News Corp's Slingshot Labs Launches First Public Project: Gossip Site DailyFill
This story was written by Staci D. Kramer.
Another day, another celeb sitethis time from News Corp internet incubator Slingshot Labs. Snarky DailyFill, which has been up in beta since November, officially launches Tuesday. It's the first public project for Santa Monica-based Slingshot Labs, started last year by News Corp to create and launch quick, low-cost online businesses that can be profitable early on. Slingshot's initial funding was $15 million.
Content partners for the celeb site include News Corp (NYSE: NWS). sib New York Post's Page Six, which shut down its standalone gossip site last March after less than four months. Other publications such as Elle, US Weekly, Gossip Girls and Splash News also provide a steady flow of content. The consistently snarky tone comes from Chris Case, one of the original writers for Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect and the editorial lead for the site. The approach is paying off demographically: 49 percent of its users are male.
Co-presidents Josh Berman and Colin Digiaro tell me they already see possible spinoffs pairing the DailyFill's snarky/witty voice with the technology and content management system. content template and structure; likely subject ares could be headline news and sports. Why do they think they can succeed when known brand PageSix.com couldn't? Digiaro explained: "It's all about being lean from day oneit's not how many years but how many weeks." Slingshot has seven staffers on DailyFill. Berman added: "They literally had triple, quadruple, five times that."
Berman and Digiario, who describe themselves as serial entrepreneurs, are MySpace founders who stuck with News Corp. after the social net's acquisition. MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe is on the Slingshot board, but it's autonomous from MySpace and Fox Interactive Media. Berman: "The first goal is to create a ton of value for News Corp." The projects are run by separate companies but share corporate services. In addition to turning a profit, the idea is to launch businesses that might have a good home elsewhere in News Corp. or can be managed on their own; they also look for ways the ventures can work with others in News Corp. For instance, some of the Fox o-and-o TV stations are picking up a feed from DailyFill and using it on their sites.
Despite the incredibly crowded space, they say, DailyFill so far is running ahead of projections with Quantcast stats of 3-plus million monthly uniques. The comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) Media Metrix number for January was 1.3 million uniques. (The launch release includes a chart, embedded below, showing a trajectory that has DailyFill surpassing PerezHilton.com soon.) That helps with advertising; one of the partners on the ad side is FIM Audience Network, which is working on highly targeted advertising with FIM companies and third parties.
By Staci D. Kramer