The Business of Blogging

Women's Wear Daily today has a detailed Memo Pad section dedicated to fashion and celebrity blogging, covering the whole span of the fashion blogosphere from likes of Perez Hilton to the the blogs we may begin to see from more respected journalists such as Suzy Menkes of the IHT and Cathy Horyn of the NYT, due to increasing pressure from publishers that they jump on the blogging bandwagon.

Forget about all the parties that he is co-hosting. Perez Hilton, AKA Mario Lavandeira, has clearly made an impact when traffic to his blog site is even being compared in the same breath to the readership of celebrity-news stalwarts like US Weekly and InTouch by a respected fashion business publication like WWD. Hilton has effectively taken the business formula of these magazines (lots of unflattering photos of celebrities, peppered with strong opinions and innuendos on their personal lives, dress sense and body-image) and made it even more powerful and relevant in the online space. It seems that the public's thirst for celebrity gossip -- even it if is communicated in a blunt and sometimes unseemly way -- is never ending. Say what you want about Mr. Hilton, but his formula seems to be working and as a site commanding millions of page views a day, he will cash in richly on his work.

It's also interesting and noteworthy that more and more big media outlets are expecting their big-name journalists to publish blogs in addition to their other work. I was speaking about this very topic to Cia Jansson, Fashion Editor of Swedish Elle at the Swiss Textiles Award ceremonies in Zurich back in November. Cia was actively taking photos and meeting people at the event to cover it for her magazine's website, explaining to me that more and more fashion journalists are being ask to blog in addition to their core responsibilities. You can see Cia's coverage of the Swiss Textiles Award here.

I think it is noteworthy that even big-time publishers like CondeNast, Hachette-Filipachi and others are beginning to understand the power of blogging and how younger audiences in particular can only be reached effectively using the media that these younger readers prefer. This is a trend that is just at the beginning of its development. I for one would be a regular reader of any blog that Suzy Menkes published. It could also give her some place to publish all those photos she seems to be snapping of fellow fashionistas in the front rows of all the shows. Go Suzy!

Here is more about Perez Hilton in his own words from an excerpt introduced by Geraldo Riveira.