[Ayisha1978]

Quote:

Originally Posted by softgrey From forums like this one...to facebook pages, websites, blogs, ecommerce, twitter, etc... the internet is the NEW FRONTIER... and although the fashion industry came a little late to the party- basically fighting it every step of the way... even they can no longer sit back and ignore the power of the internet... advertisers are pulling out of magazines...and placing ads online... magazines are going out of business... websites are being created every five minutes... blogs are being created about every 5 seconds... so what is the future? will all magazines go away? will they convert to online only... will there continue to be both?... and how will sites make money other than by selling ads? promotions, partnerships,...? thoughts?...ideas?... where is this all going...? and with shows being online so quickly... will this finally change the show schedule that has seemed so outdated for SO long???... what do YOU think about how the internet is affecting the big picture and the bottom line?...

I think the fashion industry is perfect online, deep down inside I think that what a lot of people are afraid of is that it will increase competition because you've got instant access to everything right. Maybe to gain more revenue Magazines that go online can have a "new designers" section where they pick out and showcase talented new (unheard of before) designers so the variety can be even more expanded. A fee can be charged for this kind of promotion and have submission requirements like minimum number of pieces, photography / illustration quality and so on.

Sure I'll admit that it's a little sad to face the possibility of seeing the end of the print magazine, but our planet shouldn't have to pay the price for our whims. Besides, online has much greater potential than magazines ever did, unless they come out with a 'video in the magazine' feature with clickable archives. That's not to practical though price wise.

I think another problem here is really transition, people are buying less magazines because they can go online, well if the magazines would cut print on go totally online people would be forced to pay a fee, this could potentially bring in more money though as if the subscription price dropped even more people would get their magazine needs met online, looking through their Vogue tab while waiting for their email to load and checking what's happening on twitter right? Fear not, go forward

[tigerrouge]

Ah, but 'newer' doesn't necessarily mean 'better'. It can be a ruinous illusion to rely on innovation as somehow always delivering improvement. In areas of business where people don't know what they're doing or where they're going, everyone starts hyping the potential, and relying on flashy, superficial developments to convince everyone that they have a grasp on the future - to distract from the difficulty of creating a proper business model that benefits both consumer and producer.

I see a lot of things that people get excited about, but I'm only interested in the boring old bottom line.

[mikeijames]

Quote:

Originally Posted by softgrey does the younger generation still have that feeling though...? do they care about the hard copy of a magazine>? or are they so used to a digital world that they prefer it?

people of all generations appreciate the REAL thing. i believe, like many others, that magazines will continue to become more of a niche enterprise like that of hardback books and others, but it won't go away. people still buy vinyl. people still watch film on reels. people go to the theatre. people go to concerts. it's because they appreciate the real experience. one must balance this idea against the growth of the population and the globalization of the world. while more people will move away from magazines, even more people in different markets and different demographics will continue to buy magazines.

[ilaughead]

^I don't know, I see 99% of editorials and nearly all articles on my computer rather than in print, and I've never thought once a photo would look better printed in a glossy magazine. I just don't see what paper really adds to the finished product.

[iluvjeisa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilaughead ^I don't know, I see 99% of editorials and nearly all articles on my computer rather than in print, and I've never thought once a photo would look better printed in a glossy magazine. I just don't see what paper really adds to the finished product.

The pictures may not look better in a magazine, but a magazine is a collection of images - and that unit is hard to represent on the computer. I think. I don't think the ipad is there yet, anyhow.

[mikeijames]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilaughead ^I don't know, I see 99% of editorials and nearly all articles on my computer rather than in print, and I've never thought once a photo would look better printed in a glossy magazine. I just don't see what paper really adds to the finished product.

it boils down to whether the representation of a thing is better than the actual thing. do you think the photo shots of the runway look better than the video of the collection? do you think the video of a runway presentation shows the product better than actually going to the runway show? do clothes look better hanging on a rack or actually being worn in the real world?

obviously, i consume a lot of fashion online, but it's just not the same as the real thing. i don't care how much i buy from ysl.com. it's not the same as trying on shoes in the chicago boutique (may it forever rest in peace). as lovely as the prada shirts look hanging on the mannequin through the open store front of prada rodeo drive, it looks that much better on a real man in a nightclub. no number of street shots of women wearing balmain jackets on jakandjil.com will ever compare to the feeling of actually seeing it in the flesh and the attitude that comes with that. love it or hate it.

that's one of the growing pains of the internet experience as our world starts to migrate more and more online is that there exist entire generations who have begun to forget the power of the REAL thing. as time moves forward, i'm confident the tide will turn because it always has. people had this argument when the bound novel came about. yet, we still have live performance. we still value poetry. this debate always comes about with new technology -- no matter what form it takes.

