RJ Williams on Hollywood Rewired

Hollywood Reporter's Hollywood Rewired just posted this awesome profile of EKC friend and YoungHollywood.com founder, RJ Williams. Check it out:

RJ Williams | Young Hollywood - Digital Power Profile

by Andrew Wallenstein

As a vestige of old-school Hollywood, the Four Seasons Hotel is an odd choice to serve as a set for a premium-video content provider focused on young celebrities. So is paying to occupy four suites at a five-star hotel when most of his competitors are shooting in warehouses. But everything YoungHollywood.com CEO and founder RJ Williams does is counterintuitive–and effective.

While most start-ups gorge on venture capital, Williams has chosen to grow his business on his own. While amassing traffic to a destination site has been the prime directive for brand-building, he’s zagged by letting his dot-com take a backseat to providing his content to a who’s who of major partners including Hulu, Yahoo and People.com. But after quietly pursuing that strategy for seven years, Williams is now building up the destination site (he’s nearly quadrupled traffic to 2 million uniques in just six months) and teeing up a TV deal to boot–all while still maintaining those partnerships. “We’re trying to have it both ways,” said Williams, a 32-year-old former child actor who doubles as on-air talent for the site.

But the biggest way Williams goes against the grain is the style of the content. In the roiling sea of scandal and savagery that is celebrity gossip, he’s taking a talent-friendly high road. There’s no sifting through trash at YoungHollywood.com. What makes YoungHollywood.com even more of a standout is that it refuses to be the umpteenth media outlet shooting the same-old pictures on the red carpet–all of its content is exclusive, whether hanging out with Lady Gaga on her tour bus or chilling with “Glee” star Cory Monteith at his home. Young Hollywood doesn’t even necessarily stick to the “young” part of its brand, making time occasionally for oldsters like young-at-heart types like Dustin Hoffman. As Williams puts it, “It’s not about age, it’s about attitude.”

Very nice, RJ!