It’s more than a little ironic that the new “Glo” Web site–a highly stylized women’s lifestyle destination MSN debuted just after midnight today in partnership with Hollywood’s BermanBraun and Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.–will likely be one of the online media sites that shine best on the new Apple (AAPL) iPad.

Even though it was conceived before the tablet was announced and currently uses Apple-barred Adobe (ADBE) Flash in its headline rendering (soon to be adjusted), Glo is actually more aimed at upending the notion of what makes a good women-focused Web site.

With a vertical sweep, simple clean lines and a swoosh navigation bar, it’s the kind of new Internet sensibility informed almost entirely by touch, feel and–especially–visual elements.

And while it has a decidedly glossy magazine tone, Glo is also heavily laced with tools such as online scrapbooks and is strongly social, with deep links into Facebook and Twitter.

Of course, since it is a Microsoft (MSFT) property, Glo also was required to make copious use of its Bing search engine, links to which are constantly present and mostly useful.

Glo is the second dramatic site designed, created and run by the Los Angeles-based production company run by former Yahoo (YHOO) media chief and well-known television exec Lloyd Braun and his business partner, Gail Berman.

The first was a very different kind of celebrity site, Wonderwall, whose consumer engagement metrics have pleased advertisers so much that MSN ordered up another one aimed at fashion, decor, relationships and beauty.

“Obviously design plays a huge role in all we do,” said Braun in an interview with BoomTown yesterday. “We think there is an enormous opportunity to create content and program in a very different way.”

Braun said the site was trying to approximate the “endorphin release” that occurs when women get a new fashion magazine in their hands.

Berman agreed. “There is something very powerful about the connection you can establish with a magazine that has not yet been replicated online as well,” she said. “We are aiming to have a true voice to reach this kind of level of emotional connection with our readers.”

To help that along, as part of the deal with MSN, announced in December, magazine giant Hachette–publisher of Elle, Woman’s Day and Elle Decor–is providing content and editorial expertise to Glo.

There will be seven “packages” a day, with access to archival content too.

Like Wonderwall, Glo will aggregate original, Hachette and third-party content from a variety of partners, but have a voice that new Executive Editor Anne Weintraub–who has been online director for Elle magazine–called “inspirational and also aspirational” and with a heavy dose of imagery.

Instead of the unusual horizontal design that scrolls like Wonderwall, though, Glo goes steeply vertical, although still using a plethora of images and a deeply visual sensibility to attract the eye.

“We are trying to grab the reader in a different way, through linear narration,” Weintraub said in an interview yesterday. “And we also want the women who read it to feel that they are one step away in terms of aspirations, that we reflect their reality on a really good day of theirs.”

The business plan, of course, is advertising. The companies said MSN will lead the advertising sales efforts along with HFM U.S. on selected accounts, with JCPenney, Vaseline and Fox Broadcasting Company (think “Glee” and you get the demo being targeted) as inaugural advertisers.

“Advertisers have been looking for premium content opportunities online and they really are not there in this important space compared to what’s out there in print, for example,” said MSN U.S. head Scott Moore. “Like the celebrity category, we see a lot of room to grow by offering something different and of higher quality.”

Todd Anderman, SVP for Digital Media at HFM, which already has Web sites for its well-known magazines, noted that the company was in uncharted territory. “This is a new brand for all three of us,” he said.

Here are some screenshots from today’s debut (click on the images to make them larger), as well as the full press release below:

MSN, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. and BermanBraun Unveil Glo, a Premium Online Lifestyle Destination for Women

New site features an innovative design that creates the feel of a magazine experience on the Web for women seeking style, beauty and lifestyle content.

REDMOND, Wash.; LOS ANGELES; and NEW YORK–April 6, 2010–MSN, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. (HFM U.S.) and BermanBraun today announced the launch of Glo (www.Glo.com), a lifestyle site that focuses on style, beauty, living and relationship content through a uniquely engaging and dynamic experience. Glo provides users with everyday inspiration and practical ways to attain their best life. It combines the imagery and feel of a magazine with the appeal of a dynamic site such as WONDERWALL, to offer an online destination that is neither traditional Web nor print, but a unique escape for women on the Web.

Glo utilizes a unique vertical scrolling method, a feature that is exclusive to the site as an online lifestyle destination. Glo presents its topics daily with a fresh and in-the-know perspective, filled with glossy, full-screen photo galleries, videos, and unique features. Glo features original content from its editorial team, HFM U.S. properties, MSN properties and relevant content from popular lifestyle sites including Sugar/Sugar Entertainment, LimeLife, Modelinia, Remodelista and more. Key features of Glo include the following:

• Scrapbook. This feature allows readers to save a custom page of their favorite images and ideas from the site, just as if they were tearing them out of a magazine.

