[upbeat music] Welcome to the Rebooting Show. I am Brian Morrissey. This week I have a really interesting conversation. It's with Louise Story.
Louise Story has an unusual background in media.
She's something of a five-tool player in an industry where CEOs usually come from one discipline, oftentimes sales, and bring, you know, a somewhat more narrow lens to the job.
Louise's career has spanned editorial, product, technology, and the business side, giving her a rare ability to connect the dots across functions that typically operate in silos.
At The New York Times, for instance, she was a major contributor to the landmark innovation report that helped shape that paper's very successful digital strategy.
She did something very similar at The Wall Street Journal, where she co-led transformation while serving as chief product and technology officer and one of the newsroom's top editors.
This was pretty uncommon dual role, and I think it's important because you have to link audience insight, editorial priorities, and business objectives in order to build sustainable media models.
The common thread, I think, in her work is the often nebulous discipline of product, which I believe is critical because it's where all the parts of a publishing organization meet.
The essential challenge for publishers is to have a coherent product that solves problems for a specific audience, while also, by the way, making money.
For too long, you know, product has been treated as an afterthought, something of a traffic cop often between editorial, sales, and tech, rather than a connective tissue that aligns all parts of the organization toward a shared goal.
In April, Louise took over as CEO of Atlas Obscura, a favorite of mine because it's kind of a quirky travel brand, you know, known for surfacing hidden and offbeat places around the world.
You know, it was started in a different era, in two thousand and nine, as a community-sourced map of unusual destinations.
And, you know, it grew into a multi-platform business spanning digital media, books, podcasts, branded partnerships. It's gone through a lot of different iterations that we discuss on this podcast.
And of course, it's, it's faced, you know, the, the challenges that are common to all publishers, including niche publishers.
A lot of those around navigating shifts in search and social traffic and finding the right balance between community content and editorial, and identifying sustainable revenue streams, and basically figuring out ways to make money.
And, you know, it's made some false steps, and we, we talk about those.
In this conversation, you know, we talk about why aligning editorial product and business is essential to building these sustainable models, how Atlas's community roots give it an advantage in creating deeper engagement, why Louise sees AI as a shift in user behavior rather than just another efficiency tool, and how she thinks about content as data that can be transformed into products and features, as well as her focus on scaling profitable business lines while avoiding sort of operational traps that have hurt other publishers.
We talk about how Atlas Obscura has pulled back on its focus on offering in-person experiences rather than partnering with others who provide those. Hope you enjoy this conversation. Now on to it with Louise.
[upbeat music] All right, Louise, let's get into this. Thanks so much for joining me, Louise. Thanks for having me. We've never podcasted before, but I've followed your career quite a bit, and I wanna actually start...
Usually, I get right into talking about the business stuff, but I wanna talk about your background because I think it's unique and, and it plays into, to what you do at, at, uh, Atlas Obscura.
And I think it's, like, interesting because you're, you're hard to pigeonhole, I guess, because you've been in a lot of different parts of, of this business. Mm-hmm.
And I think that's a good thing because, you know, all the parts, I think in a different era, kind of operated a, a little bit like autonomously in some way, and it all kind of came together imperfectly.
But, like, that, that doesn't, that doesn't, I don't think, work for where things are right now. So talk to me about that, about, like, you know, 'cause you've been in the, the, the capital J journalism side.
You've been, you've been making it and doing it. You've, you've done filmmaking. You've done product and tech. You've done strategy. And...
'Cause I want, I wanted to use this to build up to what your personal theory of the case is about where media is right now. Okay. We could definitely do that. Thanks, Brian.
So, you know, one thing that's been happening in the whole content space in media, but generally as you alluded to, is there's been a big push to break down silos, right?
And as you said, people used to work very separately, and there's just been a constant thing where a lot of businesses try to break down silos.
And actually, I've gotten to work at a number of places, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and then with a number of different large international media companies through my consulting on breaking down silos.
And what happens when you work to help break down silos is you yourself sometimes move across them.
So that's really the story of my career, you're right, which is that I started in big J journalism, and I started really as a writer.
And then just within big J journalism, I started breaking down silos and being involved in that just between mediums.
Like, it was actually a transition and a period when people either wrote or did audio or did video, you know, and I was part of a generation of journalists where start... we started doing it all. So I learned audio.
So I learned video. So I, you know? So I was doing that within big j...
big, big J journalism, but then when I got involved in strategic work, really the first big piece of strategic work I was involved on was at The New York Times, two thousand and thirteen to two thousand and fourteen.
I co-authored the innovation report, which was the first, you know, kind of big, broad public push for The New York Times to change, and it really has led to a lot of the success at The Times. That was famed.
I mean, that was like a- Yeah. That was like a, that was like a stimulus program for us at Digiday. [chuckles] But so thank you for that.
A lot of people read it and have followed it, and I think it gave the industry kind of license to change. It's like, oh, if The New York Times is gonna pay attention to its audio, it...
I mean, I'm sorry, if The New York Times is gonna pay attention to its audience, then we can too. And if The New York Times is gonna bring product and technology closer to the newsroom, then we can too.
So I think it gave license to the industry for something every... a lot of things- Yeah. -people knew we had to do.You know?
But in doing that, then it starts pushing me beyond big J journalism into, okay, so I'm thinking about the audience and I'm thinking about how we change our business, and then I'm thinking about subscribers and looking at which content's gonna convert people.
And so then I started getting into subscription strategy, which has been a big part of my work the past 10 years.
Also, you know, at the Wall Street Journal also, we digi- we doubled digital subscriptions when I was there, and I was very involved in the subscription strategy there too.
And so just the more you work on breaking down silos- Yeah... if you're, if you're honest about it, then you cross them yourself. And so that's, that's what I've done.
[chuckles] So you were involved in two of these efforts, really, which is sort of unique. The, the innovation report, which is, like, 2014, and then I think it was, what? The content review at- Mm-hmm...
at the, the journal? At the, kind of, yep. Yeah, kind of like a similar- Yeah... I, I kind of think, like, the entire industry needs one of these now. [chuckles] Maybe it's just me.
Well, because, like, you know, if we go back to the innovation report, it's 2014, and it seems strange going back in time, but, you know, the Times was coming out of probably i- its lowest point in its history over the- You remember they-...
financial crisis... they had to lease the building back from a Mexican- Yeah... billionaire, right? Yeah. That was- The cement guy, right?
That was- I mean, so, like, Carlos Slim, they were taking, like, almost, like, you know, bad lo- like, loans you didn't wanna take [chuckles] from, from, you know...
And there were, were questions, like, about, like, whether The New York Times would survive. I know that sounds very strange, but there was at the time.
And the, the innovation report, you know, was, you know, as I said, [chuckles] we referred to it constantly because it was, it was, it was pretty striking because it was The New York Times taking stock of where it was and saying, "We're behind, we're behind" Yeah...
and it's strange because now thinking back, 'cause The Times is so strong now comparatively to, to its peers, but it was we're behind BuzzFeed, and it was actually leaked to BuzzFeed.
Like, BuzzFeed actually published the, the innovation report. And, and I think what, what were your takeaways from both of those?
But then I want you to sort of spin it forward to where the, the, quote unquote, the industry, which is a bunch of independent, you know, organizations, but where it is now and sort of what needs to, to, to be done, because I think there are probably similarities to, to what you saw in both of those efforts.
Yes.
Well, both The New York Times innovation report and the content review at The Wall Street Journal, both which I, you know, both the reports that I played huge roles in, they both were coming at a time that those companies were pivoting and needed to pivot, and both those reports led to huge change that has put both those organizations into a much better place.
But what's, what's interesting is at, at the heart of both those reports, if you look for some similarities between them, and I think it's very relevant still to where the industry today is an urge for people in those news companies to pay attention to the user needs of their audiences, to pay attention- Yeah...
to what people are interested in, what they're going to use your content and their product for.
Part of why The New York Times is so successful today is because it's broken out different products that have features that people wanna spend time in, and they're, they're engaging, and it wasn't a given.
If The New York Times hadn't done that, I'm not sure that it would be... I, I don't think it would be as successful as it is now. And so really focusing on audiences and what they need and what they want, and this is...
This was anathema to a lot of news organizations, and now you could say, "Well, everyone gets it, everyone gets it," but I don't know.
People say they do, and then they say today, I'll bring it to today, they say, "We get it. We wanna do what our audiences want," and then they say, like, "Oh, but, you know, we don't want them...
We, we don't wanna partner with this AI company," or, "We don't wanna do AI," or, "We don't..." And the thing is that the vast majority of the public is using AI, right? Yeah. So we have to accept this is user behavior.
We can't change user behavior. We have to provide what we do in the context of the new user behaviors. Yeah. I mean, it's... I think re- repeating the same mistakes doesn't make any sense.
And just as some publications after... I saw this after, like, the dotcom, you know, implosion, they sort of pretended that the internet wasn't happening. And like I...
It was always said to me, it's like people focused on the wrong nu- they were focused on the NASDAQ number, not the broadband penetration number, uh, because this...
It was inevitable really what was gonna come for a lot of these businesses, but, you know, it just took time to catch up. And I think a lot of what's happening right now is...
And t- I know when people have, like, layoffs and whatnot, they blame AI and whatnot, but, like, these businesses needed to change. I mean, I called the rebooting just I was a little too early for it.
[chuckles] But, like, it w- it was, it was an awkward name, but it was because I, I just thought that this, this industry needed a, a bit of, of a reset because a lot of, you know, a lot of the mechanics were not, were not working, right?
And it was, it was, it was ki- it's kinda obvious in, in retrospect. But yeah. So talk to me ab- also about, like, product, right?
Because I think what's interesting is you were the, the, the head of, like, product and tech at, at the Journal, and product is one of those roles I feel like at, particularly ne- at news organizations, but publishers in general and media, that it's critical for getting out of the, the current predicament for a lo- that a lot of these companies are in.
Because if you're going to be audience-focused, it's like you have to be a product company. Yes, absolutely, you have to be a product company.
So at the Journal, I was chief product and technology officer business-wide, so not just the newsroom- Mm-hmm... but also opinion and, and advertising and subscriptions.
But I had this unique aspect that's very rare at news companies, which I think should be more common, which is that simultaneous to me being chief product and technology officer, I was one of the top four editors running the content, and dr- and I led the whole content strategy.
So, you know, normally-Still today, most news companies, even very successful ones the chief product and technology officers become some of the repository of, like, the best insights about users but they are hands-off from the content.
But I think, you know, the reason we got so much done at the Journal and doubled digital subs and so on is because it was all connected. And so I agree with you, we really...
the product discipline, which is about constantly bringing the audience into the analysis of what you're gonna do is essential.
And really when you think about with AI, what content becomes, for many places, content is becoming marketing for something else, right? Because- Yes... if your content- You're talking my language.
You see what I'm saying? [laughs] Yes. Yes. I love that 'cause I think that's a very fundamental point. Go on. Right.
So if your content exists in ChatGPT or in the Google snippets somewhere else, and then you think people are gonna click on you just to come see that same content they could see there, you're fooling yourself.
So you've gotta figure what else is it that you have. And that's where I think there's such a huge opportunity for all content companies, including news, to productize their content, right?
Because content is data, and you can use data to inform all kinds of product experiences. So a lot of times people don't actually talk about data, just audience data. That's important. Yeah.
But what I think the companies really need to do now is marry audience data, what people are interested in, who they are, what they're clicking with, with their content data. Their content data is the actual content.
The content is data itself, and you can splice and dice it however you want, even more so now with some of the AI that we have available. Yeah. And it's at that marriage there can be excellent product experiences.
And there's a big cultural challenge to doing that, 'cause that makes a ton of sense, but when journalists hear... Uh, first of all, they don't like content, right? Just in general.
They don't like the word content, right? But it's... there, there's not, like, a better word for it. And then when, when the journalism goes from content to just data, it's, it's gonna be...
I, I understand it's like every- everything is data, but I think that there is a need to sort of get over the sort of preciousness, I guess, of it because obviously the market is very difficult right now.
And in order to get, get out of that, it's gonna require, you know, building new, building new experiences a- and products that, that the audience wants. I mean, it's, it's a simple but hard issue.
So talk to me a little bit about the, the opportunity you saw at, at Atlas Obscura because, I mean, Atlas Obscura, again, it's a brand that started in a different time of the internet. It was one I miss, honestly.
