SpinMedia's Steve Hansen Hunting Profits in Music Blogs, and a Magazine

Steve Hansen will lean heavily on his wide-ranging career -- stints in finance, entertainment, venture capital and tech entrepreneurship -- in his new role as SpinMedia CEO. "All of these seemingly disparate experiences and skill sets have given me a good background for this job," he said. "Seldom do I run into a problem I haven't encountered before." He'll certainly need problem-solving skills as he attempts to incorporate Vibe and Spin into a network of pop-culture blogs. Mr. Hansen, 57, joined what was then BuzzMedia as president in August 2012, a month after it bought Spin. He became CEO in November 2012, renamed the company SpinMedia in March and bought Vibe in April. His business plan includes having editorial staffers helping create native ads for the company's various niche sites. While that may offend journalism purists, Mr. Hansen maintains an otherwise old-school mindset. He has no plans to stop printing Vibe, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and is considering reviving Spin as a quarterly. And to maintain Spin's countercultural voice, he hired media-industry enfant terrible A.J. Daulerio as editorial director this September. What is your guilty-pleasure TV show?"Real Housewives of Orange County." I feel like I've dated each of them. Who is your favorite follow on Twitter? What's Twitter? (Howard Stern. He makes me feel somewhat normal.) Describe your daily media consumption. Constant. If I'm awake and not talking, I'm consuming. Which obsolete tech device do you wish you could have back? Being unplugged. If you weren't doing this job, what would you be doing? Training for the 2014 A Class Catamaran Worlds in New Zealand.

SpinMedia's Steve Hansen Hunting Profits in Music Blogs, and a Magazine

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