[ilaughead]

^I don't think I understand... a printed photo is no more real than the same image on a monitor.

[mikeijames]

^on that point, we'll have to agree to disagree. one experiences the two differently. it's like saying typing on a laptop is the same as writing with a pencil. it's not the same. we can argue about whether the new generations value one over the other which remains an ongoing debate. but to argue they're the same overlooks something critical. i don't have an ipad sitting on my coffee table logged onto vogue.com. i don't have a library full of computer servers in my country house. may we one day? possibly. but it's not the same thing. not at all.

the experience of flipping through a well-edited and definitive magazine is not the same as clicking through images on line. now, do you value one over the other? that's the metaphysical question we're tackling with this entire conversation. shuffling through my favorite songs on my ipod is not the same as a listening to a musician's LP start to finish.

[tigerrouge]

If we view a magazine as a glorified advertising catalogue, then moving to the internet facilitates that side of things - it makes it easier to get immersed in the commercial environment, and to purchase the items we're led to want.

But there are aspects of the print format that are harder to define... people who love print have a relationship with 'the magazine' that goes deeper than being delighted with the cleverness by which we can now compile our shopping lists.

For me, it's more of a personal, private investment in your own imaginative universe, where the printed page is the starting point for something that I don't want to share with the rest of the world. The content of a magazine is a spur for deeper thoughts, a process which is not aided by watching flashy moments of multimedia nothingness - that's the opposite to what I desire.

In terms of online how-we-made-it content - if I were younger, I would probably adore being able to see much more of what happens behind-the-scenes on cover shoots and catwalk shows, because I would have all the time in the world to absorb every detail of it, but even then, I suspect that I would soon come to see it as repetitive and stuck on a certain level of superficiality that was adding nothing to my need to really understand things.

[ErnstLudwig]

imho books will stay (well edited & organized context in combination with the bookshelf experience).
Print mags and newspapers will sooner or later die. They miss a proper search function and are a waste of natural resources (ads ), when rollable displays are ready and ads/photoshoots shift into 3D the time of extinction is near.

[tigerrouge]

Strangely enough, contents/index + page number + fingers has always worked fine for me - likewise, that other search function of 'reading the articles' and 'remembering what was in them'.

I'm not looking forward to a future where I rot in an armchair because it's not 'modern' to manually or mentally exert myself in any way outside of tapping on a screen, and then being impressed by some squint-inducing recreation of the three dimensions I'm already living in... I'd rather like technology to provide me with something different to that.

[Meg2109]

It's sure affecting the fashion industry but I think it is in a more positive way. It's speed up fashion down here in Australia. What I mean by that is, because of heavier access to the latest seasonal trends online (street style blogs especially), manufacturers have pushed out these trends around 6 months quicker than what they would have.

I don't know how accurate that is but it's what I've noticed in the past year.

[ChrissyM]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meg2109 It's sure affecting the fashion industry but I think it is in a more positive way. It's speed up fashion down here in Australia. What I mean by that is, because of heavier access to the latest seasonal trends online (street style blogs especially), manufacturers have pushed out these trends around 6 months quicker than what they would have. I don't know how accurate that is but it's what I've noticed in the past year.

I think you've made a really good point about how the internet is speeding everything up...
by the time the magazines come out with their september issues etc we've already seen pictures of all the runway shows and upcoming trends in hair and makeup have been discussed...

certain hairstyles from the runway will be copied right away by the masses (i'm thinking of the popularity of the side braid at alexander wang for instance)...
that look became popular long before the images appeared in traditional magazines...

and it almost feels like certain trends start to feel old by the time they hit the stores...
i think everyone ends up being more and more diligent about being on the cutting edge, which is why those big fast-fashion chain stores like zara, h&m etc are sort of beating designers to the punch and getting copies of their designs (or at least versions inspired by their designs) out to the masses before these smaller companies can get things into production..

it's interesting to see and think about how things have changed...

[KaitlynAliano]

Great information has been posted in this thread. Thanks everyone! I am an Internet marketing student and hope to use my skills in the fashion industry upon graduation so this is all very relevant.