Wireless increasingly ‘In Style’: Women’s magazine latest print effort

In Style is the latest U.S. print publication to go mobile, launching a downloadable application with celebrity photos, fashion trends and shopping information.
The application will include community features that allow users to share comments and recommend shopping finds, as well as offer a chance for users to build personal shopping profiles. In Style Mobile is available on the deck of Sprint Nextel Corp. for $4 a month; the Time Inc. franchise said it will soon be available on every tier-one carrier.
LimeLife Inc., a Menlo Park, Calif.-based startup that specializes in content and applications targeted specifically at women, is powering the service.
“What we’re hearing from women in focus groups is that they share those kinds of similar moments; they still need that kind of (shopping-related) content,” said LimeLife CEO Kristin McDonnell. “This is a great application that is serving that pent-up demand.”
The application is the latest-and perhaps most interactive-offering by a mainstream print periodical looking to leverage the third screen. Hearst Magazines has aggressively moved into mobile, launching wireless Web sites for franchises including Seventeen, Cosmopolitan and Cosmo Girl, while Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S. offers free, ad-supported mobile sites for Elle, Car and Driver and Premiere.
The Wall Street Journal Online last week upgraded its wireless offering, which couples premium content for subscribers with free features and portions of articles for non-subscribers. The site is powered by Mdog.com, a developer that also delivers wireless content for Forbes.com, eBay and Craigslist. And a host of other well-known periodicals have gone wireless in recent months, including The Washington Post, Newsweek, Slate.com, The New York Times and Forbes.
Like most of the print-based wireless offerings, In Style’s new service is centered on content created exclusively for mobile. But while most news-oriented offerings use the wireless Web to deliver brief stories and stock quotes, In Style eschewed WAP in favor of a downloadable application, which makes for a more interactive experience, according to Scott Williams, director of business development and mobile at Time Inc. Interactive.
“It’s a more sophisticated interface; we can exert a lot of control over the UI,” Williams said of the In Style application. “We can also lay down this functionality whether it’s community (or other features) that are just not possible in a WAP environment. WAP is really good for delivering short bits of information, but it’s very bad for functionality right now, in my opinion.”