Ryan Gavin and Dean Hachamovitch, Marketing Guy and Engineer, respectively, for Internet Explorer, have announced that the final build and release of Internet Explorer 9 will indeed be at the party they’re throwing at South by Southwest in Texas on March 14th, 2011. They’ve decided to first announce this to their very favorite community at Channel9, a bunch of developers who are in love with the internet platform, and they’ve spoken here in a video at length what the browser will be able to do.
This browser has been in production for approximately a year, and now they’re going to release it, thanking profusely the community of developers who have stepped up to help them in making this a platform that has a chance at competing with the rest of the powerhouse browsers out in the market today. As you know, Internet Explorer
Hachamovitch will be doing a keynote at MIX 10 as well, showing off how the platform is rolling out, as a sort of “look what we did in a year” sort of thing. These two fellas sitting on the couch are super excited about this rollout and after saying what they came to say, they made sure to prompt Channel9 for what they call an “uncomfortable question.” What Channel9 decided to ask about was HTML5, to which they reply “WE’RE FOR IT!”
Of course the developer community knows this already, so the question is pressed, beyond what HTML5 can do for the everyday user, what does IE9 offer the fringe users who want features that not everyone will use? Hachamovitch replies with a sort of well, we DO do that, we’ve implemented things like Navigation Timing which “got 0% usage on the web,” he then going on to say that they’ve added items that don’t just come from developers who request things, they’ve essentially come up with elements that they and people at Yahoo, Google, and etc have spoken about behind the scenes, bringing these “fringe” features into IE9 at launch.
Essentially what they’re speaking about in this video and what will be coming with Internet Explorer 9 is depth as well as quality implementation of features. We’re hoping for the best!
If you don't know much about Justin Bieber's rise to superstardom, James Parker provides a good primer:
How did he do it? With YouTube, that’s how. Kissed in his cradle by the witch of the Web, Justin was throwing up little promo reels by the time he was 12. Singing a Brian McKnight song into the bathroom mirror. Or sitting on some municipal steps somewhere, busking mightily about the Lord: “You’re my God and my Fa-ther!” he bellows through the legs of passersby, the wooden body of his guitar reverberating with his shouts. ...
Bieber wasn’t from the Disney factory, and he didn’t have a show on Nickelodeon, so the marketing plan was skewed toward his already established constituency in social media: lots of Facebooking and YouTubing and sugary tweets to his millions-strong Twitter army.
Surface Encounters
Chad Ochocinco of Cincinnati Bengals gets reserve spot on Sporting KC
After a five-day tryout, NFL star Chad Ochocinco has been awarded a spot on the reserve team for Sporting Kansas City of Major League Soccer.
Surface Encounters
Jon Stewart Calls Out NBC <b>News</b> For Not Reporting on GE's $0 Tax <b>...</b>
On Friday, The New York Times reported that General Electric paid no U.S. federal income tax in 2010, despite earning $14.2 billion in profits. While.
Surface Encounters
4000 bodies still remain unidentified following quake | Kyodo <b>News</b>
The identities of around 4000 bodies collected following the March 11 mega earthquake and ensuing tsunami still remain unconfirmed in severely-damaged Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, a local police tally showed Tuesday. ...
Surface Encounters
Dirty Percent
Tuesday, 1 March 2011
It’s not hard to make the case that Apple’s new in-app subscription system offers numerous benefits to users, developers, and publishers. But whatever those benefits, they stem from the mere existence of these new subscription APIs. What’s controversial is the size of Apple’s cut: 30 percent.
No one is arguing that Apple shouldn’t get some cut of in-app purchases that go through iTunes. And, if Apple were taking a substantially smaller cut, there would be substantially fewer people objecting to Apple’s rules (that subscription-based publishing apps must use the system; that they can’t link to their external sign-up web page from within the app; and that they must offer in-app subscribers the same prices available outside the app).
The reasonable arguments against Apple’s policies seem to be:
Apple should be taking less, perhaps far less, than 30 percent.
Apple should not require subscription-based apps to use the in-app subscription APIs. If it’s a good deal for publishers, they’ll choose to use the system on their own.
Apple should not require price-matching from subscription offers outside the app. Publishers should be allowed to charge iOS users more money to cover Apple’s cut.
Apple should consider business models that simply can’t afford a 70/30 revenue split.
Let’s consider these in reverse order.
Apple Should Consider Business Models That Can’t Afford a 70/30 Revenue Split
Apple doesn’t give a damn about companies with business models that can’t afford a 70/30 split. Apple’s running a competitive business; competition is cold and hard. And who exactly can’t afford a 70/30 split? Middlemen. It’s not that Apple is opposed to middlemen — it’s that Apple wants to be the middleman. It’s difficult to expect them to be sympathetic to the plights of other middlemen.
