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DotdashRising Aft er putting the familiar but failing website About.com out of its misery, Dotdash CEO Neil Vogel has managed to craft a thriving group of websites from the company’s wreckage. By Alyson Krueger ne day in 2016 Neil Vogel W’92 “It was this weird, broken, ad-support- a veteran of multiple start-ups who teach- marched into the executive of- ed thing that was just on the internet,” es courses on digital media at New York fi ces of media company IAC remembers Vogel. “I had a friend who University. “Yahoo is a good example. So and announced, “I want to called it ‘the back button’ because it was is Myspace and Friendster. Companies blow the whole thing up.” so outdated.” have their moment, and then they fade.” For three years, Vogel had By 2016, Vogel had already tried pretty Still wanting to try to beat those odds, been at the helm of the website much everything he could to restore About. however, Vogel came up with a fi nal plan— About.com, which IAC—whose com to relevance. He made it prettier, that is, blowing the whole thing up. “family” of 150-plus brands quicker, more user-friendly. He tried pub- He would stop trying to resuscitate and products also includes digital plat- lishing more content with the potential to About.com. People didn’t want large, Oforms like Vimeo, Tinder, and Angie’s go viral. But the audience kept declining. catchall sites anymore. Rather, he would List—had bought from the New York He missed his target numbers for nine save the strong content and divide it into Times in 2012. Behind its red circle logo, straight quarters. Every time, he would ap- websites that focused on one topic like About.com published a bewildering va- proach the head honchos at IAC, “and ex- health or tech. Each website would have riety of “need-to-know” content. Readers plain in great detail why our great ideas a brand that he would develop from went there to learn about everything weren’t working,” he says. “The fact that we scratch. The name About.com would get from the symptoms of diabetes to how were still employed was unbelievable.” thrown away. “The fact that he was will- to perfectly barbecue chicken. While People who work in digital media know ing to creatively destruct About.com, some of the information was undoubt- the industry has few second acts. “Inter- that was really unusual,” says Cohen. edly valuable, the website itself was ar- net media companies rise and fall, and “The best asset About.com had was its chaic, slow, and hampered with ads. they don’t come back,” says Aaron Cohen, name. It was a signature internet brand.” 50 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May| Jun 2020 ILLUSTRATION BY JONATHAN BARTLETT MayMar| JunApr 2020 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE 51 While most digital media companies at 2020, bringing their total number of em- Of course, this kind of imitation also the time were focusing on producing fun, ployees to around 1,950. means Dotdash will have to try even newsy content to attract readers, Vogel Most telling, says Max Willens, a se- harder to stay ahead of its competitors. decided his sites would focus on straight- nior reporter at the online-media trade “Netfl ix may be a good company, but forward, service-oriented articles written publication Digiday, is that other brands now they have HBO Now, Disney+, Ap- by experts that readers would fi nd helpful are starting to mimic Dotdash’s strate- ple TV,” says Cohen, drawing an analogy today or in 10 years. The websites would gies. “Folks in the media have noticed to the streaming wars now heating up. also load at “lightning speed” and have how much success Neil has had,” he says. “Their competitive landscape is chang- two-thirds fewer ads than competitors to “SEO and search strategy, what Dotdash ing even though they’ve arrived.” improve user experience, thereby increas- focuses on, is the new hot thing again.” ing the engagement and size of the audi- As Willens puts it, 20 years ago search here is a real Philadelphia-ness to ence—making it that much more attrac- was the dominant audience acquisition him,” says Cohen, describing Vo- tive and valuable to advertisers. strategy. That meant media companies gel’s personality. (The two crossed “We are going to reinvent publishing got their audiences by showing up in “T paths in the 1990s in digital me- on the internet,” he says, recalling his search engines such as Yahoo and Google. dia’s early days, and more recently Vogel pitch to his bosses. “Oh, and by the way, To do that they had to not only write con- spoke to Cohen’s class at NYU.) I know I just missed numbers for nine tent that answered the questions people In April Vogel joined the 10-member straight quarters, but I need 30 million were asking; they also had to have the board of the Philadelphia Inquirer and bucks to do it.” correct headlines, photos, and blurbs that was quoted as saying that he “essentially “I don’t know if terrifying is the right people wanted to see. That’s how SEO, or learned to read” from the paper’s sports word for that meeting,” says Mark Stein search optimization strategy, was devel- section and remains a subscriber. He holds C’90 W’90, IAC’s executive vice president oped. SEO is the process of increasing meetings in a conference room decorated and chief strategy offi cer. “But we had to traffi c to a site by becoming more attrac- with Eagles banners and pillows. After have confi dence in him, that’s for sure.” tive to a search engine. the Eagles’ 2018 Super Bowl victory over About.com was renamed Dotdash (the Around 10 years ago, however, there the New England Patriots, Philly-style dot was taken from aboutdotcom, and the was a shift. As millions of people fl ocked cheesesteaks were delivered to Dotdash’s dash in Morse code is the letter A). Diff er- to social media sites like Facebook, Twit- midtown Manhattan offi ce for the entire ent brands such as The Spruce (home), ter, and then Instagram, media compa- staff —paid for by Tim Quinn, Dotdash’s Verywell (health), TripSavvy (travel), In- nies thought that they could attract an CFO and a Pats fan, as part of a bet. vestopedia (fi nancial management), and audience by having ordinary people Vogel loved his city, but he felt stifl ed more were launched under that umbrella share their content among their net- by the suburban public school he at- name. The transition was rough—the com- works. The idea behind this social strat- tended. “It wasn’t far off from The Break- pany lost $20 million in 2016—but by 2019 egy was that, if content was so attractive fast Club,” he says. “If you were smart, it was making $40 million and getting to people that they all shared it, it would you were one thing. If you liked sports, hundreds of millions of readers a month. go viral and generate more traffi c. it was another. If you partied, it was that. While other digital media companies Now, however, companies are realizing It wasn’t all that appealing to me be- are getting smaller, Dotdash is expand- that a social strategy is fraught with cause I liked sports, but I also liked get- ing. In May 2019 it purchased Brides from challenges, Willens says. “On Facebook ting good grades.” Conde Nast, ending the magazine’s print it can be diffi cult to tell what people will He applied Early Decision to Penn be- edition, which had been losing readers respond to, like what will go viral,” while cause one of his friends’ older brothers had steadily, and shifting to digital-only pub- analyzing search was more straightfor- gone there and wasn’t defi ned by a cate- lication. “Those about to walk down the ward. “You can tell what kind of demand gory. “I learned from him that you could aisle these days are more likely to browse there is. You can just look at Google like school and politics and drinking beer wedding sites or scroll through Insta- search trends, and you can tell the price and sports and doing dumb things,” Vogel gram than run to a newsstand,” wrote the for certain keywords if you are trying to says. “I was like, ‘These are my people. I New York Times in an article about the buy an audience. You can tell how much can be a whole person around them.’” acquisition. And while companies such interest there is around this stuff.” Vogel adjusted to Penn life quickly. He as BuzzFeed and Vox Media went through Which is why more companies, even joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, massive layoff s last year, Dotdash has ones that have traditionally relied on where he thrived as social chair. Accord- been ramping up hiring, with plans as of social, are turning to a search strategy, ing to Andy Snyder W’92, a former room- early in the year to add 1,500 people in and the reason Vogel never left. mate of Vogel’s who is now CEO of the 52 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE May| Jun 2020 investment management fi rm Cambridge purchase was the Telly Awards, a Ken- Information Group, everyone wanted to tucky-based awards program for local “The site was so be his friend. “He was somebody people television shows and commercials.