Media Take Out is one of those controversial sites that are slated as making up / exaggerating stories an just being over the top negative. But what you can’t deny is that people do visit their site, just like Perez Hilton they get the numbers and also do get the exclusive ‘gossip’ stories if that’s what you like.
I’ve often thought to myself, like Perez aren’t they just feeding into what people want rather than just feeding innocent people negativity? After all it is a choice to go to any blog, let alone visit is multiple times a week and make comments.
But behind all of the “moral” decisions, is a business and a hugely successful business. So much so that the founder and CEO Fred Mwangaguhunga sat down with INC Magazine to discuss the success of the 3 year old blog.
What led you to start MediaTakeOut.com?
I had a laundry business called Laundry Spa that was essentially a web-based business. Clients logged on, scheduled a pickup time and delivery time, chose a fragrance for their clothes, and we’d come pick it up and deliver it back to them. Business took off after we got a write up on the Daily Candy blog site. At Laundry Spa, we spent our ad budget on blogs. At the time, the idea of blogs was that they were really a niche only for the ultra-techie. After I sold my laundry business, I looked at the blog world and saw the growth they’d had. I thought this could be something bigger than a fad, or even if it is a fad, it’s a fad that could last years. I didn’t have anything else to do at the time, so I thought, let me just try this.
What were your start-up costs?
It cost $19.99 for the Yahoo account and about $7.99 for the domain name. Because I’m from a small business background, I operate this as a small business. We’re lean in everything we do, and every expense is looked at to see how it will affect the bottom line. I want to maintain profitability and grow organically.
How does MediaTakeOut.com’s traffic compare to other entertainment sites?
While MediaTakeOut.com focuses heavily on African American-oriented content, our traffic is on par with some of the largest mainstream sites on the web. According to September’s Comscore numbers, MediaTakeOut.com received 87 million page views, making it the sixth most visited entertainment website in the United States behind only TMZ, MSN’s Wonderwall, Yahoo’s OMG, People Magazine, and TV Guide. It was ranked ahead of Perez Hilton, E! Online, Access Hollywood, Entertainment Weekly, and Us Magazine. AOL BlackVoices received 75 million page views and BET.com received 38 million.
Have advertisers taken notice?
In 2008, Internet traffic rating services like Alexa, Google Trends and QuantCast began reporting that MediaTakeOut.com was getting more traffic than some of the most popular corporate-owned sites. But a lot of people in the industry, including ad buyers, refused to believe it. [When Comscore's September numbers were released,] that was huge. Here we are a website started on a shoestring budget less than three years ago, and now we’re officially more popular than the urban arm of AOL, a multi-billion company, or BET, the urban arm of Viacom, another multi-billion dollar company. The best part of it is these numbers went out to everyone — every ad agency, every ad buyer, and every company looking to advertise to the urban market. Of course, advertisers immediately took notice. It was like a memo went out to all the ad agencies saying, “MediaTakeOut.com is one of the big boys.” The day after the numbers came out, two advertisers that had turned us down for campaigns called up and told us they had reconsidered, which led to the largest two deals in the history of our company.
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