Tag Archives: Media & Publishing

Click to buy: fashion blog is a street version of shopping mags

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Most street-style fashion blogs serve their readers primarily as sources of inspiration, but a new London-based blog has added an e-commerce twist to let readers click on looks they like and purchase them on the spot.

Stitsh, which launched earlier this year, offers up galleries of photos of real men and women on the London streets wearing a wide variety of looks and styles. In addition to having subjects sign photo releases, Stitsh’s photographers also find out about the clothes they are wearing and hunt them down in retail stores, forging e-commerce partnerships wherever possible. Users of the site, which is ultimately much like a blog version of shopping magazine Lucky, can then just click on items they’re interested in and be taken to stores where those items—or very similar versions—can be purchased. Photos are arranged by gender, and items are also tagged for easy searchability.

“The way I shop is I look at what people are wearing,” Stitsh founder Dom Fendius told Women’s Wear Daily. “When the street-style blogs came online, I thought, wouldn’t it be great if I could buy the clothing worn in those photos?”

Stitsh is partially funded by ads, but it also works on a commission model, WWD reports. Specifically, each Stitsh reader who clicks through to the site of an online retailer such as Topshop, Miss Selfridge, House of Fraser or French Connection and buys something there earns Stitsh a commission of up to 12 percent. Some stores will even pay Stitsh the commission for shoppers who return to buy something as much as 30 days later, according to WWD. Stitsh currently covers just the streets of London, but Manchester, Stockholm and New York are reportedly in the works. One to partner with or emulate in other parts of the world…?

Website: www.stitsh.com
Contact: dom@stitsh.com

Spotted by: Susanna Haynie

The Power of Photography

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In a fascinating New York Times article, Errol Morris explores the power of images, and how they can shape our thoughts. He starts off examining the infamous doctored Iranian missile photo, and goes on to talk about why we need to question the images we view. He finds that people will tend to believe what they see, even if it’s not true. Changing history can be as easy as changing the photo – either content, or simply the caption.

Morris interviews Hany Farid, a Dartmouth professor and an expert on digital photography:

(Farid) “And even like this missile one. You start putting it out there and saying, “Oh look, this picture? It’s a fake. This picture? It’s a fake.” But you know what people remember? They don’t remember, “It’s a fake.” They remember the picture. And there are psychology studies, when you tell people that information is incorrect, they forget that it is incorrect. They only remember the misinformation. They forget the tag associated with it. They did these great studies, especially with older people. They give them information about health, Medicare, Medicaid, that kind of stuff. And they say, “this information that you heard? It’s wrong.” And what ends up happening is, that information gets ingrained into their brains, and even if they are subsequently told it’s wrong, they end up believing it.”

NYT: “Photography As a Weapon”

Chemical Brothers Request Geo-Tagged Content For Music Video

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For their forthcoming greatest-hits album Brotherhood, The Chemical Brothers have asked fans to submit short video clips (2 to 20 seconds) or photographs that celebrate the “insanity that goes on at the stoke of midnight.” The clips, which have been requested to be related to the specific point of origin and include geo-tags, suggest that the group are planning on creating some sort of crowd sourced montage video incorporating footage from around the world.

Footage for the The Midnight Madness global video project need to be submitted to Google Earth via The Chemical Brothers website by August 25. All submitted clips will be shown on a Google Earth and Youtube channel on September 1st, while a selection of the best clips will be used in the video itself.

The Chemical Brothers

[via Wired]