Peter Kafka

Recent Posts by Peter Kafka

DailyCandy Gets a New Editor: New York Magazine’s Janet Ozzard

DailyCandy, the original and most successful lifestyle newsletter business, has a new editor in chief: Janet Ozzard, the woman who runs New York Magazine’s influential Strategist shopping/fashion guide.

Eve Epstein, an eight-year veteran at the site who has run the edit side for the past three years, is moving from New York to Los Angeles. She’ll stay with DailyCandy, though, as creative director of Swirl, an online sample-sale site that wants to take on the likes of Gilt Groupe.

The move is one of several high-profile changes at DailyCandy within the last few years. The biggest, of course, was when Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group sold the company to Comcast (CMCSA) for $125 million in the summer of 2008.

CEO Pete Sheinbaum moved on last May, and his role was eventually filled by Hearst Digital’s Beth Ellard in August. In December, the company began paring back some of its local editions and laid off some staff in the process. And assuming the deal with GE (GE) and NBC Universal goes through, DailyCandy will end up as part of that combined company (unlike other Comcast digital assets, which will stay with the mother ship).

Here’s a release from DailyCandy that the company was kind enough to provide to me when I called up to confirm the hire. Take note, fellow publicists! This is excellent service!

DailyCandy, the free lifestyle daily e-mail newsletter and website, is hiring Janet Ozzard, editor of New York Magazine’s The Strategist, to be the company’s new Editor-in-Chief. Janet is replacing Eve Epstein, who left DailyCandy to become the Creative Director of Swirl.com, DailyCandy’s new sample sale site which launched in beta late last year.

“New York Magazine’s Strategist section is widely regarded as some of the best content in publishing today,” said Beth Ellard, GM for DailyCandy.  “Janet brings significant editorial experience, strong leadership skills, and a fresh, innovative perspective to DailyCandy, and she will be fantastic in her new role as Editor-in-Chief.”

Janet will be starting with the company in early March.

Latest Video

View all videos »

Search »

I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik