioned earlier, stuff changes, industries change, opportunities change. Yeah. And- But do you expect to get licensing revenue from AI? Like, how are you gonna make money?

Let's just assume, and certainly everything is moving in this direction. Yeah. Let's just assume a lot of the kinks get worked out. More people are deploying agents to summarize things, to bring- Yeah...

the things to them. Yep. Like, and, and that this keeps progressing. 'Cause I feel like if we all go back to, or if I go back, I'm older than you, but if I go back to when I started using the internet, like, in the late '90s to, like, how things were, were then in, like, 10 years, I'm assuming that that's gonna happen in, like, three years, that kind of difference.

And I just wonder, like, how do you expect your bus- With, with everything we said, that you have no idea. Yeah. But how do you think your business is going to be different in three years or not? Maybe it's not.

I don't think it's gonna be that different. We've been doing it 14 years. I don't... I think that maybe we have a little less top-of-funnel traffic and more highly engaged traffic.

Maybe we license, get license deals with the LLMs. Maybe they source better, and they send us more traffic. You know, maybe we grow our audience in different ways. You know, someone was interested right now in, like, building a TV show around our brand.

There's gonna be different opportunities that we look at, but we're always gonna prioritize making sure we have a great direct experience for users on our dot com website and on our iOS and Android app. And our power users and people that care about our brand are still gonna be doing that in three years. All right. On that- Yes...

Evan, I like that prediction because, like, I, we can come back in three years- I'm in... and revisit it. Yes. All right.

I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Bryce. It's fun.

I'm a big fan of Rebooting. Thank you for what you do for the industry. Nice. I'm clipping that.

[upbeat music] [laughs] You can.