It was coming out of the financial crisis, and there was a lot of enthusiasm. There was a lot of, like, new publishing brands that were being launched that weren't Substacks. And nothing against that.
I like newsletters, but, you know, there... this was an era where, you know, BuzzFeed had been founded a couple years earlier. You know, Vox was gonna get going a few years there. I mean, Vice was around.
This is when this was all starting, and Group Nine was, was starting to come together. And I, I li- I always liked Atlas Obscura because it, it was a quirky brand, you know, to some degree. Like, it was...
Like, I don't know if an Atlas Obscura, you know, gets started today because everything is so narrow and specific. And, you know, it's a brand that, that has gone through a lot of iterations. So what is your...
To, to go back to, to what we've been talking about of now, like, what is your sort of theory of the case of where media is right now and how, and how do you think that that applies to, to Atlas Obscura? Sure.
So the things that I have seen both at The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, but then also places I've consult- consulted that work the best for content companies and news companies, and just as an aside, Brian, the reason I say content so much is because there's news content, there's opinion- I know...
content. I know. There's no better word. If I just said news... There's no better word, right? Like, and then there's a lot of stuff that- And it's text... news companies do today that's not that newsy.
It's audio, it's video, it's- Yes. There's all kinds of stuff. Yes. So we're stuck with content. Yes. I'm with you. We're stuck with content, but I love big J journalism.
I am a big J journalist even, you know, as we- It's a form of jour- Yes... it's a form of content. I get it. Yes.
And like- But, um- And that's why when you're talking about infra, I call it the information space because it's, like, beyond the media industry, and the media industry has to get over this idea that, like, their...
your competition is all kinds of different entities out there. Like, the... it's... that's over. But go on. That's a- a- absolutely. I agree. But what I have seen in the content space is that when you bring community in,
not only does your content itself get better, but you get more engagement in your content. It's this virtuous circle.
And, you know, one thing, for example, that I ran at The New York Times that was so edifying for me, it was so interesting, was I ran live video there for a little over a year.
We were doing 10 segments a day, but it was really live reporting.
People would be all over the world in the field, and we asked reporters doing it to have three of their interview questions at least come from the audience in real time.
And, you know, it was changing the journalism because audience members would think of questions- Mm... that the journalists didn't think of.
And many journalists I talked to at the time after, reporters would come tell me, "You know what?
Like, I wanna do all my interviews this way," because the, the, the collective brain of our audience is so much more insightful and varied than any m- you know, what one person come up with.
And, you know, the engagement on those was super high compared to produced videos where there was no interactivity. So that and other things I've done have really stuck with me.
And when I was thinking, you know, about other kind of, you know, places I'd like to lead and play a role and look at things, I thought, you know, if there was a place where community was really central to the DNA, it would be a great place to be right now in this moment of change in the industry because I won't have to convince people to bring community in if it's central to the DNA.
And so we can just get going on how we engage further.
And Atlas Obscura, you may know, was founded as a, a, a crowdsourcing platform, so community has been in it from the beginning because when it was founded it was created to be-A map of the off the beaten path places that are just, you know, so interesting and inspiring and quirky and different that you wouldn't know otherwise.
And initially, it was all content from its community, and it was only when they brought their first CEO in, who was David Plotz, you know, who had been the- Mm-hmm...
editor in chief of Slate, that, you know, then more journalists were, were adding articles there and so on.
But they kept this community aspect of the content, and today 30 thou- we have 30,000 places on the map that are these off the beaten place spots, and they've all come from the community. And that's actually...
We have quite a lot of articles by journalists, but the, the, the places are about two X, the journal X, journalist articles. So it shows you the mix. So that really intrigued me.
And so I think here at Atlas Obscura, if you, if you, if you watch, there's not a lot to see yet 'cause we've got a lot of building blocks we're doing, but you're gonna see us doing a lot more in that space, that nexus of content and community and how can we change our digital products to give people more to do.
I think there's a lot of opportunity there for Atlas Obscura. And broadly speaking, again, this is something we already have that is different from what ChatGPT has, right?
So, you know, our stories are in AI already, but when people come, what we see is they log in, they make a profile page, they start marking where they've been, where they wanna go. People are very active on that.
Even with the general internet traffic drop, our registrations have not gone down, which is cool.
And so again, I think thinking for any company out there, no matter what their topic is, what is it that your community wants to do that they can do on your platform? And leaning into that is a great strategy. Yeah.
And I think the community at part... You know, I think everyone wants to get to community, right? Right. But a lot of people are... I think A- Atlas Is- Obscura is unique in that it's kind of baked into the DNA- Yes...
in a way that it's sort of it, it's coming afterwards for a lot of people who try to add community afterwards, and it doesn't work for every brand, you know.
And, you know, and, and a lot of times when, when media brands talk about community, they're really talking about events. [laughs] They'll be like- Right... "Yes, we're a community." Right.
It's like, no, you're, you're holding an event. That's different. Well, you have to approach community in the same way we were talking about content and product features earlier- Yeah...
which is what does the community wanna do?
And I think you're right, Brian, that a lot of times events become how do we get people to come to these things, again, not what are people looking to do for which we could hold events, you know? Right.
So talk to me about the plan then, because I think, you know, having proximity, I don't know the, the, the, the best word for it, like, but having, like, that connection with an audience.
I think a lot of times people think about the connection just being an email address. It's another thing [laughs] when people say they're connected, they're like, "Oh, we got an email address."
But, like, you know, when you're really getting a community, and I think that was something that, you know, Substack and different email newsletter platforms got right, is that just that interactivity that you can have, even theoretically with the person sending the email, just that being in a communication medium really builds a kind of connection and in some cases parasocial connection that is really valuable [laughs] these days.
And so talk to me about how you're gonna use that in a community building block for the next iteration of Atlas Obscura. Absolutely.
Well, we have two and a half million people who have registered and made these profile pages. That would be our closest community.
We have more, you know, we have millions more who, for example, are on newsletters but haven't made a profile page, and then of course we have just the traffic coming from Google and so on.
So the numbers are bigger when you look at the top of the funnel. But in terms of the people who are registered with us, who are coming and doing things, it's a pretty sizable group for a, you know, topic vertical site.
