Oops! Natmags CEO hits back at New Media Age

Lots of friends, colleagues and clients have expressed bafflement at the lead story on the front page of New Media Age last week. NMA suggested very explicitly (but inaccurately) that Hearst is retreating from its web strategy. We’ve been working with Hearst on strategy and design for over a year now and we knew this wasn’t the case. As planned, Hearst is simply going to be folding some old print title websites into the women’s 35+ digital brand Allaboutyou.com, soon to go onto a new platform with complete redesign.

(And, by the way, we’re currently helping Hearst Digital implement the UK’s second manifestation of social media software Pluck – and it might be the first if we can get in ahead of The Guardian).

Meanwhile, we’ll leave Natmags/Hearst CEO Duncan Edwards to put the record straight. This is his letter to NMA, published this week:

“Your front page story ‘Hearst to shut down four websites in digital u-turn’ (NMA 28.02.08) is inaccurate and confused…

Hearst Digital, the digital division of the National Magazine Company, has not made a u-turn on its strategic plan. The product and organisational changes are consistent with the announcement I made publicly six months ago at the AOP Conference in London. This was widely covered by UK media at the time.

Under the review, Hearst Digital will operate as a standalone digital publishing unit focusing on five core brands: Handbag.com, NetDoctor.co.uk, Cosmopolitan.co.uk, Allaboutyou.com and Getlippy.com. Handbag.com will be used as a blueprint for Hearst Digital’s future plans.

In the article, you state that Hearst Digital is ‘wrapping up’ four magazine sites into a single portal, Allaboutyou.com. In fact, the sites for Good Housekeeping, Country Living, She and Prima will be re-housed alongside Coast and House Beautiful under the umbrella site Allaboutyou.com. However, the content and forums of the existing websites and URLs will remain accessible rather than be ’shut down’, as you claimed.

You also said that Hearst Digital had made a u-turn from ‘keeping its online operations separate from its print stable’. Management of three sites – Babyexpert, Menshealth and You&yourwedding – has been handed over to the magazine teams. These sites are some of the more mature in the portfolio and will be best served by teams who know these markets inside out. This is not a u-turn. It has always been part of our strategy and, again, was announced at the AOP conference last year.

The success of digital publishing for NatMag builds on our strengths as a content creator and media owner. NatMag owns some of the most powerful online digital brands in the market, and this strategy will simplify and strengthen our sales offering for advertisers and ensure that users get access to the best content and interactive tools available.

Other highlights of the strategy include, the launch of a Harper’s Bazaar website in partnership with Handbag.com; the relaunch of the Cosmopolitan site using technology from Handbag; the development and re-engineering of getlippy.com; and the collaboration of Zest with NetDoctor.co.uk to add more wellness content to the existing encyclopedic health database.

It’s disappointing to see that NMA has failed to properly research this story and described the strategic review made last autumn as some form of u-turn. So-called new media might be new, but it still requires old standards of journalism.

From Duncan Edwards, CEO, National Magazine Company