• Sharing tools. Sharing tools are included on each page and allow readers to share articles, videos and more with friends and family via e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and Windows Live.

• Bing integration. Bing, the new generation of search from Microsoft, is deeply integrated throughout Glo. Bing is a decision engine that offers a faster way to make more informed choices.

• Facebook. This feature allows customers to comment on articles and videos they see on Glo using their Facebook login information.

• Full-screen photo galleries. Glo is loaded with visually compelling, full-screen photo galleries, covering a range of topics that are better seen than read, such as the best shade of red lipstick and chic body art.

The design, programming and operations of the new digital brand will be spearheaded by BermanBraun and HFM U.S. Glo is accessible at www.Glo.com, as well as through the MSN home page, editorial programming across the MSN network, and across HFM U.S. online properties.

MSN will lead the advertising sales efforts along with HFM U.S. on selected accounts. Major brands such as Vaseline, JCPenney and Fox Broadcasting Company have signed on as inaugural advertisers.

“We are very happy to be partnering with MSN on the launch of the Glo Web site on behalf of the Vaseline® Aloe Fresh lotion line,” said Srini Sripada, marketing director, Unilever Skin Care. “Our goal is to communicate the light, refreshing sensory benefits of the line, and we believe that Glo provides a unique opportunity to reach women who are looking for light, fresh content. We are excited to be engaging in this endeavor.”

Anne Weintraub, who has held various positions at ELLE including former online director, has been appointed as the executive editor of Glo. She has deep editorial experience running online lifestyle experiences dating back to 1999 when she was the founding editor of Beautyjungle.com. Weintraub also worked as a beauty editor at Vogue, and as a freelance journalist for magazines such as InStyle, Harper’s Bazaar and Self.

Women spend more time online looking at lifestyle content than any other category, with 68 percent saying that going online is a great way to relax and 45 percent marking it as the most peaceful part of their day.1 For MSN, lifestyle is among the most popular content categories, reaching more than 8.2 million unique users a month. MSN will offer Glo in conjunction with its lifestyle portfolio, including MSN Lifestyle, Delish and MSN Health & Fitness.

“Lifestyle is one of our top content priorities because of its popularity among consumers and advertisers, and Glo is a great addition to our lifestyle portfolio. The launches of the new MSN home page and WONDERWALL have shown us the importance of delivering visually compelling and innovative designs and how quickly we can attract millions of customers using the distribution power of MSN,” said Scott Moore, regional partner executive producer, MSN. “We’re excited to build on our successful partnership with BermanBraun, adding the category branding expertise and panache of HFM U.S. to deliver a compelling new lifestyle experience on MSN.”

“Following our successful partnership with MSN in bringing WONDERWALL to the celebrity entertainment space, we are thrilled to be partnering with Hachette and MSN to create Glo–a new and unique lifestyle brand. We believe the innovative design and distinctive tone of Glo will excite both the online audience and our advertising partners,” BermanBraun partners Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun said in a joint statement.

“Like all publishers, we are exploring different ways to deliver content onto all platforms,” said Alain Lemarchand, president and CEO, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. “We are very excited about creating a Web-only brand with an original voice that fills an open position in the marketplace. Our collaboration with our two outstanding partners MSN and BermanBraun has been a rich one with each team bringing distinct strengths and voices to the project.”

Today, Microsoft’s search engine-that-could, Bing, will begin rolling out another significant upgrade to the user interface seen by consumers.

The software giant also announced on its Bing blog and at an industry conference that it would integrate status data from hot geolocation start-up Foursquare into its Bing maps as an app.

Bing has already been weaving updates from a variety of social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, into its services.

The New York-based Foursquare, a location-based social networking site that has been growing quickly recently, lets its users “check in” from a variety of locations. In Bing, it will be accessible via “Map Apps.”

Wrote Bing’s Todd Schwartz on the service’s blog in a post titled, “New Stuff Coming From Bing This Spring”:

The foursquare map app is a powerful combination of the spatial canvas that Bing Maps provides, combined with foursquare’s user reputation service ability to see who has unlocked specific badges, where and who has been crowned mayor of certain locations making it easier to explore any city in the world as if you were a local. Let’s say you’re travelling to New York City for the week, but you don’t know what’s hot in Greenwich Village. Selecting the foursquare Map App in Bing Maps, and zooming into to Greenwich Village will get you tips that show you what locals are saying about the hot spots in that area. It’s like an interactive day planner, designed to help find the best things to do in that area. And if you have questions, you can always contact users through foursquare to get the inside scoop.

