Magazine Publishers Plan Digital Store

Time Inc is leading an industry-wide joint venture to create a digital store for magazines as a way for publishers to avoid surrendering their digital future to the likes of Amazon.com or Apple. (Financial Times)

African Wealth and African Style at a Glamorous Juncture

Sub-Saharan Africa does not bring to mind an image of a woman with perfectly manicured nails flipping through glossy magazines in search of the latest handbag or celebrity haircut. Yet such women are there, and in far greater numbers than the news media’s portrayal of Africa might suggest. (New York Times)

From Models to Magazines, Cataloguing the Fashion Industry

Until recently, there have been few options for fashion obsessives to track down a memorable ad from seasons past. A new start-up, My Fashion Database, has stepped into the breach. (Wall Street Journal)

Cuts Meet a Culture of Spending at Condé Nast

At Condé Nast, it is consultants versus car service. A three-month McKinsey & Company project advising the publisher how to reduce costs is drawing to a close, and several magazines have been told to cut about 25 percent from their budgets. (New York Times)

Conde Nast Execs to Make Big Cuts, Insiders Say

The consultants from McKinsey & Co. may have wrapped up their summer-long review of Conde Nast, but the real work on how to rein in costs at the luxury magazine publisher is about to begin. (Advertising Age)

Marketers Seek To Score In Tough Times By Playing At The U.S. Open

For those of us in marketing there’s a competition at the U.S. Open that’s equal to the exciting Melanie Oudin when it comes to the potential for big bucks. It’s the competition among corporate sponsors of the tournament for consumer attention. (Forbes)

Mobile Marketing Done Right

Ms. Pasqua spoke with eMarketer about what makes for effective mobile marketing. (eMarketer)

Fashion Magazines Take the Plunge into eCommerce

Getting an ad in the pages of a top fashion magazines might have once been a priority for major advertisers, but as dwindling September issues arrive, that revenue stream is looking less and less viable. (Econsultancy)

LuxuryLab Digest | Spas Take Off In Asia, Audi Taps Facebook Fans, Fashion Blogs Turn the Internet into a Catwalk, How the Pixel is Evolving Human Sentiment

Spas Take Off in Asia (Fortune)
Healthy living is back in style in Asia, which means a revival of ancient Asian wellness techniques – and an explosion of spas.
HUA HIN, Thailand — Yue-Sai Kan — one of the most recognizable women in China with a cosmetics empire and her own TV show — often needs to get away from the grueling pressures and polluted skies of Shanghai and Beijing, where she lives.

Audi Taps its Facebook Fans to Help Design Car of the Future (Mashable)
More and more businesses are learning that adopting a strategy of incorporating social media to connect with customers is a great way to build a solid brand. Even companies that already have very successful global brands, like Audi are starting to use social media to enhance their presence and garner feedback from users.

Fashion Blogs Turn the Internet into a Catwalk (China Daily)
Glossy fashion magazines are getting competition from Internet fashion blogs that are not only cheaper but also faster.  Before new trends from the catwalks and the streets arrive on the pages of the fashion magazines, they already are posted on the Internet. From secret tips on the hippest accessories to introductions of new artists and designers and styling tips for the perfect look, nearly everything can be found in fashion blogs.

How the Pixel is Evolving as Real Human Sentiment (Goonth’s Posterous)
We’re witnessing this on a mass scale – the adoption of social technologies that are helping to transform communication in incredible ways.  Perhaps something that we may overlook at times, as well as be shocked by, is how the pixel is evolving as a means for real human sentiment.

Luxury Lab Daily Digest | Luxury Firms Push ‘Eco-Posh’, The Recession Impression, The Science of Google Wave, Lincoln Seeks Perception Change

Luxury Firms Push ‘Eco Posh’ (Christian Science Monitor)
Handbag-makers to hotels are luring a new kind of luxury consumer.  Somewhere in an Amazonian rainforest, an indigenous person is tapping a rubber tree. Two small cuts extract its latex. The tree is left untouched for two years so it can fully heal, while the rubber, once refined, is sent to Italy. There, a craftsman fashions it into a handbag, lines it with recycled Italian cotton shirting fabrics or canvas salvaged from Swedish and Italian Army fatigues, then outfits it with nickel-free hardware.

The Recession Impression (Marketing Daily)
On Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers imploded, the world tilted and all the Fiji artesian water came tumbling off the table, crashing along with the stock market.  Suddenly the conspicuous consumer became the conspicuous coupon clipper.

The science of Google Wave: How an Online Application Could Change Research Communication (Nature)
Web-savvy scientists gathered at the Science Online London conference in London on 22 August to explore how the Internet is changing the communication, practice and culture of science. Biochemist Cameron Neylon, of the University of Southampton, UK, was one of a few scientists at the conference who have been given pre-release access to Google Wave — an online collaboration and communication tool announced with great fanfare on 27 May. Naturespoke to Neylon about how Google Wave could transform the way that scientists work.

Seeking Perception Change, Lincoln Cites Technology (Media Post)
Lincoln, Ford Motor’s luxury division, has spent the last three years evolving both the brand and what people think of it, from a maker of big cars and bigger SUVs to a space-age luxury brand — and one that deserves to be on shopping lists with Lexus, BMW, Cadillac and Mercedes.