Personally, I like the general idea and concept. I love some of the executions, but there are a few ‘fail’ ones as well…

Pics via Ask a Copy Writer and Copy Ranter.

(Pic from NYTimes)

In recent times, Conde Nast has certainly generated quite a bit of fuss with their successful foray into the world of magazine apps.

It was a bit of a surprise initially because Conde Nast has never really been seen as a publisher that’s gone head first in embracing the World Wide Web. There has always been a sense that they’ve operated their digital channels at an arms length basis, being extremely protective and cautious in terms of how they approached and treated the medium.

Wired’s probably as good an example as any, as their own editor-in-chief, Chris Anderson, noted during the launch of their first app:

“The irony that Wired, a magazine founded to chronicle the digital revolution, has traditionally come to you each month on the smooshed atoms of dead trees is not lost on us. Let’s just say the medium is not always the message.”

So you can imagine that, when they were one of the first magazine publishers to launch an iPad app that went on to achieve resounding success, they took everyone (magazine industry AND the world wide web), by surprise.

So much of a surprise, in fact, that they followed up with an announcement to give Gourmet a second lease of life as a digital only publication.

Now with all this chatter going on about Conde Nast and its strategy for moving its magazine content onto the digital platform, it was unavoidable that all eyes and ears would eventually shift their focus to one of Conde Nast’s most prized assets; Vogue.

It’s been called the most influential fashion magazine in the world… Well, I guess that’s as far as the magazine goes because it’s never really had a presence on the net. In fact, searching for “fashion” on Google brings up no Vogue results at all on page 1, while vogue.co.uk and vogue.com.au appear on page 2. No signs of Vogue US or Vogue.com (I’ll touch on this later).

If Vogue is the most influential fashion publication in the print world, then Google is surely the most influential portal for content discovery on the internet. If Google can’t see you, then you don’t exist. And that’s a problem for anyone if they want to stay influential to a whole new generation of fashion frenzy consumers…

In any case, Conde Nast isn’t ignorant to this fact and they’ve already re-launched Vogue’s US site just recently. The link is here http://www.vogue.com/?us_site=y

You need to use this link specifically if you’re living in Australia or NZ because the parent Vogue.com domain will initiate a geo-targeted redirect to Vogue.com.au… which could also be a reason for the parent .com domain being somewhat invisible to Google for the “fashion” search query (could be the way the redirect is set up, or maybe they need to look at canonising their various geo-domains into the parent domain).

So the new Vogue comes with a lot of promises for advertisers and readers alike. For advertisers, there’s nothing really innovative from a technology point of view. It’s just more “advertising friendly” (in other words, more content integrated advertising).

From a reader point of view though, there’s nothing really innovative about the site either… although I must admit that that’s hard to come by in this day and age. The layout and design aspects of the site are very typical to what we’ve come to expect of magazine sites. There’s a “lightbox” feature that allows the reader to build albums and share with the Vogue.com community but… that’s about it. Nothing that really jumps out at you.

There was one thing which struck me as rather odd when I first looked at the new Vogue US site, which is is how familiar the look the feel was to  www.interviewmagazine.com.

I thought it was odd because, while not directly competitors in terms of content and audience, both titles bore enough similarity (and surely, a good enough crossover of advertisers) that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to imitate the design and layout of an existing site.

In fact, given the weight of Vogue’s influence, brand and positioning… I thought that Conde Nast would’ve gone the extra mile to make their website as distinctive and differentiated as possible.

But, as it turned out after a few clicks of investigation, it became apparent to me that these two sites didn’t look alike by accident, as both interviewmagazine.com the new Vogue US site was built by the same company; Code and Theory.

I’m not sure why I got excited about the Vogue redesign in the first place. Perhaps, after Conde Nast delivered such an exciting new product with the Wired app, I was really looking forward to see what they’d do with the institution that is Vogue.

Unfortunately, it’s been a bit like watching a bad sequel to a great movie. Oh well…

What a fascinating idea!

“This is historiography. This is what culture actually looks like: a process of argument, of dissenting and accreting opinion, of gradual and not always correct codification.

“And for the first time in history, we’re building a system that, perhaps only for a brief time but certainly for the moment, is capable of recording every single one of those infinitely valuable pieces of information. Everything should have a history button. We need to talk about historiography, to surface this process, to challenge absolutist narratives of the past, and thus, those of the present and our future.” -James Bridle

This is an example of how print is still relevant in a digital world. I would buy this; as a collectors item, as something I can use to kill time and just the feeling of being in touch with something when I’m reading through hours upon hours of debate and differing opinions.

We humans are fascinated by scandal and controversy. We consume and digest it as entertainment. So if not for anything else, the idea of reading through 12 dictionary thick volumes of internet arguments just brings out the absolute geek in me.

Picture and story found on ReadWriteWeb.

We took the big one this year at the People’s Choice Netguide Web Awards.

Grats to the entire team!

One of the most exciting indie upstarts in recent times have just picked up the Stuff.co.nz account… and I for one can’t wait to see what they come up with!

Here is why:

Where TM’s IPTV service could have an edge however is in the video-on-demand (VOD) service where it has signed up with Sony Pictures, CBS and Disney-ABC. The IPTV service moreover is not being offered in isolation but as part of a “triple-play” package comprising voice calls, video (IPTV and VOD), and high-speed Internet starting from speeds of 10Mbps and upwards.