Some of these apps and services that are left out might be ones that iOS users enjoy, though. This is the leading argument for how this new policy will in fact hurt users, and, as a result, Apple itself: it’ll drive good apps off the platform. Frequently mentioned examples: Netflix and Kindle. For all we know, though, Netflix may well be fine with this policy. Apple would only get a 30 percent cut of new subscriptions that go through the Netflix iOS app, and that might be a bounty Netflix can live with in exchange for more subscribers. Keep in mind, too, that Netflix and Apple seemingly get along well enough that Netflix is built into the Apple TV system software.
Kindle, and e-book platforms in general, are a different case. For one thing, Kindle doesn’t use subscriptions. Kindle offers purchases. Presumably, given Apple’s rejection of Sony’s e-book platform app last month, Apple is going to insist on the same rules for in-app purchases through apps like Kindle as they do for in-app subscriptions. If so, something’s got to give. The “agency model” through which e-books are sold requires the bookseller to give the publisher 70 percent of the sale price. So if the publisher gets 70 and Apple gets 30, that leaves a big fat nothing for Amazon, or Barnes & Noble, or Kobo, or anyone else selling books through native iOS apps — other than iBooks, of course.
But leaving aside the revenue split, there are technical limitations as well. The existing in-app purchasing system in iOS has a technical limit of 3,500 catalog items. I.e. any single app can offer no more than 3,500 items for in-app purchase. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of Kindle titles.
Something’s got to give here. I don’t know what, but there must be more news on this front coming soon. I don’t believe Apple wants to chase competing e-book platforms off the App Store.
Apple Should Not Require Price Matching
Why not allow developers and publishers to set their own prices for in-app subscriptions? One reason: Apple wants its customers to get the best price — and, to know that they’re getting the best price whenever they buy a subscription through an app. It’s a confidence in the brand thing: with Apple’s rules, users know they’re getting the best price, they know they’ll be able to unsubscribe easily, and they know their privacy is protected.
Credit card companies insist on similar rules: retailers pay a processing fee for every credit card transaction, but the credit card companies insist that these fees not be passed on to the customer. Customers pay the same price as they would if they used cash — which encourages them to use their credit card liberally. (Going further, many charge cards offer cash back on each purchase — they can do this because the cash-back percentage refunded to the customer is less than the transaction processing fee paid by the retailer.)
So the same-price rule is good for the user, and good for Apple. But Matt Drance argues that Apple could dissipate much of this subscription controversy by waiving this rule:
The requirement that IAP content be offered “at the same price
or less than it is offered outside the app,” combined with the
70/30 split, means developers must make less money off of iOS by
definition. They can’t price their IAP content higher to offset
the commission, nor can they price their own retail content lower.If I am interpreting this correctly, I can’t bring myself to see
it as reasonable. […] I think a great deal of this drama could
go away if Apple dropped section 11.13 while keeping section
11.14: Your prices on your store are your business; just don’t
be a jerk and advertise the difference all over ours.
And I agree with him. Yes, the same-price rule is good for users and for Apple, but waiving this rule wouldn’t be particularly bad for users or for Apple, either — and it would give publishers some freedom to experiment.
I suspect one reason Apple won’t budge is that their competitors — like Amazon — insist on best-price matching.
Apple Should Not Require Apps to Offer In-App Subscriptions
I’m sympathetic to this argument, too. “If you don’t like our terms, don’t use our subscription system.” But it has occurred to me that this entire in-app subscription debate mirrors the debate surrounding the App Store itself back in 2008 — that 30 percent was too large a cut for Apple to take, that it shouldn’t be mandatory, etc. The same way many developers wanted (and still want) a way to sell native iOS apps on their own, outside the App Store, many publishers now want a way to sell subscriptions on their own, outside the App Store.
The fact is, the App Store is an all-or-nothing affair. You play by Apple’s rules or you stick to web apps through Mobile Safari. This alternative is no different for periodical publishers than it was (and remains) for app developers in general. A lot of these demands boil down to a desire for more autonomy for native iOS app developers. Apple has never shown any interest in that.
There’s one striking difference between the subscription controversy today and the App Store controversy in 2008: with subscriptions, Apple is taking away the ability to do something that they previously allowed. There was never a supported way to install native apps for iOS before the App Store. Subscriptions sold outside the App Store, on the other hand, were allowed until last month.
Apple Should Be Taking Less, Possibly Far Less, Than 30 Percent
Another difference between the App Store itself and in-app subscriptions is that with apps, Apple hosts and serves the downloads. Apple covers the bandwidth, even for gargantuan gigabyte-or-larger 99-cent games. The OS handles installation.
