Dive Brief: 

• The Movie Loft, a publisher geared toward movie lovers, is part of a trend that sees small publishers forgoing the expense of building a branded website or app in favor of operating solely on social media. 
• Because of the audience The Movie Loft has been able to build on social media, the publisher has attracted attention from Hollywood studios looking to reach their audiences. Movie Loft charges those studios for impressions on editorial-like content, which forces it to walk a fine line between publisher and agency. 
• According to founder Brian Sullivan, The Movie Loft is a "publisher first" and is focused on the audience foremost, with the revenue from studios being a result of that. 

Dive Insight: 

It's not surprising that some small publishers like The Movie Loft have decided to skip the time and expense that building a quality website takes. This approach is akin to cutting out the "middle man" in a lot of other scenarios. Rather than using social media to drive traffic to its website, the publisher can focus solely on audience engagement within the social media platforms.