Over the past 15 months, Geek Chic Daily has been building momentum as a companion product to Wizard Magazine. A daily e-mail blast to users who sign up for it, Geek Chic Daily strives to keep the geek audience in the know with a daily, relevant bit of pop culture news straight to their inbox, ranging from comics to movies to video games to toys. We recently had the opportunity sit down with Peter Levin, one of the main folks behind Geek Chic Daily to get a behind the scenes picture of what Geek Chic Daily is and where it's going, especially after a sizable investment from some top tier investors.
iFanboy: Why don't you tell us, to the uninitiated, what is Geek Chic Daily?
Peter Levin: Geek Chic Daily is a free, daily, opt-in email newsletter focused on all things popular culture. That includes comic books, graphic novels, video games, toys, collectables, some technology, and gear. It's an editorially oriented product. Very much focused on the quality hopefully, the quality and the tone of the editorial. We're not in the business, per se, of breaking news, but giving interesting perspectives on things that matter to this audience.
iFanboy: When you were visualizing Geek Chic Daily and putting it together as an email distribution, why go that route given what's been going on around the web and Twitter, and things like that? What was your reasoning for going the e-mail route?
Peter: We're not solely relegated to email. We saw it as a very compelling way to create the format that we have gravitated too, which is, we think of it as your favorite page from your favorite magazine every day. Whether it's a subject matter that you're the most passionate about if you're an avid comic collector or gamer. We wanted it to be something that you'd also respond positively to if we covered a variety of different genres. Kind of the size and packaging of the email newsletter was very compelling to us. Quite frankly, the business model of these types of packages versus a lot of the destination websites that exist out there and blogs, they tended to resonate very strongly with both the consumer as well as the industry.
iFanboy: From a content development standpoint, do you find it limiting with email in formatting but also in terms of focusing on one item per day? Have you guys been tempted to expand the content of the emails to include multiple stories?
Peter: No, I think where we're going is to be launching some regional newsletters in the coming months; we're also very prominent on Facebook and Twitter. There has been a lot of pushback from large corporations about limiting people's social interaction on their social networks during business hours. That is something that is inured to the benefit of a product like ours. We never saw Geek Chic Daily living solely in an email format. We're already doing some online and offline video syndication with the brand.
iFanboy: You have recently raised some money and you're expanding already beyond email. What can you tell us about some of the video content that you've been doing?
Peter: I would say I would also look at the types of folks that are now backing the business. I think also speaks to the model that we've chosen. These are folks that have backed some of the bigger emails newsletters in the business; Daily Candy, Thrillist and Tasting Table. Guys in the pop culture space like Legendary Pictures and Joe Roth, and the CEO of Machinima, the founder of GameSpot, the managing director of Revel. These are all people that spend their days focusing on pop culture. The idea of extending this brand into some of the online video content production that we've done with IFC channel over the last year. Some of what we're doing currently with Travian and some of which we'll be announcing to the marketplace in the coming months.
iFanboy: With the people that have invested in Geek Chic Daily and the kind of fund raising you guys have done, do show a commitment to the format. Given, you've got some high profile investors, are you also able to leverage their companies and what they're doing to bring in more diverse content to Geek Chic Daily?
Peter: We are. I mean folks like Legendary and even Joe Roth they are phenomenal at marketing kind of top down to an audience. And I think they look at Geek Chic as a complimentary component to be able to also market bottom up to an audience. And so if we can collaborate on things, kind of meeting in the middle is a very interesting proposition.
iFanboy: Can you expand a bit on the relationship between Geek Chic Daily and Wizard. We've seen in the past year or so of Wizard issues published, there was always a Geek Chic Daily tag on the cover. I spoke to Gareb a couple weeks ago and he mentioned clearly that you guys were separate companies. How do you see those companies working together to help promote one another and to help promote their content?
Peter: Wizard and Gareb are non operational partners in Geek Chic Daily. You know, in particular, it was Gareb and Wizard and the comic cons that they own and operate that were a very interesting petri dish, if you will, for us to be able to find out what this consuming audience was looking for, and also to stay current on trends and going ons in the industry. You know, we're at a point where we're probably doing more with all of the events that exist out there and all of the conferences domestically and then we've started to look at the international stuff as well. But, Gareb was a great launch partner for us. We'll continue to source new readership and potentially float ideas and concepts by that audience when if applicable.
iFanboy: How has the response been? Are you guys tracking whether people are forwarding the daily emails along? I'm looking at your Twitter account and you've got about 2600 Twitter followers. Where has been the most growth or the most like kind of attention paid by the audience to Geek Chic Daily?
Peter: Right now, we're focused on the opt-in email newsletters. We're very happy and pleased with where our trajectory is heading. Again, after 15 months of operation, it's been nice to pick up the kind of support we have from the community, as well as the types of folks that just recently invested to kind of give us a little bit confidence. So our growth metrics have been very, very healthy.
iFanboy: Have you been interacting with the recipients of the email at all? How has that feedback been?
