For years it seemed like Si Newhouse and Condé Nast were hiding out and hoping that the whole internet thing would just run its course and life would return to “normal.” Sure they formed CondéNet and launched Style.com but they were certainly not pre-curve on anything digital.
But over the past few months, they’ve definitely been trying to make up for lost time. (We can only imagine the pages of the McKinsey reports that must have been dedicated to online growth.) From finally getting each of their magazines its own proper website to online dating (still super weird!), they are making a serious go of it.
Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that the publishing house is developing an e-reader application that will debut sometime next year first with Wired and then the other titles like Vogue and Vanity Fair. Apparently this is different from the GQ technology they just put on iTunes.
We have yet to sign on to the whole e-reader thing. But it’s really nice to see Condé trying to get out ahead of things instead of hanging back and watching the world change while it stands still. Because we all know how that worked out, and no one wants to see it happen again.
Things have gotten so glum over at 4 Times Square that S.I. has hired Michael Sheehan, a crisis manager to try to turn around not only the press on the beleaguered publishing house, but also the spirits of those who still work there, according to the NY Post’s Keith Kelly.
Just to put this in context, Sheehan was the guy AIG went to during its troubled times, and he’s even coached presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The idea apparently came from Lucky publisher Gina Sanders, who also happens to be married to a Newhouse (Steven) after she noticed that morale was at an all-time low. Well, obviously. I mean they’ve laid off almost 500 people and closed six magazines. Everyone knows the glory days are gone and there’s nothing fun about that.
We’re just wondering what Sheehan will bring to the table to make the media, advertisers and employees change their doomsday mentalities. We hope it’s more akin to the re-positioning of Barack or Bill, because we still don’t have many warm and fuzzy feelings for AIG.
The only movie that’s made me laugh harder than The September Issue this year is The Hangover.
Anna Wintour is funny; my mascara is smudged from tears of laughter. The film may start out with Anna saying that fashion’s picked on because people are bitter they aren’t a cool kid, but she only gets more human from there and by the end you might even want to hug her.
Grace Coddington is, as reported, the real star of the movie. Her inner turmoil over the changing industry and her role in Anna’s history plays out on screen and one can’t help but sympathize with her as Anna cancels more and more of her shoots.
The movie travels from New York to Paris for couture to London for a meeting with Mario Testino to Rome for Sienna’s shoot and back to New York to close the issue and present it to Si Newhouse. In Paris, we cringed when Anna shut Stefano Pilati down; in London we laughed at Mario’s grandly cinematic ideas and in Rome we admired Sienna’s energy and Sally Singer’s patience.
Continue reading The September Issue…
We just read over on The Cut (via Ad Age) that men.style.com will close come October once Si Newhouse et al establish stand-alone sites for both Details and GQ. Many of the staffers will thankfully head over to those two sites.
This is supposed to be part of the plan to give each title at 4 Times Square its own site which, you know, makes a lot of sense. But why the heck it’s taking them so long is another matter.
Style.com is in the clear at the moment, but we wonder for how long. WWD reported this morning that consultants from McKinsey & Co. have been hired by the publishing giant to “realign Condé Nast to be a successful business in an emerging economy that is now predicted to be painfully slow in recovering” according to CEO Chuck Townsend.
No area of the company is off limits and we’re betting that the web (long a thorn in Condé ‘s side) will be much discussed.
