The Digital Gloss Files - October 4

...with Julia Low

*Update!
Zoe Foster has joined the team at Mamamia.com.au as a contributing beauty writer. Foster will file stories exclusively for the site twice a week, effective at the end of October. "I could not be more excited about Zoe joining the Mamamia team," said Mamamia publisher Mia Freedman. "Her extraordinary ability to translate the intimidating world of beauty into easy, funny and engaging content is unmatched. Her authority, expertise, talent and humour will be a huge asset to Mamamia.com.au and I'm thrilled to be working together again."

As the story goes, Foster got her start in magazines when Freedman spotted her talent and earmarked her for a position on Cosmopolitan. From there, she moved onto Harper's BAZAAR before joining Independent Digital Media's PRIMPED.com.au as launch editor-in-chief, all the while writing two non-fiction books. Her most recent beauty publishing venture is the beauty book Amazing Face (Penguin). "Writing alongside Mia and her wonder team, playing with such a curious, enthusiastic, fun audience is such a terrific platform for beauty writing," she said. "I can't bully these women into wearing magenta lipstick and lecture them on UV damage soon enough."

donna hay magazine's 10th anniversary is being celebrated tomorrow with a special issue and nifty new iPad app. The debut app, which will feature the magazine's pages in enhanced format, with interactive video, will be free, while subsequent editions will be $2.99. Foodie apps are proving to be a boon for digital, with their alluring high-gloss look, interactive elements, video and recipes-at-the-ready proving them to be ideal kitchen hands. Hay's media empire extends past the magazine (published by News Magazines), app and cookbooks to a TV show (the LifeStyle channel), website, newsletter, 20,000 Facebook fans and 14,870 Twitter followers.

Justin Timberlake is hitting Advertising Week in the US with his MySpace sales pitch: “to become the #1 online community music destination,” and "feed the energy of youth culture everywhere", reports AllThingsD.
 
New York magazine asks, Is Twitter too big to succeed? Joe Hagan goes behind the scenes at the social media giant.  

With The Australian due set to put up a paywall any second now, The New York Times asks if the Napster generation still expects media for free.
But does a user-pays model matter so much if advertisers are flocking to the web? The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers have revealed that internet ad profits are on a record-breaking high. The first half of 2011 saw U.S. internet ad revenue rise 23.2 percent to a record $14.9 billion, a rate of growth that has doubled since 2009.

Political reporter Annabel Crabb has given life to her allocated blog space at ABC.net.au asking, Is it too late to start a blog? Her almost 40,000 Twitter followers might suggest it is not.

The Australian beauty blogging community recently got together for a weekend of seminars, workshops, events, socialising and product sampling. Founded by Kimberly Nissen and Jacie Galpin, Australian Beauty Bloggers Weekend featured a panel of experts including Jackie Maxted, managing director of beautydirectory.com.au, InStyle beauty editor Eleanor Pendleton and Debbie Selikman, editor of beautyheaven.com.au. Beauty industry doyenne Bahar Etiman of RESCU.com.au imparted some words of wisdom: "Raising the standard and reputation of beauty bloggers is key so that the business of beauty blogging is taken seriously and given the respect it deserves."

Bloggers with agents? Yep. The NY Times reports that New York-based agency Digital Brand Architects currently represents 50 bloggers and is working to position them in the same category as stylists, makeup artists and photographers. 

Fat Mum Slim asks, Is social media making us lazy and stupid? 

Jennifer Lopez is reportedly partnering with popular teen magazine Tiger Beat, AOL and Cambio to create a digital video show. Tiger Beat Entertainment will include celebrity, entertainment, music, TV, film, books, gaming and apps news, as well as social media and Twitter trends and lifestyle content (fashion, beauty, food, health, wellness, decor and relationships) geared towards teens and young adults.

With the continuous demand for instant news and real-time updates online, can quality journalism still exist in the digital world where news stories have to be typed up instantaneously, without time for thorough background checks and research? Editor of New Matilda Marni Cordell talks to Crikey about the kind of journalism she thinks Australia needs more of.

It’s been a busy past few weeks for Facebook, starting with the f8 conference, during which Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the major updates that have been made to the social network. Mashable has rounded-up everything you need to know about the new changes, as well as how to take control of your privacy.

Also, Facebook is now in the midst of a serious controversy as accusations of using tracking cookies that collects users’ information even after they have logged out have been confirmed. While Facebook have defended their actions in a statement denying that the cookies are used to track users across the web, Ben Parr of Mashable believes the issues of privacy still stand. “We’re at the point of no return,” writes Parr. “And while we may be consoled by the fact that most of this stuff is being posted just to our friends, it only takes one friend to share that information with his or her friends to start a viral chain.”

Unfazed by all things Facebook, the recently launched Google+ now boasts of an estimated 43 million users, the result of a dramatic traffic increase of 1269% in just one week. Its ranking on Hitwise's Social Networking and Forums category has since catapulted to number 8 from 54. For more information on Google+’s new features, check out the Official Google Blog.

"Content is no longer king online," writes Thomas Tudehope for ABC Unleashed. "It has become the exiled Prince compared to privacy and authenticity."

Still on Google, Online Colleges has posted an online infographic to show us just how the search engine affects our memory and learning. Ahh, Google. Where would we be without it? (At the library, probably.)

Outsourcing marketplace Freelancer.com has launched Design Studio, a new feature that allows for the creation of higher quality design projects by increasing collaboration between employers and designers. A feature focused on the importance on dialogue, Design Studio provides employers the option to view the designs and current progress and give immediate feedback to the designers.

Amazon has sealed a deal with News Corp’s 20th Century Fox in a licensing agreement that will add to Amazon’s instant online streaming service library. Amazon Prime members can now enjoy access to 2,000 additional titles in Amazon’s commercial-free TV and movie library, bringing the total number of available titles to 11,000, which includes oldies but goodies such as Mrs. Doubtfire and 24. 

But wait! Are e-books more your thing? Amazon has also unveiled the brand new Kindle Fire tablet, a worthy rival to the iPad—at only a third of the cost. Sounds great, we say! Happy reading, folks!

Julia @ Girl With a Satchel