Reincarnation

When Domino folded, I was sad. Really sad. Looking around my apartment, most of what I see was lifted from the mag's lovely, oh-so-imitable pages. While I suppose "reincarnation" isn't quite the right term - since Design*Sponge was founded in 2004 while Domino was still alive and well - this new-to-me blog feels like the magazine's rebirth. With its sweet design, structured editorial calendar (different types of posts go up on certain days of the week) and fun categories (mini trends, DIYs, and before & afters), exploring Design*Sponge feels like flipping through the department pages of my former favorite mag.

This shouldn't be surprising, since Design*Sponge's editor, Grace Bonney, was a Domino contributing editor (as well as a freelancer for a host of other mags, including In Style and House and Garden). In additon to Bonney, Design*Sponge's staff includes a handful (well, a couple handfuls) of editors, writers and photographers who produce mainly original content for the blog, though some photos and articles are pulled from other sites or magazines.

Grace Bonney (from Design*Sponge)

I think the strength of Design*Sponge is that it avoids the thrown-together look of many popular blogs (as it well should, with its design focus). Although I'm a loyal Trent fan, my eyes glaze over after even a quick scroll on Pink is the New Blog, and one look at Drudge Report is enough to send me into a rage. Design*Sponge's layout and design is well-targeted to its predominantly female, fashion-y audience concerned with aesthetics. And though it seems to cater to women in their 30s and 40s with money to burn on ceramic goat statues and velvet upholstered chairs, it does nod to us 20-somethings with a "budget" tab filled with "under $100" goodies.

Is this the future of magazines? If so, would that be such a bad thing? Blogs are cheaper to produce, and they probably fit better with today's over-booked, attention span-deprived lifestyle. I know that, personally, I don't have time to sit and read an entire magazine cover to cover. Or, more accurately, I feel guilty for taking an hour out of my insane schedule of school, teaching, and internships to indulge in 100 pages of "fluff." On the flip side, I also feel guilty about the magazines piling up in the corner of my living room. But easy to read, prettified daily blog posts that take 30 seconds to read? That I can handle.

If forced to say something negative about Design*Sponge, I suppose I found the numerous navigation links across the top and down the left column of the page a bit confusing at first. And the blog's editors might actually do too good a job of merging borrowed content from other sites with original content, as it's sometimes difficult to tell which is which. But really, I'm an unapologetic fan of this blog as of right now.

The Fall of the Wall

I sat in on an editorial meeting at my magazine internship yesterday. Like most publications, this one has recognized the importance of developing an online presence though Twitter, Facebook and blogging.

Its marketing department has likewise recognized the need to attract advertisers for its Web site.

After hashing out the details of who would blog about which topics, when to tweet, and how often to post items on Facebook, the editor and chief brought up a new advertising initiative that made everyone on the editorial staff uneasy: The marketing department's recent sale of "brand channels" on the publication's Web site.

Although such "advertorial" content is nothing new, its translation from print to the Web is troubling. Rather than a single paid ad made to look like editorial copy but produced by the advertiser, the new brand channels are to be populated with both marketing material from the companies and editorial content produced by the magazine's editorial staff.

For some of the companies, the magazine already has plenty of editorial content from past issues to fill the page. Smaller companies present a bigger problem: If we don't have enough old editorial copy to populate the page, we'll have to produce new content specifically for the brand channel.

The debate got heated: How should such content be labeled? How can editorial content be differentiated from straight advertising content? Can content produced specifically for a brand channel even be accurately labeled "editorial content"? Must all editorial content on the page be unequivocally positive? If it isn't, will advertisers have a legitimate right to insist that it be changed? If the initiative takes off, will writing advertorial content begin to detract from the production of content for the magazine itself? Will readers lose trust in us if they perceive that we are favoring companies who pay for brand channels?

The editor and chief acknowledged the danger inherent in setting such a precedent: "I'm very well aware of where this is headed, and eventually we're going to have to draw a line in the sand." However, he argued that, if carefully labeled, the advertorial content shouldn't pose a threat to the magazine's integrity.

One of the senior editors felt differently, insisting that he is "not at all comfortable" producing content that "we wouldn't have written if we weren't being paid to do it."

I'm sure that we aren't the only magazine facing this dilemma. Does this signify the beginning of the end for the "wall" between editorial content and advertising? Will it be possible to produce brand channel content that we can stand behind that also satisfies our advertisers? I hope so, but I think we'll have to wait for someone to draw that "line in the sand" to find out.