And so we're engaging with them and we're understanding them, but we're doing at the same time a look out at what people out there resemble the people who are with us and have some of the same interests and spend their time the same way, so that we can both expand and create, you know, more service and utility and excitement for the people we have.
And so what we've already found, since I come from a product and tech background, I'm only three months in, Brian, but, like, my second week I kicked off the user research. Okay.
And so what we've already found in the user research is that Atlas Obscura's current audience travels a lot. So we're talking about a third of our audience is going on more than nine trips a year. Okay.
And so then we start, you know, in focus groups and interviews going down and understanding how they travel, why they travel, how they think about travel and their life, and one of the things we've learned is that, you know, it's critical to their self-identity.
This is, you know, what they're talking about when they go to lunch with someone, and they're the kind of person that people ask for recommendations and they- Yeah... pride themself on that.
And they plan way ahead and they're confident. They don't go out usually in a big group tour on a tour bus, right? They, like, say like- Yeah... they're gonna go to Florence. I mean, it's a flex, right? Yes.
It's a fle- like n- knowing pla- like, I don't know. Yes.
I'm, like, going on vacation next month, and, like, it's in some, like, island off an island, and so people like, you know, it's like, "Ooh, I've never heard of that." It's like it's much- Yes...
more interesting than being like, "Yeah, I'm going to, I don't know, Rome-" The Eiffel Tower- "... or something"... or, you know- [laughs]... which is nice, but, like, everyone's been there now, you know?
You're like, you want something- Well, because the thing with travel is everything's become, like, the same because everyone has the same feeds.
Like, you ever, like, end up in, like, a restaurant and you're like, I'm like, "Oh my God, I'm in a TikTok place"?You know what? Brian- Like those places are packed... I have to tell, Brian, I have to tell you this.
So we just opened an office for Atlas Obscura in Bryant Park. The company hadn't had an office since before the pandemic and there's a place like a- right down the block called Joe's Pizza. Oh, yeah.
And the line is- I'm near a Joe's Pizza... out the door. Yeah. And I was like- [laughs]... "What is happening? Why is there such a long line to this ordinary looking place?" And then someone- I live near one of those...
told me it's a TikTok, it's a TikTok place. We might have to like take this out, but I live near one of those- [laughs]... down in the downtown in the Financial District, and it's very similar.
It's interesting because like you can ha- you can't just be like a, a well-known pizza place and just stay a well-known pizza place in one place. You end up like...
I feel like private equity can like sniff out like anything- [laughs]... that's taking off now. [laughs] And then what do, what, what, where, what, where do they do?
They go squeeze it or what, what do you think even happens then? Like- No, then they scale it. I mean, it's like- Oh, they scale. Oh, I don't know that... I was just talking- I don't know. I don't know...
on a, on a podcast, the People Vs. Algorithms. Troy and I were- Uh-huh... talking about, about this with like Dave's Hot Chicken. You know what I mean? They- Oh, that's a great one... blew up a chicken place- Yeah...
from 2017 to now to a billion dollars. And- Yes... a hot chicken like franchise. 'Cause I just feel like if things can take off, they can become like almost ubiquitous now. Yes. Yes.
But like I think the counter to that, to bring it back to Atlas Obscura, is that people kind of want unique and like- Yes... everything in the algorithmic world is designed against that to some...
[laughs] Like you know- That's right... nothing stays secret. [laughs] That's right. And so that's our jam, right? And it gives people such a cool feeling to say, "Well, no, no, no, you don't know about this place.
[laughs] Like this is even cooler. This is..."
And so we are both leaning into this large community we have, but also now understanding that psyche and the way they spend their time and their money, and the way they travel, and what they aspire to, has allowed us to start thinking about and looking out at well, where are other people like that who don't currently come to our digital platforms, but what would we, what could we provide that would be super useful to them or that they would, that they would need and that they would love?
And I think the great thing about Atlas Obscura is beyond the digital audiences. You know, we're more than a digital media company. We've published many best-selling books. We do films. We do podcasts.
So there's a much, much bigger group of people who knows the brand. I think generally people feel very positively about the brand, which is not the case with every media brand today.
And so I think anyone out there who's loves the idea of hidden wonders and getting, doing their own thing while they travel, who travels a bunch, is someone that we could serve.
So we're thinking both in that, those terms of connecting with those people, but also serving the people we have now, giving them more they can do. So how does that change the product?
I mean, I guess you're gonna emphasize, you know, the app versus the site. Like what, what... Explain to me then, like how does it translate to...
We'll get into the business model that supports it, but like how does that translate into the, the consumer product? Well, we are still roadmapping the product, so- Okay...
and, and, and candidly, for anyone listening to this, when you come to the product, you're, we haven't changed it at all since we started. I just hit my hundred day mark, right? Okay.
We're getting the groundwork in place.
That said, just to tie this back to something we said earlier about all data being content and how it could be used, I'll give you an example, uh, 'cause I think this would be interesting for people out there- Mm-hmm...
at other types of companies to think about. So a, a, a typical ar- article from Atlas Obscura could be something, and is often something like, "Here are four places near the Amalfi Coast that are not as crowded," right?
One of the big things Atlas Obscura does, 'cause some of it is journalism, is point people to less, you know, crowded things, again, off the beaten path.
And so still to this day, that lives on Atlas Obscura as an article, right? A big block of text with some photos, and you can just read that whole thing and, you know, it, it could come up in Google.
But as we build out the things that people can do in our product, well, that content, which is data, right? Just all the info in it is in our database, can become product nudges, right?
So, you know, we can understand, are you someone who wants to go places when they're not crowded 'cause you don't want crowds? Or are you someone who, who loves being a- amid the buzz, right?
And if you're someone who likes to go places when they're less crowded and you're looking at the Amalfi Coast, well, maybe we suggest, "Hey, we know you like to go places that are less crowded.
Make sure you don't go during these months to Amalfi Coast. And by the way, if you need to travel in these months, here's four places within an hour of it that are less crowded."
And that is not necessarily, it's not even just like recommending suggested reading, right? The way a media company today would do that, they would just give you suggested reading.
No, that's like literally pulling that insight out of it and giving you a little ping, giving you a little buzz.
