Gibby Miller: Inventing the Social Network

Sunny Gault: Hi, welcome to Dog and Pony, I'm Sunny Gault. Gibby Miller is credited with starting one of the Web's first social networking sites back in 2000, MakeOutClub.com. The site gives fans of indie music the opportunity to meet, flirt and date other like-minded people and keep current in the music industry through the site's news blog. Gibby, thanks for joining us today. So how did your site MakeOutClub.com get its start?

Gibby Miller: In 2000, started running it right out of my bedroom. We weren't venture backed. We weren't a big corporation. And we didn't start out trying to make money and it really just grew by word of mouth. It was very grassroots and very accidental and really just sort of happened naturally.

Sunny Gault: Now at that time there was no such thing -- no one was talking about social networking sites.

Gibby Miller: No, social networking wasn't a term. There was no real way to meet people that shared your interests, unless you're in AOL chat room.

Sunny Gault: Did you previously have any type of experience in starting a website?

Gibby Miller: My experience with creating websites was limited to the sort of small world of personal websites and online journals and blogging wasn't really, hadn't exploded yet. MakeOutClub was sort of born out of that world. When it started it was very much held together with tape and friends helping out, like, "Hey, do you know how to do this?" "Yeah, go ahead, we'll come over Saturday night, we'll order pizza and you can help fix this stuff." And so, it's kind of like that and it just grew organically. We got more and more people onboard.

Sunny Gault: The site launched and it never really went away, right.

Gibby Miller: No.

Sunny Gault: Through this whole time, you know we have MySpace come on board, we have Facebook.

Gibby Miller: Yeah.

Sunny Gault: And there's still your site. It's still out there.

Gibby Miller: Yes. Yeah, MakeOutClub has been going strong since 2000, adding between 100 and 200 users everyday. And we're still very focused and dedicated to keeping it true to its roots. And keeping it in a place where people that can relate to the music, the scene, the style, the fashion, the culture, feel at home without having to wade through, you know, do you the best that is Facebook and MySpace. While it's growing above and beyond the Boston bedroom where it started I still like to think of it in that way.

Sunny Gault: Is it difficult to maintain that niche community as the site grows and grows.

Gibby Miller: We tend to attract like-minded individuals. And we're very selective also in our advertising. We don't run ads that we feel will offend our users or run ads that run contrary to our beliefs.

Sunny Gault: So, Gibby, you've had advertising on your site, really since day one. Who are those advertisers?

Gibby Miller: Well, at the very beginning, the advertisers were range from record labels, local bands, local indie films, art collectives and publishing houses. But that's expanded over the years, obviously as we've grown to accommodate bigger advertisers, such as the Mini Cooper and huge movie ad campaigns that we're doing because we have stricter relationship with our audience and because our audience and community trust us. We can, sort of experiment a little bit more with our advertising. Play catch with our audience a little bit more. And actually involve them in some of our campaigns.

Sunny Gault: What kind of challenges have you faced with MakeOutClub.com?

Gibby Miller: As I grow older and I started out, I was 22 year old in Art school and now I'm 30 years old working professionally at downtown L.A The biggest challenge for me personally is trying to hold true to the roots and remember why I started it in the community that it's build for.

Sunny Gault: I know you were one of the first networking sites out there, but now, there's hundreds of thousands of sites out there.

Gibby Miller: Yeah.

Sunny Gault: Do you think MakeOutClub will continue to thrive and grow even though more and more of these companies are starting?

Gibby Miller: Absolutely, I think there's always gonna be a place for MakeOutClub. There's always gonna be a place for this kind of music and this kind of attitude and this kind of culture and we're very passionate about it. We're very passionate about staying true to that. I view MySpace and Facebook as really cool tools and ways to communicate with people, but I view MakeOutClub as one of the few remaining actual places and real communities online.

Sunny Gault: I certainly wish you the best of luck. Gibby Miller, thanks for joining us today. It was a pleasure having you on our show.

Sunny Gault: Thanks a lot.

Gibby Miller: Well, as always, if you have questions comments, ideas for guests, please e-mail info@dogandpony.com. I'm Sunny Gault. Thanks for watching.