More interesting, though, is the continuing drive to innovate Bing.

Starting today, pages served up by Bing–which you can see below compared with the old ones–will be more focused, with a range of new navigational elements meant to gauge search “intent” better.

This means relocating its “Quick Tabs” functionality to the top of searches from the side, for example, as well as a more defined “Bing Box,” which pulls information together better.

The goal, said Bing Director Stefan Weitz: To differentiate as much as possible from dominant search rival Google (GOOG).

“Google and Bing are diverging more than ever,” he said in an interview yesterday with BoomTown. “Google is focusing on gathering all the world’s information and we are focused on delivering knowledge based on a user’s intent.”

While it sounds a little like goobledygook, it’s probably a good competitive strategy for Microsoft (MSFT) to avoid competing directly with Google in search.

And so far, it seems to have worked, with Bing’s share growing slowly but surely over the year since its launch, mostly at the expense of Yahoo (YHOO).

Weitz calls the new look on the pages–which will start with a focus on celebrity, auto and travel searches and reach about five percent of U.S. users initially–“not a radical departure, but an evolution.”

And, indeed, new page results from searches for Lady Gaga and Miami Beach, for example, look only slightly different, with added navigational tabs on top and a more task-oriented feel.

In contrast, though, a search for Ford Mustang is dramatically different, with a more visual feel that is almost like a really informative brochure.

Here are screenshots of the befores and afters (click to enlarge):

Miami Beach (old):

Miami Beach (new):

Mustang (old):

Mustang (new):

Lady Gaga (old):

Lady Gaga (new):

“Q: What do you think of the tablet PC?
Jobs: We’re not sure the tablet PC will be successful. It’s turned into a notebook that you can write on. Do you want to handwrite all your email? We have all the technology ourselves to do that–we just don’t know whether it will be successful.”

–Apple CEO Steve Jobs, International Herald Tribune, Sept. 2002

“There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards….We look at the tablet and we think it’s going to fail.”

– Steve Jobs, D: All Things Digital Conference, 2003

At a 2007 all-hands meeting to discuss the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs remarked on the company’s product roadmap. The machines Apple will bring to market in the years ahead, he said, would be “off the charts.”

This morning, Jobs made good on his word, unveiling a new multimedia tablet device called the iPad.

As predicted, the Apple iPad is a portable gadget that falls between the iPhone and Apple’s laptop line. So far, Apple (AAPL) has been highlighting the machine’s ability to deliver audio and visual stuff, including a new way to view the New York Times (NYT) via a custom-made app, games designed by Electronic Arts (ERTS), and an iBook store supported by five major publishers and designed to rival Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle platform.

The hard facts: IPad sports full multitouch functionality, includes 16 to 64-gigabyte flash storage, and provides 10 hours of battery life and one full month of standby time. It is one-half inch thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and comes with a 9.7-inch IPS display, which looks quite sharp.

The standard OS X applications look and work much the same as on the Apple laptop and iPhone. Using a pixel-doubling function, the iPad scales iPhone apps to full-screen without losing much in translation. A new iPhone software development kit geared specifically to the iPad aims to encourage development for its larger screen and is being released today.

Jobs unveiled two big surprises: The lowest-priced version of the machine will cost $500, well below the $800-$1,000 price point pundits had predicted. The lowest-priced 3G-capable machine will be $629. The top-priced device, a 64GB version equipped with 3G capability, will be $829.

Rather than go with Verizon (VZ) as a wireless carrier, Apple is sticking with much-maligned AT&T (T). Wireless services don’t come with the device, but will be sold on a monthly basis. A 250-megabyte plan will run $14.99 in the U.S., and an unlimited plan will go for $29.99.

The complete liveblog of this morning’s Apple iPad event can be seen here.

MSN will announce a new deal with BermanBraun–the Hollywood production company run by former Yahoo media chief and well-known television exec Lloyd Braun (pictured here) and his business partner Gail Berman–to create, design and run an online lifestyle site aimed at fashion, decor, relationships and beauty.

The new site, still unnamed, will launch in the first half of next year.

As part of the deal with MSN, magazine giant Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S.–publisher of Elle, Woman’s Day and Elle Decor–will provide content and editorial expertise.

BermanBraun Interactive and the Microsoft (MSFT) portal already jointly operate the Wonderwall celebrity news site, which was launched earlier this year.

Wonderwall, which is largely run by BermanBraun, has become one of MSN’s more vibrant and successful properties.