And I think more and more with what's happening with AI, audiences and people want answers and want to just get to the point and don't want to necessarily navigate through everything.
So for more media companies to essentially atomize their content to bring you the insight you need when you're evaluating things and making decisions is of a lot of value. Yeah. So how does that...
I mean, y- you mentioned AI, so how does, how does revamping this in this sort of AI era that we're s- we're, we're, we're tumbling into, maybe we already are, are into it, I guess we are to a degree, like how does that impact like w- what you're doing?
'Cause it's very clear that you want like AI to be, you wanna lean into that and not like just play defense. Well, I want us to accept that AI has already changed user behavior- Mm...
and is, is going to keep changing it. Surely there will be ways for all of us to use AI in workflows, but-AI is not-- using AI is not the point of what I'm trying to do. It's not the central strategy, right?
The central strategy is for us to lean into community understand what people need and want find ways to lift up more voices.
We actually, Atlas Obscura, has so many people who have submitted places that it's had thousands of places in its backlog, and I want us to find ways that, you know, we can lift up more people's voices, more human voices of what they like and what they're- what they think is cool.
And so that's the goal. And then, you know, AI, first of all, we have to be aware it's changing the world and changing user expectations.
And second of all, we should use it just like any technology, like computers or phones, like, whatever technologies can help us serve our user needs and pursue this goal of a more community-oriented travel platform, then we'll do that as, you know, as long as there's no ethical issue with it.
And so AI is really a tool, not, you know, it's not the endpoint, you know? Right. Yeah.
There's still some sort of, like, cultural pushback, I feel like in AI in, in any content companies, and that's because it's, it's arrived with negative fanfare, you know?
Like I, I can't think of a technology that, you know, has been heralded as world-changing and has had this much trepidation. Like, usually it takes a little while until the, the downsides are like talked about.
I mean, I just remember going back to like Web 2.0, I was like totally, you know, hoodwinked. I was like, "Oh yeah, the sharing economy, this is gonna be all amazing. We're gonna bring the world together." I don't...
Yeah.
It d- it worked out a little bit differently, but this is different, and maybe that's just because it, it, you know, the internet is way more mature, and so people understand that, you know, when Silicon Valley likes to talk about first principles, they're, they're skipping over the second order and third order impacts.
But I, I, I know just from, you know, conversations that I have is there is a lot of reluctance within organizations to use AI, some for very good reasons, maybe some for, for, for, you know, not so helpful reasons.
How do you, how do you think about getting around that?
Because you've got people on the content side who I just think, I think overall are, are, you know, AI, I don't wanna say phobic, but maybe they can lean into being skeptical.
Well, I mean, first of all, people are using AI. It's not even like, how do we convince people to use AI?
I don't know if you saw this data the other day, Brian, but I saw that 50% of Sub Stack newsletters now are being- AI... written by AI, right? Well, written, I think they're using, they're using AI.
Oh, they're using it in the writing. I mean, this is always the, this is the... This is the... Oh, really? This is always the issue. I, I, maybe I didn't read you close enough.
But like this is always the issue because when people talk about AI in context, 'cause AI is just so many different things. It's in use in so many different ways.
I think people think about, all right, let's get the, the Sports Illustrated stuff. It's like, oh, okay, we'll just have AI scale the same SEO content that, that humans were doing. And that's...
I don't know, it's kinda lazy stuff. I mean, it's inspiring. [laughs] That's, I mean, that's, that, that is not, that is not our path. And as I said, I don't know- That's not the strategy.
[laughs] That's not the strategy. Again, like- [laughs]... hon- honestly, I mean, I'm 100 days in. We actually haven't really done anything with AI at this point even though- Yeah...
because I was a chief technology officer and a big J journalism editor, I've worked in AI, I understand AI, but- Yeah...
I didn't come in and put AI in the next day because you got a lot of stuff to do in your first 100 days as a CEO, right? So I haven't.
But what I'll tell you is that, first of all, before we even talk about, like, how do you get people to use AI? How do you decide whether to use AI? People are using AI, okay? Sure. And not only people on our teams.
Anyone listening to this who has a team, they should just know, no matter what their policies are, people are using AI. And it's the people on our teams, but also our audiences.
So for example, you know, we have people submitting place entries or people out in the public.
So don't you think that there's gonna be some of them that people are submitting that they used AI on given the widespread- Yeah... adoption of AI?
So how could we possibly vouch, even if no one in our teams use AI, how could we possibly say there's no AI used on anything here? Because we are an open platform for our community members.
We do edit and check the, check things out, but how can you know exactly what someone did, right?
So I think it's a little bit unrealistic to, for us to even contemplate the idea that we can control whether or not people are using AI, you know? Yeah. For sure. It was used in the preparation of this podcast.
And then when it got- There you, there you go. There you go... when it was used, it told me that you were named C- CEO in tw- 2023. That's when I started to lose a little bit- [laughs] You lost it...
of faith in the research. Yeah. We're building up my resume here. Give me a couple more years. You know. But I'll tell you the other interesting thing, Brian, and this even goes to a little bit commercial.
I, I know you wanted to talk about the business model too. Yeah. It's hard to know what people's expectations are, right? So you talked about what do people in editorial teams think.
We are thinking very carefully also about what do audiences think, but then you have commercial partners, right? And we have a very substantial branded content business, right? Mm-hmm. We're very strong.
Our business model is mostly ad revenues, although we do make a good sum from books and podcasts and films. And our advertisers are...
We're strong in some consumer categories like automotive, but also we are very strong in tourism bureaus, you know, Visit California or Visit- Yes... different destinations. It's a great category.
It's a great category and- It's one of those protected categories. You know, there's, there's a few of them out there, but, like, I, I think tourism bureaus, travel bureaus is one of them. It's like those- It's great...
the corporate so- social responsibility ads, the Hollywood, you know, for your consideration ads. There's a few of them. They're dir- you know, they're direct ad sales. Yeah.
Atlas Obscure never went down the programmatic path, really.
So when you talked about all those early digital media companies from 10 years ago, and Atlas Obscure is one of them, this is one of the different things that Atlas Obscure did versus programmatic.
But anyways, so we, we work with all these different advertisers.
