There’s been a lot of coverage this week of Condé Nast bringing in McKinsey & Company to help them restructure the business, which hopefully will work out for them. Props to Silicon Alley Insider for including a photo of the consultants from Office Space in their write-up. 
Tuesday’s announcement that GQ and DETAILS will get their own sites in October is definitely encouraging, and is a big improvement over hosting both on men.style.com. It’s not just that users expect a branded experience on a dedicated domain. It’s that there are so many SEO and audience development initiatives, including social media marketing, that simply work better when a site exists on its own unique, branded domain.
Best of luck to both GQ.com and DETAILS.com.
A side note to Condé Nast Digital’s PR team: I’d put your online press releases on regular Web pages. People will be less likely to link to the .pdf versions in your online press room. I did it above but I didn’t really want to.
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