Launched last February, the site now reaches 9.5 million monthly unique users on average, racks up more than 225 million page views a month in the U.S., and holds the top rank in engagement–measured by page views and minutes per visit–among celeb sites.

Using an unusual horizontal design with a scrolling “wall,” a plethora of pictures and a deeply visual sensibility, it aggregates content from a variety of partners, but also use a small staff of editors to differentiate it and give it “voice.”

After seeing Wonderwall for the first time, I wrote that “I was struck by the site’s arresting visual design, particularly the easily interactive wall, which has what I can only call an ‘iPhone’ feel combined with a flipping-through-a-magazine tone.”

But, in an interview yesterday, Braun said the new site will be totally different in its design and sensibility.

“We could not be more thrilled about how Wonderwall has gone,” he said. “[But] the design of this [new] site will be very ambitious and there is no similarity….It will be a different type of experience.”

MSN U.S. head Scott Moore said that Microsoft is eager to take “the [BermanBraun] partnership a step further.”

Noting that MSN had been more successful with outside partners creating content, Moore said that the portal has the kind of traffic to allow that original material to thrive.

“This model has worked well for Microsoft over the years,” he said, further noting that “diversity” was a key element in spurring innovation in MSN’s programming.

Said Todd Anderman, SVP for Digital Media at HFM, which already has Web sites for its well-known magazines: “When we look at the market, we see an opportunity to create a new brand.”

While MSN is selling the ads, as with Wonderwall, BermanBraun and HFM will also be part of the effort.

Moore would not discuss financial considerations of the deal, which was first cooked up six months ago, only noting that “everyone has skin in the game.”

But Braun said he was certain of success if the group sticks to making online content special. The site will use content that is original, from HFM and also from other partners.

“If we frame content in a certain way, people are going to click and be engaged,” he said. “It’s a terrific creative challenge.”

What’s perhaps most interesting here is the hard push for a unique editorial product, in contrast to the more aggregated approach of Yahoo (YHOO) and the new thrust by AOL–which will spin off from Time Warner (TWX) next week–aimed at creating content guided by search queries and consumer intent.

In any case, there are lots of roads in the competitive online content space.

Here’s an video interview I did with Braun right before Wonderwall was launched, as well as the press release for the new venture below it:

MSN, BermanBraun, and Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. Partner to Launch New Online Lifestyle Experience

REDMOND, Wash., LOS ANGELES and NEW YORK–Dec. 8, 2009–MSN, BermanBraun Interactive and Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. (HFM U.S.), publisher of ELLE, Woman’s Day and ELLE DECOR brands, have partnered to launch a new online lifestyle experience focused on style, beauty, relationships and home décor. The new site, which will launch in the first half of next year, will present a wide range of accessible content in an aspirational and innovative visual package. The design, programming and operations of the new digital brand will be spearheaded by BermanBraun and HFM U.S. MSN will lead the advertising sales efforts along with HFM U.S. on selected accounts.

BermanBraun and MSN, earlier this year, created and launched Wonderwall.com, which has become one of the top celebrity online news destinations reaching an average of 9.5 million unique users and 225 million page views a month in the U.S. since launch. Wonderwall.com has proved to be popular with advertisers and has achieved substantial success, compelling MSN and BermanBraun to extend their relationship and bring in HFM U.S., which has deep experience in establishing women’s brands on multiple platforms. The new lifestyle site, similar to Wonderwall.com, will be distributed through MSN and promoted on HFM U.S. Web sites and magazine properties. MSN will lead the advertising sales effort along with HFM U.S.

The lifestyle online category currently reaches an average of 100 million people every month, which is more than half of the online audience in the U.S. MSN Lifestyle is highly successful, averaging 7.3 million monthly unique users and 86 million monthly page views over the past 10 months. The new site will be designed to appeal to the highly valuable adult female audience, ages 25–49, building upon the existing MSN audience. This category of users is increasingly spending more time online and looking to the Internet for information on a range of topics. Adult females online are valuable to advertisers, as they tend to be affluent, educated and married with children, and drive many purchasing decisions for their families.

“Lifestyle is one of our top priorities because of its growing popularity and strong appeal to the adult female audience and advertisers that wish to reach them. We see a great opportunity to expand on our current lifestyle offering by delivering a new experience that is unique to the broader lifestyle category,” said Scott Moore, U.S. executive producer, MSN. “We’re excited to build on our proven model with BermanBraun, adding the category branding expertise and panache of HFM U.S. to deliver a compelling new lifestyle experience on MSN.”

“HFM U.S.’s vision is to build strong leading brands,” said Alain Lemarchand, president and CEO, Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. “We believe that the strengths within our relationship are complementary, and together we can create an online destination that will be a unique and compelling experience for women.”