With in-app subscriptions (and purchases), however, the app developer is responsible for hosting the content, and for writing the code to download, store, and manage it. So — one reasonable argument goes — given that Apple is doing less for subscription content than it does for apps (or for music and movies purchased through iTunes), Apple should take less of the money.
Taken further, the argument boils down to this: that for in-app subscriptions and purchases, Apple is serving only as a payment processer — and thus, a reasonable fee for transactions would be in the small single digits — 3, 4, maybe 5 percent, say. More or less something along the lines of what PayPal charges.
Apple, I think it’s clear, doesn’t see it this way. Apple sees the entire App Store, along with all native iOS apps, as an upscale, premium software store: owned, controlled, and managed like a physical shopping mall. Brick and mortar retailers don’t settle for a single-digit cut of retail prices; neither does the App Store.
Seth Godin argues that Apple’s 30 percent cut is too big to allow publishers to profit:
Except Apple has announced that they want to tax each subscription
made via the iPad at 30%. Yes, it’s a tax, because what it does is
dramatically decrease the incremental revenue from each
subscriber. An intelligent publisher only has two choices: raise
the price (punishing the reader and further cutting down
readership) or make it free and hope for mass (see my point above
about the infinite newsstand). When you make it free, it’s all
about the ads, and if you don’t reach tens or hundreds of
thousands of subscribers, you’ll fail.
Godin’s logic strikes me as questionable. For one thing, he freely switches between a newsstand metaphor (arguing, perhaps accurately, that the App Store is too large for publishers to gain attention from potential readers in the first place — you won’t read what you never notice) and the economics of subscriptions. But subscribers are the opposite of newsstand readers. Newsstand readers are buying a single copy, often on impulse. Subscribers are readers who are already hooked, and who know what they want. Put another way, the size of Apple’s cut of subscription revenue — whether it were higher or lower — has no bearing on the “attention at the newsstand” problem.
Second, the problem facing traditional publishers today is that circulation is falling. Newsstand sales and subscriptions are falling, under pressure from free-of-charge websites and other forms of digital content. The idea with Apple’s 70-30 revenue split is that developers and publishers can make it up in volume — that people aren’t just somewhat more willing to pay for content through iTunes than other online content stores, they are far more willing. The idea is that Apple has cracked a nut no one else1 has — they’ve created an ecosystem where hundreds of millions of people are willing to pay for digital content. Thus, potentially, publishers won’t just make more money keeping only 70 percent of subscription fees generated through iOS apps than they are now with 96 percent (or whatever they’re left with after payment processing fees) of subscription fees they’re selling on their own — they stand to make a lot more money.
I’m not guaranteeing or even predicting that it’s going to work out that way. I’m just saying that’s Apple’s proposition.
Godin’s assumption is that iOS in-app subscriptions won’t significantly increase the number of subscribers. If he’s right about that, then he’s right that Apple’s 30 percent cut will prove too expensive for publishers. But Apple’s bet is that in-app subscriptions can dramatically increase the number of subscribers. Consider the app landscape. Apple’s 30 percent cut didn’t drive the price of paid apps up — the nature of the App Store drove prices down. It’s a volume game.
The App Store itself proves that Apple might be right. Like with app sales, in-app subscriptions won’t work for every publication. But it could work for many. It really is possible to make it up in volume.
And if a 70-30 split for in-app subscription revenue doesn’t work, the price will come down. That’s how capitalism works. You choose a price and see how it goes. I’ll admit — when the App Store launched in 2008, I thought Apple’s 70-30 split was skewed too heavily in Apple’s favor. Not that it was wrong in any moral sense, but that it was wrong in a purely economic sense: that it might be more than developers would be willing to bear. Apple, clearly, has a better sense about what prices the market will bear than I (and, likely, you) do.
Competition vs. Anti-Competition
One last argument I’ve seen regarding these in-app subscription rules is that it’s further evidence of anti-competitive behavior from Apple. That makes sense only if you consider iOS to be the entire field of play. Apple, though, is competing at a higher level. They’re competing between platforms: iOS vs. Kindle/Amazon vs. Android/Google vs. Microsoft, and in some ways, vs. the free web. Why should publishers make an app rather than just a mobile web site? For happier customers and more money.
Sony has a platform for e-books. Amazon has a platform for e-books. Barnes & Noble has a platform for e-books. Apple has a platform for e-books. But Apple is the only one which allows its competitors to have apps on its devices. And Apple is the anti-competitive one? I’m no lawyer, but if the iTunes Music store hasn’t yet been deemed a monopoly with Apple selling 70+ percent of digital music players, then I doubt the App Store will be deemed a monopoly for a market where Apple has never been — and, according to market share trends, may never be — the top-selling smartphone maker, let alone own a majority of the market, let alone own more than a single-digit sliver of the phone market as a whole. As for ruthless profiteering, consider that Amazon, with their e-book publishing, originally took the fat end of a 70-30 revenue split with authors.
