WORK IN PROGRESS: Condé Nast Publications Inc. is making progress with its female-focused Web sites the company is developing under its Magnet division, which includes the operation and technology departments of 27 of its magazine Web sites. In the fall, WWD reported executives were considering a health entity reflecting content from Self, Glamour, Allure and Jane that would include a Web site covering diet and nutrition, sex and relationships and beauty and health for females. The project has evolved to separate sites being overseen by Magnet's Susan Kaplow. In March, the first one launched: Elasticwaist.com. The site is written by online diarists Sarah McColl, Brooke Parkhurst, Anne Fitzgerald and a Wisconsin-based woman who goes by the screen name Wheetabix.
The site includes entries on weight and body image, commentary on celebrity weight loss and food obsessions, video content on cooking and entertaining and links to other weighty blogs. Elasticwaist.com's irreverent tone is far from the edited voice of most Condé Nast titles. For example, the authors' assessment of the benefits of fiber: "Without it, all of that protein just sits in your gut and turns into a lead sludge that can make any trip to the ladies' room require two magazines and maybe a book for backup."
Up next, according to sources familiar with the project, is a sex and relationship site said to play off of Glamour. One working title has been bounced around — Thedailybedpost.com. Condé Nast executives could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. — Stephanie D. Smith
MOONLIGHTING: Guest editors are usually of the celebrity variety — Bono at Vanity Fair and Sarah Jessica Parker at O The Oprah Magazine are a few of the most recent ones. But novelist and magazine writer Bill Powers wants to change that. Why not look outside the celebrity pool to find a candidate, he asks? Recent National Magazine Award-winner City magazine answered his wish by asking Powers to guest edit its September issue (he also guest edited the October/November 2006 issue of BlackBook magazine.) The move marks the first time the magazine has hired a guest editor. So far, Powers has Zac Posen sitting down with Bob Colacello; Andy Spade interviewing artist Jules de Balincourt, and, in a bit of nepotism, his wife, designer Cynthia Rowley, profiling painter Delia Brown. GQ correspondent Glenn O'Brien will pen a story on the "happy mealing of high fashion," that will address how designers such as Marc Jacobs are marketing clothes to children. The City issue hasn't even closed yet, but Powers already has another guest editor's gig lined up: next time for a national gay magazine, which he declined to name. — Amy Wicks
The site includes entries on weight and body image, commentary on celebrity weight loss and food obsessions, video content on cooking and entertaining and links to other weighty blogs. Elasticwaist.com's irreverent tone is far from the edited voice of most Condé Nast titles. For example, the authors' assessment of the benefits of fiber: "Without it, all of that protein just sits in your gut and turns into a lead sludge that can make any trip to the ladies' room require two magazines and maybe a book for backup."
Up next, according to sources familiar with the project, is a sex and relationship site said to play off of Glamour. One working title has been bounced around — Thedailybedpost.com. Condé Nast executives could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon. — Stephanie D. Smith
MOONLIGHTING: Guest editors are usually of the celebrity variety — Bono at Vanity Fair and Sarah Jessica Parker at O The Oprah Magazine are a few of the most recent ones. But novelist and magazine writer Bill Powers wants to change that. Why not look outside the celebrity pool to find a candidate, he asks? Recent National Magazine Award-winner City magazine answered his wish by asking Powers to guest edit its September issue (he also guest edited the October/November 2006 issue of BlackBook magazine.) The move marks the first time the magazine has hired a guest editor. So far, Powers has Zac Posen sitting down with Bob Colacello; Andy Spade interviewing artist Jules de Balincourt, and, in a bit of nepotism, his wife, designer Cynthia Rowley, profiling painter Delia Brown. GQ correspondent Glenn O'Brien will pen a story on the "happy mealing of high fashion," that will address how designers such as Marc Jacobs are marketing clothes to children. The City issue hasn't even closed yet, but Powers already has another guest editor's gig lined up: next time for a national gay magazine, which he declined to name. — Amy Wicks
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