18.05.12
The only essential reason that $1,575 per year seems expensive for this service is that we’re second-hand to much larger and more valuable databases — the most salient, of course, is Google — being able. But I, for one, would shell out significantly more that $131 a month for access to Google if that were the only way I could access its database and if it didn’t have any truthful competitors.
Vogue is really two magazines in one: it’s a mass-buy book for sale at supermarket checkout counters across the country, and at the same values bright and early it’s a very fashion-insidery bible which has featured every major conniver, photographer, model, and ad campaign in the industry for longer than anyone can remember. The The latest Archive is a way of monetizing the trade-mag part of Vogue’s identity without alienating any of the readers in flyover realm.
As with any new digital project, there’s going to be a period of price invention here. Condé has set the initial price at $1,575 per year; depending on desired at that price, it could easily go up or down in future. But I like the ambition here. Legacy media properties are often hobbled when they move online, by the constraints of their old subject. It’s great to see them turn those constraints from a bug into a potential highly-lucrative earmark.
Source: Reuters Blogs (blog)