One question I’ve been asked by several DF readers who object to Apple’s new in-app subscription and purchasing policies goes like this: What if Microsoft did this with Windows, and, say, tried to require Apple to pay them 30 percent for every purchase made through iTunes on Windows? To that, I say: good luck with that. Microsoft couldn’t make such a change by fiat. The whole premise of Windows (and other personal computer systems) is that it is open to third-party software. Apple couldn’t just flip a switch and make Mac OS X a controlled app console system like iOS — they had to introduce the Mac App Store as an alternative to traditional software installation. If Microsoft introduced something similar to the Mac App Store for Windows, Apple would simply eschew it. If Microsoft were to mandate an iOS App Store-like total control policy for all Windows software, they’d have a revolt in their user base that would make Vista look like a success.
iOS isn’t and never was an open computer system. It’s a closed, controlled console system — more akin to Playstation or Wii or Xbox than to Mac OS X or Windows. It is, in Apple’s view, a privilege to have a native iOS app.
This is what galls some: Apple is doing this because they can, and no other company is in a position to do it. This is not a fear that in-app subscriptions will fail because Apple’s 30 percent slice is too high, but rather that in-app subscriptions will succeed despite Apple’s (in their minds) egregious profiteering. I.e. that charging what the market will bear is somehow unscrupulous. To the charge that Apple Inc. is a for-profit corporation run by staunch capitalists, I say, “Duh”.
If it works, Apple’s 30-percent take of in-app subscriptions will prove as objectionable in the long run as the App Store itself: not very.
With few surprises, techies were underwhelmed with Apple’s iPad 2 announcement, but I’m confident that consumers will be thrilled with the product. Apple already had a massive lead in the consumer tablet market it created, and these “underwhelming” upgrades should keep the company comfortably ahead. Apple has given competitors an opening by sticking to 3G, and it did not further pressure them with a lower entry price point or higher-resolution display. However, Apple has three critical advantages.
1. Brand: When consumers are thinking about tablets, they say they are buying an “iPad,” not a “tablet.” The iPad was already the category and volume leader, and the iPad 2 builds on that. In this respect, Apple actually benefits from the crowd of new tablets hitting the market. If there were only one or two strong competitors, consumers would be able to weigh the pros and cons of each offering, but with dozens and dozens of options hitting the market over the next few months, decision paralysis can set in and many consumers will throw up their hands and make the “safe” choice: the iPad.
2. iTunes: The iPad is still the only tablet on the market with a huge digital marketplace for movies, TV shows, and music. Some competitors are taking steps in this direction (e.g., Samsung’s Hub), but iTunes remains a significant competitive advantage.
3. App Store: If all you want to do is browse the Web and check e-mail, any tablet will probably suffice. However, Apple has an enormous lead in purpose-built apps. The Android ecosystem is strong and app availability should improve significantly over time, but the iPad 2 is considerably more versatile than any of its competitors right now, and it appears unlikely to lose its lead any time in the near future.
So if you are competing with Apple, what should you do? Rather than copying Apple’s products, copy its old advertising tag line and Think Different.
Apple’s brand is focused on creative types (or those who aspire to be), which is why it spends so much effort creating things like GarageBand. Competitors should target IT managers, knowledge workers, outdoorsy people, or some other group and build software and hardware combinations better suited to those use cases. Of course, this will take imagination and the ability to tie hardware, software, and services together to build unique experiences. There are some companies thinking outside the box (HTC and RIM have clearly differentiated products on their roadmaps), but for the vendors who are trying to out-Apple Apple… good luck. Here are some pointers, you’re going to need them:
• Based on Apple’s financials, it is clear that the iPad with WiFi is Apple’s volume product and 3G versions are merely gravy. Why is the competition only targeting the gravy?
• iTunes remains a significant competitive advantage for Apple – I cannot easily explain to novices how to get a movie onto the XOOM. Rivals need an “iTunes” of their own, but having one just achieves parity with Apple, so partnering is an acceptable approach. However, half measures are not enough; digital media stores must include movies (including rentals) and TV shows and music. If multiple partners are used, the tablet vendor still needs to provide a common interface and single account/billing relationship.
• Nintendo has a significant base of game developers targeting the 3DS; if you cannot muster equivalent resources (for gaming, media playback, or some other use), adding 3D to your tablet is just a gimmick.
