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Steve Smith's Eye on Digital Media: Quietly, Glam.Com Is The Rage.

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Facebook was the huge social-networking hit of 2007, but outside of that realm, a major online story was the meteoric success of Glam Media. Founder (2005) Samir Arora (ex- Apple Computer) has built a network of more than 400 sites, including eBEAUTYDAILY.COM and LUXURYLAUNCHES.COM, and he boasts that it climbed from 10 million users a year ago to over 43 million worldwide today, with 25 million of those coming from the U.S.

"We are now looking into further international expansion led by Australia and Europe," says Glam Media senior director of marketing Jennifer Maclean. She came to Glam Media from gaming mega-site IGN (now owned by Fox Interactive), joining such notable "traditional media" refugees as publishing director Carl Portale, fashion editor Susan Cerneck (both ex-Elle), sales executive vp John Trimble (ex-Fox Interactive), and GLAMLIVING.COM g.m. Joe Lagani (ex-House & Garden).

Maclean says that Glam Media is applying IGN's niche approach to core genres like women's service. In the old "passionate media" (crafts, extreme sports, etc.) model, users often were as expert as editors, and their voices captured the engagement and the fun of the topic as well as seasoned magazine staffs. Now, as the Internet puts digital publishing tools in anyone's hands, we are starting to see that same effect migrate everywhere. "Glam is unique. It's not purely a content hub and not purely a flagship site."

There is a dedicated editorial staff that creates content and knits much of the affiliates' contributions into a very coherent whole. The main pages at Glam look very much like a vertical portal, and it includes partnerships with such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and TV Guide. But for the most part, it is as much curating as creating. "Susan [Cernek] is creating editorial on fashion and style," says Maclean, "but she is also picking relevant articles--about 70% of her time is curating the site."

And cultivating the reputations of the individual sites. While Glam often looks and feels like a familiar, branded women's site (top 10 lists, celebrity snapshots, how-tos) Maclean maintains that the network will differentiate itself from the CondéNets and iVillages. "We're a different animal," she says. "We want to reach audiences through those publishers who are connecting with these audiences. We really want to make the publishers the stars and get their names out there." Most of the independent sites in the network get all of their ad revenue from Glam's, and more than a few have made full-time businesses. IMNOTOBSESSED.COM was started by a New Jersey woman who was just, well, obsessed, with entertainment news--and it is now a full-time job for her.

If there are clear risks to this networking of pro-amateur content, they have not fully revealed themselves. Prestige advertisers are not scared away, because the content is managed ("curated") more carefully than a rag-tag collection of unpredictable blogs. Maclean is not particularly worried about the notorious capriciousness of audiences with independent content. She has seen some sites within the network enjoy sharp rises in popularity but none that dropped off unexpectedly. "The network is nimble," she says. "When something else becomes hot it allows [the marketer] to do it on a scale instead of having to track hundreds of sites."

What we might call a pro-am network is a clear and curious challenge to traditional branded media. How the model fares with advertisers and readers over time is anyone's guess. Will the editorial superiority of branded big media out in the end, or will we see the authority of traditional editorial institutions permanently eroded? If, as I often argue, these pro-am sites and blogs are still heavily dependent on the mainstream media for much of their images, editorial and celebrity access (via links and re-reporting), then how does this eco-system play out? If pro-am media pulls audience and ad revenue from the major brands, then where do the indispensable content-makers get the revenue to support their news-gathering infrastructures?

So many questions, yet so few clear answers yet. The Internet surely has evolved into a whole new animal.

Steve Smith (POPEYESMITH@COMCAST.NET) is Digital Media editor for min/min's b2b, which includes weekly columns and the biweekly min's Digital Media Report e-letter (complimentary to min subscribers). Smith also writes the Mobile Media Report for Access Intelligence, LLC's biweekly Wireless Business Forecast.

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