Gay E-newsletter Aims to Imitate Daily Candy’s success

A story was ran yesterday in the Dallas Morning News about our buddies at GayListDaily.com. “As business role models go, the sassy e-newsletter DailyCandy was not a bad one. But Cooper Smith thought there was room for one with an edge – a gay one.” Congrats guys!

From the Dallas Morning News:
So, quicker than you could mumble the old adage about imitation and flattery, Mr. Smith created GayListDaily, with the motto “Dedicated to making trendy gays even more trendy and gay.”

Plugging a retailer on Industrial Boulevard, the newsletter writes: “You may know this lil’ stretch of asphalt as a haven for liquor stores and bail bondsmen, but wait, there’s more. Like the cash stored in a hooker’s cleavage, Industrial is home to a treasure trove of great antique and home design stores, including one of our faves.”

And despite the innuendoes, Mr. Smith said, the site is supposed to be “somewhat clean.” It won’t feature porn or sex toys.

With 1,200 readers now in Dallas, GayListDaily has expanded to include a national edition and ones in New York and Los Angeles.

Atlanta and Chicago lists should begin by summer’s end.

Mr. Smith, a public relations executive with his own firm, used money from a rental house he and his partner sold to fund the $50,000 venture. Two marketers he hired to help design the Web site were so intrigued that they asked to be investors. They each own 12.5 percent of the company, with Mr. Smith retaining the remaining 75 percent.

The site generates revenue through ad sales and expects to make a profit by the end of the year, said Mr. Smith.

Eventually, he hopes his list shares the fate of DailyCandy, which reportedly sold for tens of millions in 2006.

That site also features restaurant and fashion information but is aimed at the larger female population.

But it couldn’t avoid the culture wars entirely, said Mr. Smith.

“We’ve actually gotten some criticism that we’re not gay enough.” But “we’re cotton candy,” he said: “fun to eat, but we have no nutritional value at all.”

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