• Apple’s rivals can compete on 4G, higher-resolution displays, or a lower price. Even speed is a potential differentiator from a technical perspective; NVIDIA has quad-core processors sampling this month, so rivals could build even faster tablets for this holiday season. However, I must still caution vendors that all of these factors are irrelevant if consumers do not want your product.
Surface Encounters
Surface Encounters
In our second installment of The Business of Blogging, we speak to the uber-talented Tommy Ton, founder of Jak & Jil and streetstyle photographer for Style.com and GQ.com
PARIS, France — “It was the summer of 1997 and I was 13 years old,” recalls Tommy Ton, now 27, describing the moment when a self-professed comic book nerd from the suburbs of Toronto first became interested in fashion. “My sister asked me to record Fashion Television and all of a sudden Tom Ford comes on and talks about women, and his idea of sex. He was so eloquent in his choice of words. It was love at first sight.”
From that moment, Mr. Ton embarked on what has been described as a something of a fairytale, becoming the world’s most influential street style fashion photographer today. But achieving such success is rarely that simple — or easy.
More than just a skilled photographer with a good eye and encyclopedic knowledge of fashion, Ton has proven himself to be a savvy digital operator with a potent mixture of ambition, work ethic and strategic thinking that has enabled him to discover and hone in on his special talent. His humility throughout it all has endeared him not only to the stylish women he has made famous, but also to fellow fashion bloggers and his growing list of paying clients.
Yes, Tommy Ton is building a business, and he’s proud of it.
At first, Mr. Ton says he simply became infatuated with fashion. “I’d bike to the library, tear out ad campaigns, and make collages of Gucci and Versace,” he explains over dinner during Paris Fashion Week. At age 15, he interned with the Toronto designer Wayne Clark and then in the women’s accessories department of Holt Renfrew, Canada’s leading luxury department store.
From the beginning, Ton has been a fervent but charming networker, not afraid to approach and build relationships with the industry’s top players. “I made an effort so Barbara Atkin knew who I was,” he says, referring to the Holt Renfrew’s highly-respected fashion director. This ultimately landed him a gig in the store’s buying office, furthering his understanding of the fashion business, but still not quite sating his fashion appetite.
“I was there in the Summer of 2004 when web magazines first started popping up,” he says. Ton started taking classes in digital photography and met with friends who did graphic design, before deciding to start Jak & Jil, which was initially conceived in 2005 as a lifestyle website focused on the product and people in Toronto.
“Then my guardian angel came along,” says Ton, referring to Lynda Latner, proprietor of vintagecouture.com. “She hired me because she saw my site and thought I could help her.”
In 2007 when Latner offered to send Ton to Europe to attend the shows in London and Paris, he had his first opportunity to experiment with street photography during fashion week, a trend which was just beginning to take off due to the pioneering work of Scott Schuman and Garance Doré.
“My first show in Paris was Balmain. I had no idea what Balmain was at the time, or what it was going to be, but all the girls were in that that show, like Daria, Irina, and Anja, and they played the Cure on the soundtrack. As soon as that show was done, it was raining outside…and I was dancing in the rain. I just felt so uplifted. I could not believe what fashion could do for you,” recalls Ton nostalgically. “To have that moment in Paris, at your very first show…it was magical.”
Using his “Canadian connections,” Ton also managed to get into Chanel, YSL, Dries van Noten and Rick Owens that first season. But in all the excitement, Ton says he didn’t know who or what to shoot. “I just shot what I thought was visually amazing. I didn’t know who Emmanuelle Alt was, or Kate Lanphear or even Anna Dello Russo.”
Almost immediately after this first trip, the Canadian fashion media took note of Ton’s photography, beginning with Flare magazine editor Lisa Tant. “Because of that trip, I got a page in Flare which gave me a validated reason to go back,” he says.
By 2008 Ton was already seeking a way to stand out from the growing hordes of photographers outside the shows who were mostly aping Schuman’s photographic style. “I thought, ‘I’m so tired of taking head-to-toe shots. No one can touch Scott at those photos — he is the king.’ I wanted my photos to stand out. That’s when I stated taking the candid shots.”
Ton’s landscape-style images focused in on the little details that caught his well-trained fashion eye — a towering Louboutin stiletto here, a pop of colour there on his favourite subjects as they walked into the shows. He rarely asked them to pose. Ton was developing a photographic style that that has now become instantly recognisable as his own, capturing the raw energy and excitement of fashion week. Fellow blogger Tavi Gevinson later remarked, “You always know what a Tommy Ton photograph looks like.”
He re-purposed Jak and Jil into a blog, and started posting two or three of his new style of photographs each day. This caught the attention of influential bloggers like Susanna Lau of Style Bubble and Rumi Neely of Fashion Toast, who helped to spread the word.
