GUEST OF A GUEST NABS EIC: Guest of a Guest, the blog targeting socialites and wannabes alike, has tapped Peter Davis as editor in chief.
Davis, a former editor in chief of society glossies, Avenue and Scene magazines, has been brought on by GOG founder and chief executive officer Rachelle Hruska to build out the site’s content.
“My editorial model is Andy Warhol’s Interview,” Davis told WWD.
What that means to Davis is creating a virtual smorgasbord of content for and by the people who inhabit the social circuit. One section Davis will bring to the site when he starts in early August is called “You Should Know,” a curated digital database of A-list tastemakers.
Other topics will include gossip and parties, but the stories would be told by the buzzy, social friends of Davis.
Related Galleries
“We want to give them an open platform. It’s really from the horse’s mouth,” he said. “People want to hear what Hannah Bronfman is saying, not through a million changes from editors, but actually from her mouth.”
“It’s kind of like a friendly Page Six,” Hruska chimed in, adding that Davis, with his new media savvy, print background and intriguing Rolodex, he would be able to bridge the gap between GOG’s hefty photo database of party goers and its light editorial content.
Since Hruska started GOG in 2008 with Cameron Winklevoss, GOG has gone from a Hamptons-centric source for events to a site that includes a social events calendar for New York, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles. Although Winklevoss is no longer involved, Hruska has expanded GOG’s footprint and is now looking to move into San Francisco and Miami.
“We want total world domination,” she said.
But the company has room to grow. With just 12 full-time employees, most of which are in New York, GOG has 1 million unique views a month and around 4 million page views. Currently, about 30 percent of the site’s traffic goes to the events calendar, which is a litany of social happenings. While the site doesn’t charge for the listing of an event, it does charge for the coverage of it. Still, the main revenue generator is advertising, and Hruska is hoping Davis’ hire will bring in some new revenue.
“It’s very hard to find a Peter Davis. He’s such a perfect fit,” she said. “There are only so many Graydon Carters. Peter is in great demand.”
With the mention of the editor in chief of Vanity Fair, Hruska acknowledged that GOG is competing with VanityFair.com, and other like-minded pubs that cover the social world.
What she hopes will differentiate GOG from the pack is its coverage of local socialites around the globe.
Now, whether there’s a demand for that kind of content, only time will tell.