IPTV and VOD (over the internet) at speeds of 10Mbps and upwards? Really? I wonder what the theoretical maximum for the downstream speed is… because 10Mbps sure isn’t going to give you quality IPTV.

Unless of course they’re not intending to deliver HD quality streaming. If that’s the case, I think that their case for paid-content over the internet becomes severely hampered.

They do have the advantage in it being bundled as part of a triple-play service – hardly innovative by the way – which gives them a chance to rack up some gullible accounts.

In any case, what I find really surprising is that OSK Research (the analyst firm quoted in the article) failed to mention that all Astro has to do is to introduce digital recording capabilities to their customer base, by way of upgrading current boxes in the home or for new installations.

With an entrenched customer base and the added capability for time-shifted programming/viewing (which is really what ‘on-demand’ is about), there is no real risk for Astro that its customers will go flooding towards TM.

I say this because of 3 very simple reasons (among many others):

1. Medium of delivery

IP loses to satellite, even at 10Mbps (as a minimum). If everything else were even (see 2 and 3) and the ‘pipe’ was the only competitive factor, then 18-20Mbps (downstream) would be the absolute minimum needed to at least be on par with satellite/cable delivery.

2. Bandwith

In the scheme of things, the consumption of content over the internet has been restricted more by bandwith than speed. In fact, speed is a much easier and cheaper problem to solve than bandwith is. There is no point having lightning speed internet connection when you’re limited to a 1Gb or 10Gb cap p/month. You’re effectively crippled.

“We have 100 000 movies in our catalogue that you can watch on-demand. But guess what? You can only watch 2 a month”.

Yeah… that’s a real killer sales pitch right there.

3. Content

This is the biggie. By far the biggest attraction and selling point for cable television has been live entertainment.

That means live sports or live events (like the Academy Awards or the Emmys).Everything else like news, MTVs or even movies, are just window dressing.

So even if you had the biggest pipe and the fastest download speed you can think of… it’s still empty without the content.

That last point – content – is the bane and saviour of telco companies all in one. Content is what drives usage and usage is what racks up the monthly billings for ISPs/telco.

In the rush to dominate this landscape – that of content and its delivery – many telcos will rise and fall.

Some feel they need to own, create or produce content to open new revenue streams. Others are happy facilitating the actual creators of content at arms length, opting instead to create a culture of abundance on the net and then thrive on increased consumption of data through their own pipes.

Personally, I believe that telcos should leave the content game alone. They should focus more on their own core business, which we all know needs more than 1 eye on it as it is… seeing that delivery in many countries is far from perfect.

Many telcos are already struggling as it is to maintain better-than-satisfactory service levels for communications to their current customer base. Adding content to that mix will just complicate things and give customers yet another thing to gripe about. And at the end of the day, what will it all boil down to?

Customers like me will choose an ISP/telco that focuses primarily on delivering and sustaining high internet speeds and very, very low bandwith costs… and do it well.

That leaves me free – of constraints and complaints – to go hunt for all the content I want on the internet that I can get almost instanteneously, on-demand and at a price that I am willing to pay for.

And I can do all that because of a great ISP. See how the circle turns? Go figure…

Congrats to Draft FCB for taking top honours (Agency of the Year & Agency CEO of the Year) at last week’s Fairfax AdMedia Agency of the Year Awards.

They had some really tough competition, with Colenso BBDO, Special Group (Indie Agency of the Year – they also did the Orcon Iggy Pop ad) and DDB competing for the Agency of the Year honours.

The toughest competition though, would’ve been the year itself… 2009.

Listening to all the acceptance speeches, not one recipient failed to mention just how “tough 2009 was… glad it’s over… and hope for the best with 2010″.

Bryan Crawford (Draft FCB – CEO of the Year) even commented in his acceptance speech that “…any CEO who ended the year still as a CEO should receive a medal”.

You might think it all sounded a little like a broken record playing over and over again… but looking around the room I don’t think anyone grew tired or sick of being told just what a pit of a dark spew 2009 was. And you wouldn’t blame them.

Perhaps the collective optimism (and crossed fingers) of the NZ ad/media industry will bring on brighter and better things in 2010… we sure as hell need it. I don’t know if the industry could take two 2009′s in a row… especially if you consider that mid-2008 was really the start of things falling off the cliff.

In any case, I’ll leave you with some of what the judges had to say regarding Draft FCB’s success, as well as some of the work done by the respective winners.

Draft FCB set clear objectives for the year, and then described those objectives to the staff and implemented a strategy to deliver on them.

Its business performance was outstanding. More importantly, the agency’s strategic approach – winning new business, improving productivity, delivering profitability, implementing and explaining staff management, development plans, and walking the talk in its vision and innovation strategies – was detailed in the agency’s entry and backed up with hard evidence, as opposed to rhetoric.

This was seen as a complete performance and, as a consequence, the agency achieved outstanding award achievements.

Mitre 10 – Sandpit (Draft FCB)

Whitcoulls – A Little Bit Wonderful Every Day (Draft FCB)

Orcon – Together Incredible with Iggy Pop (Special Group – Indie Agency of the Year 2010)

Or so they say.

Bill Gates at TED, talking about why “innovating to zero” in energy production is absolutely necessary for the future of humanity.

Fascinating.