What's up online?

What's up online?
Glossy happenings in cyberspace.


 - New York Magazine's The Cut blog gets a tailored, free iPad app. Called The Cut on the Runway, the app is designed to deliver live reporting from Fashion Week as well as regular blog posts and a runway photo catalog. Click-through hiccups aside, Min's Steve Smith says the stylish app "a promising newcomer to the app fashion world that may improve with age". 

- Vogue.com is celebrating 15 years online.

- Foursquare, the wireless service that lets users broadcast their where-and-what-abouts to friends, now has 6 million users with a target of 10 million for June 2011. "Other sites want to keep you inside at the computer, while our entire goal is to get you out of the house," said co-founder Naveen Selvadurai at recent conference in France. (Bloomberg)

- Resources tailored to GenY's reliance on handheld devices (i.e. smartphones and tablets) for online access, such as replaceable batteries, grow in demand. 

- The Australian will charge people to read its website this year, but it will not say how much or exactly when it will become the second major Australian newspaper to install a paywall, after Fairfax's Financial Review, reports Tim Dick for SMH (via Mediaweek).

- Check out James Murdoch speaking about The Daily and The Australian at the Digital Life Design Conference via Newsagency Blog (also below for your reference). He says the vast majority of News' revenue comes from digital TV and paid TV, though advertisers still respond well to paper products. 

- Fairfax Digital has launched Domain TV, a comprehensive online real estate video destination hosted on domain.com.au and sponsored by St. George Bank.

- In contrast, the BBC is making cuts to its online division. There will be fewer news blogs while standalone forums, communities and message-boards will be reduced and replaced with integrated social tools. (BBC) 

- American Apparel's latest illustrated campaign images gain online controversy momentum. "The pencil drawings, recruited from erotic artist Boris Lopez, depict girls of “indeterminate” age seductively taking off their underwear," reports YPulse. "While the porn aesthetic isn't exactly new territory for American Apparel or pop culture at large, this display comes off as especially creepy (read: faux child pornography) when you know that Lopez’s work has previously been featured in Hustler’s Barely Legal, Baby Face, Sizzle and Just Come of Age." Meanwhile, Fashionista catalogues the company's most controversial ads.


- Prada has used illustration with a different effect for its latest baroque-inspired eyewear campaign, reports Fashionista.

- Lucky editor-in-chief Brandon Holley (hired last September from Yahoo! Shine) has been inducted into Min's Digital Hall of Fame. Browse the site's Best of the Web Awards finalists here.

- Patty Huntington writes on model Samantha Harris' 'Bound More Than a Madman' editorial in KAREN magazine. Unfortunate subtext given Harris' heritage as we celebrate Australia Day this week; the bondage aesthetic penetrating pop culture (Kanye) and magazines. Meanwhile, Lady Gaga's fragrance will reportedly smell like blood and semen. How disgusting. Things are getting mighty twisted 'round here.

- The LA Times reports on social shopping site PlumWillow.

- Catch up on Cathy Horyn's reviews of the couture shows at On The Runway. 

- Bookmark Maggie Alderson's supreme style blog for fashion commentary with lashings of humour. To wit, "So I have carefully examined the Dead Sea Scrolls (UK Vogue and Grazia) and come to this conclusion about the next fashion season we are about to entre: it’s perfect for a period of financial restraint as there is absolutely nothing I want to buy."

- "Like the chocolate sauce that pours over ice cream in the video cover of its new iPad magazine, Martha Stewart Living pours on the touch and multimedia features in this first of its now-monthly digital issues," writes Min's Steve Smith. "What is not to love about a video cover showing dark chocolate sauce dripping over domes of ice cream? The MSLO design crew understands the sheer visual impact of high-res visuals and the value of animated play on the platform."

- Nomad Editions publishes weekly magazines specially for mobile devices: Real Eats (food), Wide Screen (film), Wave Lines (surfing) and BodySmart (health). The apps are produced by freelancers who contribute content in exchange for a share of the revenue generated from subscriptions. (Mashable)

- Food blogger Sandra Reynolds has copped a public backlash after appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald's Good Living supplement. "Readers had little sympathy for the mother-of-two deciding to quit her job and rely instead on government assistance," reports SMH. Reynolds  retorted:  "Oh I'm laughing all the way to the book deal (not to mention 80,000 hits today)." Her book is due to be published by Penguin next year. You can visit her blog here.

- Rich Jaroslovsky writes a short biographical history Apple's Steve Jobs for SMH in light of his recent health revelations: "love him or loathe him, Jobs is a figure of social and historic significance who has arguably had as much impact on the daily lives of global consumers as anyone you can name." 

- Nick Leeder, former deputy CEO of The Australian, has been made managing director of Google Australia and New Zealand, reports mUmBRELLA.

- Peter Hartcher writes 'Facebook, thymos and the triumph of the individual' for SMH.

- The Social Network got eight Oscar nominations.

- YPulse appraises Teen Vogue and Seventeen. Leighton Meester tells Seventeen, ""I'm not really a partier, in general. I've definitely learned that that's probably the least interesting thing you can do with your time." Seventeen suggests loads of things to do with your time, including 200 ways to get amazing hair and 11 trends to help you "look cute everyday". Who has time to party? 

- SASSYBELLA.com has a new look.

- Haven't jumped on board with Writers on Rafts yet? Please do!  


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Girl With a Satchel

1 comments:

Helen said...

Thanks for the plug Erica! xx