With style blogs being all the rage these days, iconic American fashion magazine Vogue has decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, better join ‘em.

The democratization of publishing that blogging platforms fueled a few years ago seems to be only an early chapter in a longer story about the move from curated content by the few to tailored content by the many. Piers Fawkes argues that in it’s current form, PSFK’s days could be numbered.

Emarketer has just released some very interesting statistics about the projected number of blogs in the US over a 5-year period from 2008-2013.

Following their launch of Metrotwin last year, a social community that twins different things to do and places to see in New York and London, British Airways have now added another city to their fold – Mumbai.

The It’s Nice That blog is preparing to release issue two of the print version of their website. Focusing on promoting and archiving the best of contemporary creative work, It’s Nice That is using the print medium to expand upon the subject matter they cover online.

Recent discussions about the future of publishing has made me think a lot about PSFK’s approach to publishing. As part of my pondering I put together a simple document with a comparison of an article that features on the Financial Times and PSFK. By looking at an article on the same subject, I wanted to compare and contrast the editorial and business approaches between a “traditional” publisher and a new one without making too much commentary about what is the right or wrong approach. I thought it might be of interest to share.
PDF: A comparison of FT and PSFK articles
Original [...]

Piers Fawkes writes an opinion piece in reaction to industry suggestions that mainstream media will return to charging online.

A quick report from the UK where I witnessed another example of the changing face of news gathering and news reporting The first time I heard the news of Michael Jackson’s death was through news reports on the Sky News cable channel here last night. Although they couldn’t confirm what had happened they were reading on-air reports about what was being reported directly on a Los Angeles based entertainment blog- not an official news service!

Having already repositioning Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag as a column of the Gawker website, Nick Denton’s blog network has folded their Hollywood focused site, Defamer, into the main site too. Denton says that the move will help boost a national readership to the site with New York beginnings.
Hollywood gossip site Defamer is being merged into Gawker, the company’s flagship gossip title. The four-year-old title will continue as Gawker’s entertainment column; the movie-industry stories will remain showcased on Defamer.com but the sites will be staffed and managed as one.
Gawker now draws more than 3m visitors a month — four times [...]

“The blog posts will have no titles. The photos will be random. No text either. Just great photos. (BTW, this is going to be your favorite blog)”
These are nearly the only words found on the cryptic photo blog JJJJound. Started in 2008, it’s a simple Blogspot hosted site which acts as a curated scrapbook housing an eclectic array of images. Content-wise, JJJJound is a mix of fashion, music, architecture, interiors, landscapes, luxury, luggage, cars and more. An image of collectible watches on a silver platter will precede a picture of Charlton Heston holding a rifle followed by an old map. [...]

We’re proud to publish our 10,000th post. We’ve been writing about trends, ideas and other inspiration since June 14 2004 and recently – you may have noticed – we’ve been accelerating in quantity of articles published a day and quality of writing.
This figure doesn’t include the 3,524 posts from Marktd that we still have to import. When we get those in and dedupe, we think we’ll have 13,000 articles on PSFK.
I’d like to thank all the people who have supported us to get to this point – our writers and contributors, the editorial team, the commenters, the folks who send [...]

We’ve written previously about ways the blogosphere is influencing traditional journalism, but in the interest of being equal, we thought a recent piece by Anita Bruzzese noting ten lessons bloggers can learn from journalists was worth mentioning, particularly given the fact that more and more people are turning to alternative media sources to get their news and information.
We’ve extracted Bruzzese’s main points below and follow with our own explanations:

Trust – The most important relationship a writer has is with their readers and they should never underestimate or take advantage of that.
Fact vs. Opinion – The lines between the two are easily blurred [...]

An interesting article from Japan Market News explores the country’s love for blogging – mobile blogging in particular.  According to the Technorati 2007 “State of the Blogsphere” report, Japanese is the #1 blogging language in the world, accounting for 37% of all blog posts, narrowly edging out English at 36%.
The article highlights Japan’s tendency to write about more playful topics such as gossip entertainment and food, whereas Western blogs tend to focus more on discussions and debates.  The post then suggests a correlation between mobile phones and Japan’s high level of frivolous posts.
According to a recent survey, the mobile phone [...]

Richard Huntington has been provoked to ask this question ‘Is blogging killing planning?’ As more and more planners start blogs some elder statesmen of planning have begun to question the validity of the learning experience that blogging provides.