They're great to work with because actually also they love the places that-That they are advertising, and the whole spirit of Atlas Obscura is to embrace awesome places, so it's very aligned but, you know, when you're talking to commercial partners, right?
If someone says to you, "Are you using AI?" I'm sure many people here, their teams- Mm-hmm... are starting to get questions. You know, their ad teams or their...
You know, if one of your commercial partners says, "Are you using AI?" What's the right answer? Because if you don't know what they expect, right? Because you could say, "Oh no, absolutely not."
But then they might say, "Oh my gosh, you're wasting our money. Why aren't you using AI to offer us a cheaper thing?" It's a, it's a weird period- Or you could say, "Yeah," and they could say... Right.
You don't know what people want. I feel like it's a weird period where people are, like, overly defensive in general about using AI. Yeah. It's like, it's like- Yeah...
the act is if someone asks them, it's like, "Oh, you watch porn or something?" Or like, "No." Right. Like, I don't know.
Like, I read about OnlyFan, and like, this, the reaction to using AI, I feel like, is it can, can sort of fall in that, that category, and I think it's just an in between period.
But I think if you say no that you don't use it... I mean, think about this. Yeah, I know. We have investors, right?
As we grow, we have identified some opportunities for growth that, frankly, I think could turn into a billion dollar company, so w- we may raise capital again.
So it depends on the investor, but if an investor asks, "Are you using AI?" And I say, "Oh, no, absolutely not.
We don't use AI anywhere in our company," I don't know, do you think there's some investors who are gonna say, "Um, Louise, we got a little, getting a little more efficient here." Yeah. "Like, you need to use some AI."
So there's not a right answer. I don't think any venture capitalists wanna hear that. I don't know. I [laughs] I don't wanna speak for the venture capitalists out there, but I think I, I can. Right.
So it's, it's not just about investors, but it's commercial partners, it's the audience.
If we said to people who are submitting places that you cannot use AI in your submissions, there's plenty of people in the public who would say, "Well, that's how I write everything, and are you excluding me?"
But if we said you can use AI at for it, there's people who will say, "Why are you letting people use AI for it?" So it's truly like a look in the mirror for people, and they all see something different, you know? Yeah.
So talk to me about the, the, the business model.
'Cause I mean, Atlas Obscura has had a lot of different, as you s- uh, different, you know, bus- I don't wanna say business models, but they've done a lot of different things, like, over the years.
There's obviously gonna be branded content and advertising, and, uh, and it fits totally with what you're doing. Experiences were a big part of the model. You know, COVID, that was tough with COVID.
Anyone who was in the experiences sort of business, I know that, since I was at a company that had, like, 80% of their revenue in, in person events at that [laughs] when COVID hit, so it was a little stressful.
And yeah, I'd like to talk about, like, where... And then you have a membership too, and sell it.
Like, talk to me about where the business model is now and, and sort of how you see that evolving with the caveat that you're 100 days in. [laughs] Thank you for the caveat. No problem.
Well, you know, so one thing that's interesting is to view the company in phases.
You know, I mentioned earlier that it's, the first CEO, who was an awesome person, David Plotz, had come from being editor in chief of Slate, right?
And part of why Atlas Obscura is so beloved now is because David did an excellent job in helping to really build out its reputation for high quality content, right? And that sticks with you.
When some of the other digital players then were doing content that people thought wasn't so good, Atlas Obscura was doing, you know, and has continued to do really high quality content. We win awards.
We just won a James Beard Award for it. And so David, you know, led that.
And then the second CEO was Warren Webster, who had been the co-founder of Patch and then the COO of Goop, and he really pushed on the business model and tried a lot of different business lines, experiences, as you mentioned, trips, different types of advertising, and, you know, I think the thing in any startup is you wanna find things where you can grow revenue.
Mm-hmm. But ultimately, you also wanna find things that are profitable. And I think a lot of different companies, as they try things, have to try them a little while before they can figure out if they're profitable.
And where we are today is that our advertising business is very successful, very profitable. So are our other things, like, that we're doing, podcast and books.
But some of the things, like experiences, are not the easiest things to do at scale profitably. So we are not doing experiences right now. Yeah. That, that was shut last fall before I started.
I only started a few months ago. And it's not on my plan to do it imminently.
I think our best strategy right now is to focus on our digital products, but to, you know, have great digital products that help people have great experiences on the ground.
That's why everything w- we do is geotagged, and our free mobile app is great 'cause it's all geotagged and you can see it. But I don't think right now it makes sense for us to actually create the experiences- Yeah...
on the ground. I mean, in a whiteboard session, I can see, like, experiences would be like, you know, everyone would sort of...
It's like, yes, like, people come here to find for, like, unique places to go and unique things to do, and we can help them do that. Like, that makes all the sense in the world.
Yes, we can help them do that, but we wanna help them do that- Give me the buck. Give me the buck... with other... Well, we wanna help them do that with other people providing the experiences. It's just not- Right.
I gotcha... a business that we, we, we, we can't provide them at scale profitably today. Yeah.
But we're interested in understanding more partners, understanding that ecosystem, and helping our audiences find the experiences that are gonna blow their mind while they're traveling, you know?
Okay, so that's the decision. It's basically to be, to be more, uh, leads for others. It's their business. You know? Yes. Versus trying to- Yes... 'cause I think a lot of these things...
It's funny, 'cause I wanna talk about, you know, I always say, like, a lot of media companies will become fronts, I, and I don't mean it in necessarily in a bad way, for other businesses with better economics.
And a lot of- Yes... you know, a lot of times they're transaction businesses.
And I think that period was very, it was very heavy in the content to commerce model, and a lot of people, there was a lot of, like, churning group properties out there that were, were doing this, and it was, you know, it was like, hey, look, advertising-Particularly programmatic advertising as a business for publishers was pretty much a disaster, didn't really work.
And how do we get out of, you know, this commoditized advertising trap? Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna go, we're gonna become the front to, to commerce. And- Mm-hmm...
it worked in, in some instances, but a lot of the sort of promises of being able to build up these shoulder businesses that, you know, just the economics didn't work, and it, it proved to be extremely complicated to operate, you know, these kind of businesses.
I think of like a Houdinki or something. It's like- Right... the operational- [chuckles]... details that you need i- are, are different. It's different muscle than- Yes... than in a lot of media companies. Yes. For sure.