Two and half months later, Ton received an email from the head of marketing at Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, asking him to shoot their Spring/Summer 2009 campaign.
“I said yes, but I didn’t even know what my worth was,” says Ton. “After talking to my business friends in the industry, I threw a figure at Lane Crawford. It was a bit too much, but we negotiated, and I was proud of myself because I was able to get an amount that I was satisfied with and which they were willing to pay.”
With his reputation spreading, Ton’s confidence began to grow. “During the Fall/Winter 2009 season, people started to know who I was. Scott [Schuman] actually knew my work. I was officially blogging and shooting for Lane Crawford at the same time. That was the season I knew what I was doing, and I knew what I wanted to shoot. It was the beginning of something.”
Another important shift came the following season in Milan, when Ton was seated in Dolce & Gabbana’s front row, alongside Doré, Schuman and Bryanboy, an image that was plastered in the fashion media around the world, signalling the arrival of fashion bloggers. “That was a huge moment. It was all due to Anna Dello Russo. She was the one who told Domenico and Stefano: ‘These are the people who are changing things.’”
From then on, the front row tickets came in fast and furious. Everyone wanted Ton to shoot at their shows, knowing his images would be seen by thousands of fashion enthusiasts and influencers around the world. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and others came calling. “They were emailing to buy photos,” he says.
Ton went from ultimate fashion outsider to insider almost overnight.
But the real turning point came a few weeks earlier when Style.com’s editor-in-chief Dirk Standen asked Ton to step into the formidable shoes of Scott Schuman, whose own photography career had gone stratospheric, in no small part due to the platform given to him by Style.com. Schuman had decided to leave Style.com to focus on other projects, and Ton now had the most high-profile streetstyle photography gig in the business.
“Being associated with Style.com is a huge deal for me. It’s what everyone looks at every day. People go to Style.com like you brush your teeth in the morning. It’s something you just do,” enthuses Ton.
By now, the time had come for Ton to seek professional representation. An introduction to elite agency The Collective Shift—which also represents top fashion photographers Inez and Vinoodh and super-stylist Melanie Ward—instantly felt like the right fit. Ton also signed on Trunk Archive to act as his image licensing agency, removing the burden of negotiating image rights and contracts on his own and dramatically increasing what he could earn from selling his images to the likes of American Vogue, Elle UK, and Vogue Nippon.
“Before, I was underselling myself, getting about $50-100 per image.” Today, Ton reports that he can earn from as little as $100 up to $2000. “The the thing I’ve learned is that you have to really consider whether it’s a one page image or a ½ page image or ¼ page image. It’s a really big deal when it’s one image over two pages in Grazia for example, whereas if it’s ⅛ of a page in Vogue, it is much less. I’m lucky to have Trunk Archive to deal with all that now.”
But image licensing only makes up about 30 percent of the revenue he earns. The remaining 70 percent comes from a variety of projects, including his gigs for Style.com, GQ.com, but also for retailers and brands such as Topshop, Selfridges, Sergio Rossi and Saks 5th Avenue.
Ton says he has made an intentional decision not to have advertising on his site. “It’s an association with your brand. I didn’t want my blog to be associated with any type of branding,” he explains.
But would he ever take pay for editorial placement on Jak & Jil itself? “Yes,” he says matter-of-factly. “But that requires a discussion between my agent, my client and me. The thing about the development of the Tommy Ton brand and the Jak & Jil brand is that everything is strategically selected and carefully monitored. We have to see potential growth in it, and understand what’s in it for us.”
When pressed on the criteria he uses for this kind of paid content, so as not to alienate his audience, he pauses to think. “It’s definitely gut instinct. It just has to be of the moment and relevant for the time.” His readers shouldn’t be able to tell the difference, he says, because the images he creates would be the kind he would post anyway. The standards are the same, and the images are just as powerful.
All the same, Tommy Ton also realizes this is his moment and it may not last forever. “I don’t even know if I will be able to earn the money I do now in a few years. I don’t know if I will be relevant or not. I am just lucky that people want to associate with me and their brand right now.”
And what about all that competition from the hundreds of streetstyle bloggers outside the shows? “You always have to stay on top of your game, and the only way to do that now is to have exclusive content,” he asserts. Recently, Ton has been invited to shoot behind-the-scenes at the Proenza Schouler studio and the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
“I’m not making any money from it, but it gives me access no one else would have. I take a lot of pride in that. I am so, so happy I am invited to do these things,” he says, recalling that 13 year old kid watching Tom Ford on TV back in Toronto. “In some ways I still feel like an outsider, even though I am acknowledged by these designers. I am still in awe of what is going on.”
