Putting the gloss online

Vogue.com editor Abigail Chisman has been awarded best web magazine editor by the British Society of Magazine Editors.

Comedian Jack Dee presented the award to Ms Chisman at a ceremony at London’s Hilton Hotel on Park Lane on 24 November. Prizes were also awarded in 18 other categories including newspaper magazine editor, entertainment magazine editor and the award for best editors' editor - this year awarded to Boris Johnson of The Spectator.

"I’m delighted to have won - it's tremendously exciting," said Ms Chisman, who started at Vogue in 1996 and has worked solely on the web publication since then.

"Condé Nast was one of the first companies to begin working online," she explained.

"Rather than just jumping on the bandwagon, we wanted a site that would fully complement the brand. We were deliberately cautious."

Vogue.com is completely free, said Ms Chisman, because it operates on an advertising-based business model.

"The key to success is this amazing brand. We have to persuade advertisers to part with their money, and we can do that because we produce the same high-gloss product online."

The site recorded record traffic during October after season's shows, with 6 million page impressions in one week.

"The internet is not just the haunt of geeks and nerds! It’s a fantastic medium, but the industry had to be persuaded that the internet would be taken seriously by consumers."

"The BSME awards are prestigious and well recognised, so just the fact that there is a category for web magazine shows that the medium is being respected."

Condé Nast publishes a family of web sites including Glamour, GQ Magazine and Condé Nast Traveller, which was re-launched last week.

See also:
http://www.vogue.com
http://www.cntraveller.com
http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk
http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk
http://www.bsme.com

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