Peter: It's been very interesting. I would say, it led us away from exploring certain areas that we thought would be of great interest. We found that they had very little interest in. They're very vocal about where they would like to see some of the product road map go. And so we'll be announcing some of that in the coming weeks and months. They're not shy about some of the tone which we actually changed over the months. Brought in some new editorial talent. There is again a large push for some more regional content which were rolling out with again in the next few weeks. So, it's a communication pipeline that we're very covetous of and respectful of.
iFanboy: Because that's the thing with the geek audience, they can be very fickle and can be very attuned to whether they're being marketed to versus getting content that is relevant to their interests. Has it been a challenge?
Peter: Well, we're very transparent between what is our marketing messaging and what our editorial is. And when we have sponsored editorial, we make that very clear. And I think from a marketer's standpoint, they like the engagement metrics. They know exactly you know what they're getting, who they're getting, how often they're getting them. It's a taste making audience. It's an audience that consumes a tremendous amount of media, which is one of the reasons why we addressed it to begin with. But, you're absolutely correct. These are the "Emperor has no clothes" types of readers. The minute anyone tries to get cute with this audience, you're kind of out of the business.
iFanboy: It can be a tricky path to go down. So, it sounds like you have a lot of plans for the future. I know you alluded to some stuff that's going to be announced on the road. Can you give us a sort of preview of what people can expect?
Peter: We're going to get into the online-offline video production business. We're partnering with some, I think, folks that will be very well received by our audience, both on the scripted and unscripted side. Being able to help promote and bring some audience to these properties. We're excited about a lot of what's happening there with the digital consumption of all this pop culture, intellectual property, and concept. We'd like to be closer to the belly of the beast on some of that, on the origination side.
iFanboy: You've done some video, like you mentioned with IFC. Do you see videos as really kind of the natural extension of communicating to an audience like considering the developments that have happened in bandwidth and how easy it is to do video now on the web?
Peter: I think it'll be a very complimentary component. We're big believers in strong editorial as long as you're not overwhelming your audience. We have no desire to compete with the big portals, if you will, or destination sites. We're partnering with a lot of the bigger ones right now. We think our products are very complimentary to them. We think our video products will be as well. We have access to the kinds of creators that we think our audience wants to hear from. We're going to be very respectful of that and deploy a very strong filter against that. Yeah, we think videos are very complimentary component to our existing suite of product.
iFanboy: How do you see the video distribution landscape looking for you? Is it going to be mainly through traditional channel based television, or are you looking at the web as a delivery mechanism?
Peter: Web will be the primary driver. We're in a variety of discussions along those lines. We've been doing thing some stuff with Tribune; we've been doing some stuff with IFC. We're going to continue to experiment but, we think the online will be the primary driver. If there's some extensions into more traditional formats, that's great. But, for us, our audience lives online.
iFanboy: Do you see mobile playing a role in what you guys are doing in the future at all?
Peter: We do. I tend to be of the more conservative particularly on the app side. I want us to see where this all plays out. There's a lot of this chatter that the current suite of apps for folks like ourselves is like the flash home pages of the late '90s, and I tend to agree with that at this moment. If you're not Angry Birds, it's difficult to monetize your apps in a sustainable way right now, other than as a pure marketing play. I think our product is resonating with our audience right now because we're not spreading ourselves too thin and diluting ourselves too much. Mobile will be big for us, particularly on the video front. On the apps front, we're talking about some partnerships. But, before we make a huge investment of time and resources, we're going to let that shake out a little bit, I think.
I just tend to go with what I use and know and those around me. I don't see a lot of folks using apps from publishers like ourselves with the kind of regularity that would lead to monetization. I think those metrics are becoming more and more transparent. I think our energies are better spent just continuing to make our product as strong as we can.
iFanboy: In terms of the vision for Geek Chic Daily, where do you see the brand in three years or five years down the road? I'm sure, taking investment and that sort of thing, you believe that there's a sustainable business here. How do you see it growing in the long term?
Peter: We see us bolting on some interesting assets along the way, potentially partnering with some folks to create some brand extension. We would like to continue to become a source of credibility for this consuming audience. So, we're striving very hard to retain that level of integrity with our communication with that audience. Again, I think video is going to be a big beach head for us as we continue to roll out. We shall see. There are so many emerging platforms on any given day. I think as long as you focus on the core quality of your offering. For us, as editorial, and you kind of stick to what you know, and we don't become too broad, too quickly. We're pretty excited about what the future could bring.
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I added them for awhile, I’ll admit it was mainly because I’d originally misread it as “Geek Chick daily”, not chic. Then after a few emails that proved they cleary have no interest in female readers I gave it the ole unsubscribe. (Particularly when a mention to them about the fact on facebook and twitter got no response.)
Oh well.
Life is Sales- Kate Herbert.
I’m gonna be the one to say it, this whole “geek” this, “nerd” that, and gratuitous and ubiquitous usage of the word “badass” is well past tiresome!