And, you know, we don't lead to commerce right now in many categories, and I'm thinking about that carefully.
And one of the things I've said to the board several times at Atlas Obscura is we are in completely new territory.
There is no roadmap because there's many things that were done a year ago or two years ago or three years ago that if the world had not changed so much, I could say today, "We can do this. It will succeed."
But things that worked really well two, three, four years ago aren't gonna work now. And that's really with the changes in Google and the changes in AI.
And so even commerce, you know, one thing I was involved in The Wall Street Journal was designing and making the case for The Wall Street Journal Buy Side, which is, has been its response to Wirecutter and has done pretty well.
But you know that ChatGPT and a lot of these products now are integrating commerce right into- Yeah... the answers.
So we have to-- we can't just even look to these recent old strategies because the world is changing, and it, it's a completely new solution we all have to develop now. Yeah. It's interesting you bring up Buy Side.
I wonder if the Journal will stay committed to that.
I just think that the-there's i- it's, it's a smaller opportunity than it wa- than it, than it used to be when, when search was way more reliable [chuckles] because, uh, you know, when, when people would talk to me about like commerce strategies, I was like, "Okay, you mean affiliate."
And then when [chuckles] I was like, "Okay, but do you really mean SEO?" [laughs] Yes. You know, there's a lot of code going on. And like wi- you pull out the SEO and the- these, these businesses look a lot different.
And- Yes... you know, you can buy... You, you know, that's why a lot of these organizations will have to have a c- you know, basically be, have a paid media operation. I mean, you see that.
I just see it personally with like Forbes and, and- Yeah... you know, do you do any product search and you're seeing like Forbes has a, a very... Sherry Phillips is gonna be on this podcast.
Hopefully she'll still come on after I say that. But... And, and I'm gonna talk to her about it because you have to be able to, to pay for distribution these days. I mean, that, that's over, the SEO.
So how much is that ha- how much has the specter of Google Zero impacted Atlas Obscura? Well, there was a traffic drop last fall. Like at most, [chuckles] you know, I mean- [laughs] Um, and I've found- Breaking news.
[laughs] Breaking news, there was a traffic drop, and it was substantial.
It seems like we've evened out over the past several months, but, you know, I also think we could have another dip that the whole industry is gonna get as new things come. Yeah.
And- Every one of those sandbox things you see is just like, it's like some sort of like surge of terror. You start to play it out, you're just like, "Oh, no." [chuckles] Yes.
So I think, you know, it's really important now for every company to do what it can to get as close as it can to audiences that know it and like it, so that as search continues to affect the top of funnel, people really have fatter middle and lower funnels where they are in direct connection- Yeah...
with people. It's sup-super important.
So I mean, registrations, every company out there should be aggressively looking at either a regist- registration or a faux registration, meaning like people don't know they're registering, but like they are. Yeah.
I mean, they know, but they don't call it that. They call it something else. Like, even a newsletter is a registration, right? You sign up for a newsletter now- Yeah, that's true... you register, you know.
So I think a lot of players are, are looking at that. But you know, again, it's like you said, content being a front for something else, or it's like I said, same thing. All content's becoming marketing.
So really fundamentally at the core, content companies have to think about who are their audiences, what are their needs, and what is it they...
what need can they serve which is not just flat one-dimensional content that can be regurgitated in an LLM.
And I think that for most categories, there are product features and products that their audiences would trust their, the brands for that.
And these companies with these great brands can get ahead of startups out there that are gonna make digital products for those needs that have no brand, right? The cost of user acquisition has never been higher. Yeah.
And so I think for a lot of places, they have to say, like, "What's, what's, what, what is a sta- a smart startup going after my audience gonna make that's not content? Okay, now I'll make that under my brand."
[chuckles] Yeah. I, I think that's super smart because like I, I think about it a lot because I... Even in covering all this stuff, like media to me has never been more valuable than ever.
It's just the economic, you know, mechanisms of realizing that value are broken and they're- Yes... and they're becoming more broken by the day. But if you look at it, I'm like, Trump is just a creature of media.
He parlayed [chuckles] it into the, into the top job in the world, arguably still. And i- and you look at, at how Silicon Valley is, and I look at, uh, trends always move from there. Like, we never had- Mm-hmm.
I mean, I don't know about you, like we never had snacks when I started in this business. There was no snacks on offer. And then like Google- [laughs]... sent that and then it moved a little bit. Yeah.
There were sadder snacks, but at least we got snacks. But the same way with, you know, the Silicon Valley, media is baked into like every model, and I think most- Yeah...
companies are not a- are gonna need, are gonna need media of their own in some ways- Yeah... but aren't gonna have the wherewithal or to do it themselves.
So there's, there's a lot of partnerships c- that probably can be doneBetween people who are really good at media- Yeah... and those who are the transaction business.
That I think we came out of an era where both sides automatically thought, "Well, I'll just do what the other side is." Mm. 'Cause it's usually so much easier to do what other people do.
[laughs] And you're like, "No, what we do is very complicated."
[laughs] Well, the question, Brian, um, is whether that's gonna happen at the corporate level, whether you're gonna see a lot of these companies already to brand a content, they do content, but doing the content for the platforms of these other companies, or if that's just gonna happen on the personnel level.
I mean, already today- Yeah...
when you look at people who are content creators, journalists, people who know how to do great storytelling, just look at the data, the number of people working for news organizations versus doing content now for whoever, Robinhood or Goldman Sachs or Deloitte, all of these are places that have big content sites.
And so in the sense, the people are already shifting, even if the companies are, are not, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at like... and the infatuation, right? Yeah. I mean, that's now been like- Yeah...
trying to get Andrew into- JP Morgan. JP Morgan... Andrew should be on this podcast soon. So Andrew, if you're listening, we're, we're trading emails about it.
But yeah, I mean, they, Chase owns them, and the way it's integrated within that, you know, to me now, like, makes a lot of sense. And, you know- Makes sense...
they're, they're very big into experiential and, you know, ch- if you, if you have the Chase Sapphire card, you get unique- Yeah... access to different experiences. So I think that there's, there's a lot there.
So do you think that that is gonna be the bulwark of the business? It's gonna be sort of a brand partnership/advertising business, or do you think that there is a transactional layer that, that you can have?
