Atlas Obscura Wants to Become the National Geographic of the Digital Age
Photo Credit: The homepage of Atlas Obscura on mobile. Skift
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Building a new media brand in any sector is difficult, but expensive experiential writing about travel, history, art, and science is even harder to churn into a viable business. Atlas Obscura's intentions are pure, but it will take viral connection with a younger generation to guarantee its longevity.
Atlas Obscura was launched in 2009 as a platform where travelers, explorers, and the curious could post stories about their strange and fascinating experiences around the world.
The brand, which grew quickly and now has about 1.5 million monthly site visitors, is ready to take its project to the next stage.
Last week, founders Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras hired former Slate editor-in-chief David Plotz as the company's first CEO. Now they're going out to raise funding with plans to transform Atlas Obscura from user-generated travel stories into the National Geographic of the digital age.
Although Plotz comes from the editorial side of the fence, he has some clear ideas about what it takes to make money online: His recent missive 76 ways to make money in digital media went viral. In additional to traditional advertising, which the site already runs from brands like Acura and Dos Equis, Plotz sees clear revenue opportunities in native content and branded events, the latter of