Imran Amed is founder and editor of The Business of Fashion
The Business of Blogging is a new series on the rarely discussed business side of fashion blogging. Previous articles are listed below:
Susie Bubble
In our second installment of The Business of Blogging, we speak to the uber-talented Tommy Ton, founder of Jak & Jil and streetstyle photographer for Style.com and GQ.com
PARIS, France — “It was the summer of 1997 and I was 13 years old,” recalls Tommy Ton, now 27, describing the moment when a self-professed comic book nerd from the suburbs of Toronto first became interested in fashion. “My sister asked me to record Fashion Television and all of a sudden Tom Ford comes on and talks about women, and his idea of sex. He was so eloquent in his choice of words. It was love at first sight.”
From that moment, Mr. Ton embarked on what has been described as a something of a fairytale, becoming the world’s most influential street style fashion photographer today. But achieving such success is rarely that simple — or easy.
More than just a skilled photographer with a good eye and encyclopedic knowledge of fashion, Ton has proven himself to be a savvy digital operator with a potent mixture of ambition, work ethic and strategic thinking that has enabled him to discover and hone in on his special talent. His humility throughout it all has endeared him not only to the stylish women he has made famous, but also to fellow fashion bloggers and his growing list of paying clients.
Yes, Tommy Ton is building a business, and he’s proud of it.
At first, Mr. Ton says he simply became infatuated with fashion. “I’d bike to the library, tear out ad campaigns, and make collages of Gucci and Versace,” he explains over dinner during Paris Fashion Week. At age 15, he interned with the Toronto designer Wayne Clark and then in the women’s accessories department of Holt Renfrew, Canada’s leading luxury department store.
From the beginning, Ton has been a fervent but charming networker, not afraid to approach and build relationships with the industry’s top players. “I made an effort so Barbara Atkin knew who I was,” he says, referring to the Holt Renfrew’s highly-respected fashion director. This ultimately landed him a gig in the store’s buying office, furthering his understanding of the fashion business, but still not quite sating his fashion appetite.
“I was there in the Summer of 2004 when web magazines first started popping up,” he says. Ton started taking classes in digital photography and met with friends who did graphic design, before deciding to start Jak & Jil, which was initially conceived in 2005 as a lifestyle website focused on the product and people in Toronto.
“Then my guardian angel came along,” says Ton, referring to Lynda Latner, proprietor of vintagecouture.com. “She hired me because she saw my site and thought I could help her.”
In 2007 when Latner offered to send Ton to Europe to attend the shows in London and Paris, he had his first opportunity to experiment with street photography during fashion week, a trend which was just beginning to take off due to the pioneering work of Scott Schuman and Garance Doré.
“My first show in Paris was Balmain. I had no idea what Balmain was at the time, or what it was going to be, but all the girls were in that that show, like Daria, Irina, and Anja, and they played the Cure on the soundtrack. As soon as that show was done, it was raining outside…and I was dancing in the rain. I just felt so uplifted. I could not believe what fashion could do for you,” recalls Ton nostalgically. “To have that moment in Paris, at your very first show…it was magical.”
Using his “Canadian connections,” Ton also managed to get into Chanel, YSL, Dries van Noten and Rick Owens that first season. But in all the excitement, Ton says he didn’t know who or what to shoot. “I just shot what I thought was visually amazing. I didn’t know who Emmanuelle Alt was, or Kate Lanphear or even Anna Dello Russo.”
Almost immediately after this first trip, the Canadian fashion media took note of Ton’s photography, beginning with Flare magazine editor Lisa Tant. “Because of that trip, I got a page in Flare which gave me a validated reason to go back,” he says.
By 2008 Ton was already seeking a way to stand out from the growing hordes of photographers outside the shows who were mostly aping Schuman’s photographic style. “I thought, ‘I’m so tired of taking head-to-toe shots. No one can touch Scott at those photos — he is the king.’ I wanted my photos to stand out. That’s when I stated taking the candid shots.”
Ton’s landscape-style images focused in on the little details that caught his well-trained fashion eye — a towering Louboutin stiletto here, a pop of colour there on his favourite subjects as they walked into the shows. He rarely asked them to pose. Ton was developing a photographic style that that has now become instantly recognisable as his own, capturing the raw energy and excitement of fashion week. Fellow blogger Tavi Gevinson later remarked, “You always know what a Tommy Ton photograph looks like.”
He re-purposed Jak and Jil into a blog, and started posting two or three of his new style of photographs each day. This caught the attention of influential bloggers like Susanna Lau of Style Bubble and Rumi Neely of Fashion Toast, who helped to spread the word.
