Vogue embraces the digital age

This link is to an article by the Guardian about how (French) Vogue is embracing the digital age with their

website relaunch. The interview is with Emmanuelle Alt, editor in chief of Vogue Paris.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/feb/06/french-vogue-relaunch

Here are some highlights from the interview :

Guardian Fashion: What would you say to someone who thinks that the glossiness of Vogue should be something you sit and flick through rather than look at on a computer screen?

Emmanuelle Alt: Vogue is the absolute reference for fashion and trends. This is clear for the print version, and must be the case everywhere. Vogue must also be the fashion authority on the Internet, and on all digital channels. The Vogue Paris Twitter account is the most influential in France for all these reasons, and the new Vogue Paris website will also fulfill this role. The digital world and the press do not have the same temporality, but they each reflect the Vogue DNA.

Do you see a time when magazines as physical objects will simply cease to exist? And are the magazine's sales at risk from things being seen on the website?

EA: I think it's absurd to think that the magazine could be replaced by the website, as these two platforms for Vogue's know-how and expertise complement each other. One will not substitute the other. The print version will always remain a platform for the expression of creativity and inspiration, while the site remains above all else, a news and information outlet. I would even go further, to say that like our social networks, the site is still recruiting new readers for the magazine, which also makes it a source of sales development.

What are the key differences in working on a print magazine and a digital one and how to you see the two things co-existing? How does it change the role of editor-in-chief?

EA: The biggest difference is temporality, which means that we have to produce content on a daily basis. The physical format, and the use and functionalities of the web also influence specific content, which is by its nature different from the magazine. What is important to us, however, is that our readers, our users, our fans and our followers, expect Vogue to bring them the hottest, most exclusive news; to guide them through the ocean of new products to make fail-safe choices, and to be in the know before the rest.

So Emmanuelle Alt sees the the digital media as a way of expanding the Vogue brand. It is interesting that she says that the website (digital media) helps to attract new readers and that she doesn't believe that hard copies of the magazine will ever cease to exist. In recent years there has been panics that with all the cutting down the number of staff and with dropping readership the print media will eventually die out but as it can be read in this interview the editors remain positive.  

Emmanuelle Alt is not the only one, Wired magazines editor Chris Anderson sees the "app" economy helping to build value for publishers. "You can retain everything that makes a magazine great and then add three new things; the videos, the animation, the interesting, a social media layer," Anderson said.( "Kovarik, B. (2011) Revolutions in Communications: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age, London: Continuum)  

"On-line services will coexist with print for the foreseeable future and maybe forever," says Stephen B. Shepard, editor in chief of Business Week. (Pavlik, V. P. (1998) New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial perspectives, London: Allyn and Bacon) This only supports previous statements. Perhaps the digital revolution in the print world can be seen as a positive phenomena. 

Interestingly enough originally, the hope for digital media technology was simply that people would have more choice in selecting news reports. ( "Kovarik, B. (2011) Revolutions in Communications: Media History from Gutenberg to the Digital Age, London: Continuum)  As we can see the digital media evolved beyond that.