“We are thrilled to be in business with a world-class partner such as Hachette,” said principals Gail Berman and Lloyd Braun. “We look forward to building on our relationship with MSN and creating an innovative and unique lifestyle experience.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091208/exclusive-msn-inks-another-deal-with-wonderwall-creator-bermanbraun-for-online-lifestyle-site/feed/ 1 http://allthingsd.com/20090412/cooliris-nabs-155-million-in-funding-as-it-upgrades-its-3d-wall/ http://allthingsd.com/20090412/cooliris-nabs-155-million-in-funding-as-it-upgrades-its-3d-wall/#comments Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:01:58 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=11876

Internet navigation browser plug-in maker Cooliris, which lets users “see” media on the Web in a more visual manner, has gotten $15.5 million in additional funding from its investors.

The new round includes Kleiner Perkins, Cooliris’s initial investor, as well as DAG Ventures, the Westly Group and T-Mobile’s T-Ventures.

Cooliris had already received $3 million two years ago from Kleiner.

The Palo Alto, Calif.-based start-up is also releasing the latest upgrade to its 3-D “wall” software out of beta, which adds more online content from around the Web, including from social-networking sites like Facebook and from a user’s own hard drive.

The trend toward making the Web browser look like a television screen and navigating information more visually is increasing all over the Internet, from video services like Boxee to visually-oriented search services like Searchme.

“We’re trying to allow users to discover, navigate and consume more of the Web in the same amount of time, using visual means, than people do now through text links,” said Austin Shoemaker, Cooliris co-founder and CTO in an interview last week with BoomTown.

Launched last year with a plug-in called PicLens, Cooliris said that its software had been downloaded 10 million times and that it has three million active daily users. It also has a popular iPhone version of its software.

Here are two more Cooliris screenshots like the one above (click on any of them to make them larger):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090412/cooliris-nabs-155-million-in-funding-as-it-upgrades-its-3d-wall/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080311/searchme-a-new-visual-search-engine/ http://allthingsd.com/20080311/searchme-a-new-visual-search-engine/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 07:03:22 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080310/searchme-a-new-visual-search-engine/ [Updated with correct funding of $31 million and note that Google has a similar effort in its labs.]

Today, Sequoia Capital, which has been a key investor of search giant Google (GOOG), as well as Yahoo, will unveil its latest investment in search, a visual search engine called: Searchme.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which has been germinating for three years, has raised $31 million from Sequoia and others to further its efforts to make search look more lively.

(Specifically: $400,000 in Series A financing from Sequoia in July of 2005; $3.6 million in Series B funding from Sequoia in January of 2006; $12 million in Series C funding from Sequoia and DAG Ventures in June of 2007; and $15 million in Series D funding from Lehman Brothers, DAG and Sequoia in October of 2007.)

And, indeed, Searchme does look good, resembling a mashup of Google with Apple’s (AAPL) popular Cover Flow three-dimensional graphical user interface used on its iTunes service, with a little of Ask.com’s categories thrown in.

For now, Searchme is only going into private beta, adding users by invitation only.

To create the page-riffling effect, seen below in this screen grab (click on it to make it larger), Searchme has been working with Adobe. The top screen, after a search term has been entered, then creates a stack of pages to represent the page links on a list below.

Searchme’s chairman is Sequoia partner Mark Kvamme. Longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur Randy Adams will serve as co-founder and CEO (CMO John Holland is its third co-founder).

Despite imaging billions of pages and indexing one billion pages, Adams acknowledges that results rendered are still weak, noting the site needs time to become more and more relevant.

A search of the name of my partner and well-known tech reviewer Walt Mossberg, for example, came up with some esoteric pages related to him first, well before it showed pages from this site or The Wall Street Journal.

“We are no Google, of course, but we are trying something different to provide a new experience for search users,” said Adams. “Most of all, we are trying to innovate in search, which is still largely a text and list experience.”

Adams has a point about the lack of innovation in search over the last several years by leader Google, which continues to grow its market share anyway. Google, in fact, does have a similar offering in its labs, but has not rolled it out.

So, it is nice to see some interesting ideas brought to fruition–even if Searchme really does look exactly like an iTunes copycat–in the sector.

As to the business model? It will be advertising, of course, both in text links and also in a more vibrant way on the image pages.

Here’s a video interview that I did with Adams late last week about Searchme, along with two Searchme demo videos below it:

[ See post to watch video ]

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. ]]> http://allthingsd.com/20080311/searchme-a-new-visual-search-engine/feed/ 7