Condé Nast gets it and starts investing in the web

Not to torture a metaphor, but the great liner Conde Nast has finally swung its bow around and is plunging into the web wave headfirst. An article in the New York Times relates how aggressive competition from other, more nimble bridal sites has caused the U.S.'s second-largest magazine publisher to smarten up and create a new, robust and feature-filled web portal.

Brides.com combines content from three different Condé Nast magazines and the company is preparing another site, for teenage girls. And its projected new business magazine, which is to begin publishing next year, will have a large Internet component with original content.

"These investments mark a new level of commitment to the Web by Condé Nast, the nation's second-biggest magazine publisher after the Time Inc. division of Time Warner, and reflect the new reality in the magazine industry: The Internet is an indispensable companion to print," says the Times article. It quotes Steven Newhouse, scion of the founder of Advance Publications and chairman of Advance.net:

"You gain a broader audience and more loyalty from your subscribers if you extend the experience into the Web."

Among the startling items in the Times story was that Self magazine last year sold 100,000 print subscriptions on the web, out of a total 1.4 million circulation.

As the dowager queens of publishing shrug into flirty skirts, get hip and get serious about the web, are there signs of similar movement in Canada?