I was gonna post this in the Magazine forum but I thought it would be more appropriate here. Mods please relocate this thread if it should be somewhere else 
wsj.com
Conde Nast Digital Loses Style.com
For the past 10 years, Conde Nast’s digital unit has built Style.com into one of the most popular sites for fashion news and information. Now the publishing company is taking Style.com out from under Conde Nast Digital and handing it over to its Fairchild Fashion Group, publisher of WWD and other trades targeting the fashion and retail industries.
Conde Nast executives say the move is a natural pairing of two properties whose audiences increasingly overlap. The Internet has empowered shoppers to influence tastes and set trends, blurring the line between consumers and professionals and changing what it means to be a business-to-business publication. With Style.com, WWD will be able to “speak to both business executives and consumers obsessed with fashion,” said Gina Sanders, president and CEO of Fairchild.
Of course, Fairchild’s gain is Conde Nast Digital’s loss, and this move raises questions about the digital unit’s future role within the publishing empire.
Conde Nast Digital “started non-magazine brands, manages non-magazine brands and it has acquired non-magazine brands,” a Conde Nast spokeswoman said. “Conde Nast corporate continues to look to Conde Nast Digital in those areas.”
For years, Conde Nast’s digital arm handled most of the Web-publishing responsibilities for the magazines. Two years ago Conde Nast began giving magazines more ownership of their Web sites. Magazines like GQ, which had lived online within Conde Nast Digital-run sites like Men.Style.com, began launching standalone sites in recognition that their online audiences were big enough to stand on their own.
Conde Nast Digital president Sarah Chubb insisted this move will benefit both properties. She said while WWD gets to tap Style.com’s large audience of active fashion consumers now numbering about two million unique visitors per month, Style.com will benefit from being attached to a 100-year-old print property. “This feels like a great next step,” Ms. Chubb said.
Style.com’s entire staff of about 15 people will move over to Fairchild. That includes Jamie Pallot, editorial director of Conde Nast Digital. UPDATE: Pallot is staying with Conde Nast Digital.
Fairchild editorial director Peter Kaplan said Style.com “redefined the fashion landscape” and will “complete the fashion package at Fairchild.”
wsj.com