Some of the things we're looking to build, I think are things that consumers will pay for. So I think we're gonna have a consumer revenue line. My initial thinking is we're not going for a paywalled product.
We have a current membership- Yeah... but they don't have a different product experience than, in terms of the content. But I think, um- It doesn't seem like it's a major focus. Maybe I'm not, like...
It has not been the company's- Okay... major focus, but I am making consumer revenue more of a focus for us, but I think it's gonna look quite different from the mem- the current membership program.
But I think that, you know, for content that you don't need for work, right?
Like a lot of the companies out there that are, you know, media companies that are, have people paying, are making content that people need in some format for work, right? Which it's not content though- Yeah...
that you, that you- Other people's money. [laughs] Right. If it's not con- Or you pay out of your own money 'cause you need it for the job, but- Yeah...
if it's not content that you need for work, then you have to understand when do people pay for things, right? You don't need... If you're gonna... An ongoing subscription you need for work, you'll do. But...
And typically, you know, in the area of Atlas Obscura and travel, people will pay for things when they're making a big purchase decision or when they're using something frequently.
So I think we're, the space we're in is better for product feature unlocks and a, and, and bundles of content. But I do think- Mm-hmm...
that ongoing subscription products make sense for other content companies and other verticals. I just think for Atlas Obscura- Right...
unless we were to go into B2B travel content, which I think people will pay for, if, un- unless we did that, I think for us it's more product feature unlock and bundles at the point of purchase.
So you're gonna have to get people to come to Atlas Obscura way, way more, right? Like, I mean, rather- Yes... than, than find it, right? And so how do you...
Because one of the things I notice with all of the, the, the AI companies is they seem obsessed with planning vacations.
Like, their example is always- At Google I/O was the, all on stage they're talking about- But those are all good AI talks... trips you're gonna plan. Yeah I'm like, what is this? Yeah.
Like, I mean, we had like a race to, you know, land a person on the moon, and now it seems like the race is to like have your, you know, trip to Tahiti not done for you, which I'm like, there's so many annoying th- and, and more important things that I feel [laughs] like we could be using this technology for.
But be that as it may, they seem very focused a- and this as like a use case of like, find me interesting things to do. And you see with the memory- For sure... and I've tried using ChatGPT for this purpose.
You know, results, I don't know if they were great or anything like this, but like how do you end up thinking about what the product experience needs to be with Atlas Obscura when you think, well, they're gonna go down this road, they clearly are, they keep talking about...
And I me- I know this is a very n- narrow use case, but I, I'm saying like this is broadly, like, I'm looking for interesting things to do in the world.
Well, I mean, I- Like, why do people come to Atlas Obscura for and not ChatGPT? Everyone has to ask to answer the question, I think, these days.
I, I, I agree, and that's why, you know, as we're leaning into community and we're leaning into product features that you wouldn't have in ChatGPT.
So we're developing some of those, and our user research has identified a few areas that people have a very clunky experience right now that I think we can solve, and so we're making some bets on that.
You know, it's a bet, right? So some bets work, some bets don't. But in my experience, the more you're making a bet on something you're hearing from your users, the more likely it is it has a shot at working.
But you're right, people are gonna tra- plan trips.
They're already planning trips with AI tools, and we've, I've heard from many people when they plan on AI that Atlas Obscura destinations are coming up in those itineraries, and that's great, 'cause you know what?
I, I don't want Atlas Obscura to be irrelevant, right? I want Atlas Obscura to pop up when people say- Yeah. People just don't click on the citations. They're, they, they, they [laughs]- I know they don't...
they get half as many. I know they don't. That was another research. Pew came out with some research that confirmed, which, you know, research sometimes just confirms, like, what you kind of already know.
What you already know. I know they don't. So I, I'm under no illusions. I do not think AI is going to necessarily send us a lot of traffic for us to show a story- Yeah... that's already been used in their answer.
But as we develop-Different things people can do other than read stories on our platform, I'm hopeful that people will come- Yeah... to do those things. And it helps the brand, right? 'Cause I, I- Yeah...
the other thing I get, and this might be a little too obvious, but is that all these companies need to really think of themselves as brands, you know? Yes, yes.
Because when you're a brand, like you, you monetize in a bunch of different ways, and you know, sometimes they're...
And this is getting to like your original point is like, and a lot of times they're, they're indirect from the content, you know? Yes.
Because the content gives you leverage, it gives you permission to enter into other markets that frankly have better economics. [laughs] And we're, and we're gonna look at that.
And again, Atlas Obscura really, I think a lot of people who know Atlas Obscura have not been users of our digital platforms. They, you know, we have so many books.
Kids books are really big with people, as well as the big main Atlas Obscura book which has had many editions published all over the world.
We have eight more books that we're actively working on that are under contract when- Wow... including one that's coming out next year that I actually think might be quite big.
It's coming out in a unique and good moment for it. And so I know that, you know, there's, you might say, "Oh, the book industry, there's challenges there," yes.
But again, when you think of it as a brand, anywhere we can go, and you know, I go places all the time. I go in the Rivian store, there's our book. I go to hotels- Yeah... there's our book.
And so we are a brand, and that's part of what we're both thinking about, how to serve our digital audiences, but also how with our brand to serve people who, for whom our ethos resonates, you know? Yeah.
Cool hotel lobbies. You should be in every- Yeah... cool hotel lobby. Yeah. By the way, there is- Yeah...
there is like a class of books that like I'm convinced as someone who's spent a lot of time in co-working spaces only exists or mostly exists in like Industrious' o- offices.
Like there's a lot, [laughs] there's, there are books that I, I see in each and every one of them where, in any city that I don't, I don't think existed- Coffee table books. We're in the coffee table book category. Yeah.
But- That's, that's good... that's cool 'cause it's a br- it, it, that is part of being a brand. And I, and so I think I can't wait to share with you more- Okay... when I see you in a few months or whenever- Okay...
I next see you what we figure out to do with this brand, but it's a big brand, it's a big idea, it resonates with a lot of people.
And so we'll focus on our digital platforms, but also I think the brand in more places has- Yeah... a lot of value. Okay. We'll leave it there. Louise, thank you so much.
Really [upbeat music] appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for having me, Brian. [upbeat music]