MILWAUKEE — A lot has changed in the past 25 years. Google was founded and then became a verb and smartphones changed how we interact with the world. But before all of that, a digital media company was born that shook up the Milwaukee news industry.
“So, as I’ve been thinking back to the early days when people would say oh the internet's a fad. Or, what’s On Milwaukee dot com? Why would you do that, or why wouldn’t you be a newspaper?" Andy Tarnoff, the co-founder of OnMilwaukee, said.
Tarnoff started OnMilwaukee 25 years ago on September 1, 1998, in his Milwaukee apartment - just a few days before Google started on Sept. 4. It was originally called OnMilwaukee.com but eventually dropped the '.com' part from its name.
“In 1998, I saw a city that was changing and it was evolving, and nobody else was telling that story, and they certainly weren’t telling it online," he said.
So he set out to change that. Tarnoff quit his job and started this company from the ground up. He wanted to prove to his friends and family why the Cream City was such a great place, and why it had more to offer than just cheap Brewers tickets and beer.
"I mean I definitely had a chip on my shoulder. That’s for sure, and I was definitely young. I was 23 years old when I quit my job, and did this, and ate the ramen noodles. Those were fun days," he said.
In those 25 years, Andy and his team of trusty writers, editors, sales staff, and more have helped tell Milwaukee’s story in a unique way.
“We really just are here to make our community a better place. Whether that means the place that's opened up down the street from you to what’s going to happen in Lake Country this weekend," Carolynn Buser, the chief operating officer at OnMilwaukee, said.
She started 14.5 years ago. Buser rose through the ranks of sales representative, to social media coordinator, to editorial director, and eventually COO.
“We don’t cover hard news. We’re also able to talk to people in a different way. We’re just there to help them," she said.
Taking a step away from being a reporter now. You know, it is a little weird that the news is covering the news. But at the end of the day, we're all on the same team. We're covering the same city, and that’s what we love to do - report on Milwaukee.
“Our editorial mission is not to write stories talking about how great Milwaukee is, it's to write great stories about Milwaukee," Tarnoff said.
And they have fun while doing it too. Every year OnMilwaukee publishes an April Fools edition that is full of fake stories.
“This one went viral because people thought it was real, and it says, 'New Fine will penalize Miller Park tailgaters caught with Bud Light'. And it got picked up by national news, and this story did one million page views in one day," Tarnoff said.
So, what started as talking around a kitchen table has evolved into editorial meetings in a downtown Milwaukee conference room.
"What do I take out of it? We’ve given hundreds of people jobs. We’ve got the best and brightest and smartest Milwaukeeans who have chosen to be here for a really long time," Tarnoff said.
OnMilwaukee has adapted during this ever-changing landscape from just writing articles to becoming a multimedia company.
“Most of our traffic is coming from social or mobile," Tarnoff said.
They don’t just write articles. They make videos, podcasts, and even host events.
Regardless of the medium, the goal has always been the same - to tell great stories about Milwaukee. And they’ll keep doing that for another 25 years.
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