Two and half months later, Ton received an email from the head of marketing at Lane Crawford in Hong Kong, asking him to shoot their Spring/Summer 2009 campaign.
“I said yes, but I didn’t even know what my worth was,” says Ton. “After talking to my business friends in the industry, I threw a figure at Lane Crawford. It was a bit too much, but we negotiated, and I was proud of myself because I was able to get an amount that I was satisfied with and which they were willing to pay.”
With his reputation spreading, Ton’s confidence began to grow. “During the Fall/Winter 2009 season, people started to know who I was. Scott [Schuman] actually knew my work. I was officially blogging and shooting for Lane Crawford at the same time. That was the season I knew what I was doing, and I knew what I wanted to shoot. It was the beginning of something.”
Another important shift came the following season in Milan, when Ton was seated in Dolce & Gabbana’s front row, alongside Doré, Schuman and Bryanboy, an image that was plastered in the fashion media around the world, signalling the arrival of fashion bloggers. “That was a huge moment. It was all due to Anna Dello Russo. She was the one who told Domenico and Stefano: ‘These are the people who are changing things.’”
From then on, the front row tickets came in fast and furious. Everyone wanted Ton to shoot at their shows, knowing his images would be seen by thousands of fashion enthusiasts and influencers around the world. The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and others came calling. “They were emailing to buy photos,” he says.
Ton went from ultimate fashion outsider to insider almost overnight.
But the real turning point came a few weeks earlier when Style.com’s editor-in-chief Dirk Standen asked Ton to step into the formidable shoes of Scott Schuman, whose own photography career had gone stratospheric, in no small part due to the platform given to him by Style.com. Schuman had decided to leave Style.com to focus on other projects, and Ton now had the most high-profile streetstyle photography gig in the business.
“Being associated with Style.com is a huge deal for me. It’s what everyone looks at every day. People go to Style.com like you brush your teeth in the morning. It’s something you just do,” enthuses Ton.
By now, the time had come for Ton to seek professional representation. An introduction to elite agency The Collective Shift—which also represents top fashion photographers Inez and Vinoodh and super-stylist Melanie Ward—instantly felt like the right fit. Ton also signed on Trunk Archive to act as his image licensing agency, removing the burden of negotiating image rights and contracts on his own and dramatically increasing what he could earn from selling his images to the likes of American Vogue, Elle UK, and Vogue Nippon.
“Before, I was underselling myself, getting about $50-100 per image.” Today, Ton reports that he can earn from as little as $100 up to $2000. “The the thing I’ve learned is that you have to really consider whether it’s a one page image or a ½ page image or ¼ page image. It’s a really big deal when it’s one image over two pages in Grazia for example, whereas if it’s ⅛ of a page in Vogue, it is much less. I’m lucky to have Trunk Archive to deal with all that now.”
But image licensing only makes up about 30 percent of the revenue he earns. The remaining 70 percent comes from a variety of projects, including his gigs for Style.com, GQ.com, but also for retailers and brands such as Topshop, Selfridges, Sergio Rossi and Saks 5th Avenue.
Ton says he has made an intentional decision not to have advertising on his site. “It’s an association with your brand. I didn’t want my blog to be associated with any type of branding,” he explains.
But would he ever take pay for editorial placement on Jak & Jil itself? “Yes,” he says matter-of-factly. “But that requires a discussion between my agent, my client and me. The thing about the development of the Tommy Ton brand and the Jak & Jil brand is that everything is strategically selected and carefully monitored. We have to see potential growth in it, and understand what’s in it for us.”
When pressed on the criteria he uses for this kind of paid content, so as not to alienate his audience, he pauses to think. “It’s definitely gut instinct. It just has to be of the moment and relevant for the time.” His readers shouldn’t be able to tell the difference, he says, because the images he creates would be the kind he would post anyway. The standards are the same, and the images are just as powerful.
All the same, Tommy Ton also realizes this is his moment and it may not last forever. “I don’t even know if I will be able to earn the money I do now in a few years. I don’t know if I will be relevant or not. I am just lucky that people want to associate with me and their brand right now.”
And what about all that competition from the hundreds of streetstyle bloggers outside the shows? “You always have to stay on top of your game, and the only way to do that now is to have exclusive content,” he asserts. Recently, Ton has been invited to shoot behind-the-scenes at the Proenza Schouler studio and the Victoria’s Secret fashion show.
“I’m not making any money from it, but it gives me access no one else would have. I take a lot of pride in that. I am so, so happy I am invited to do these things,” he says, recalling that 13 year old kid watching Tom Ford on TV back in Toronto. “In some ways I still feel like an outsider, even though I am acknowledged by these designers. I am still in awe of what is going on.”
Imran Amed is founder and editor of The Business of Fashion
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