DOT-COM HOMME: Fresh from the launch of Cargo, Condé Nast will strike another blow for gender equality with today’s announcement of a new men’s Web site modeled after Style.com. The site will debut in the second half. Style.com editor in chief Jamie Pallot will be in charge of editorial, while advertising and other business-side duties will fall to Dee Salomon, Style.com’s senior vice president and managing director. Advance Publications’ men’s titles include GQ, Details, Cargo and the soon-to-be-launched Vitals. Style.com serves as the online home of Vogue and WWD’s sister publication W; other women’s magazines owned by Advance (which also owns WWD), such as Glamour, Allure, Lucky and Jane, have their own sites. Style.com has grown rapidly since its launch in September 2000. In March, the site attracted 956,000 unique users, generating 71 million page views. Traffic is up more than 30 percent over last year. Meanwhile, ad revenue is up 50 percent year to date, according to a spokeswoman.— Jeff Bercovici
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NICK OF TIME: It looks like Vanguarde Media’s bankruptcy saga could have a surprise ending. The auction of the urban publisher’s assets, already put off several times, was adjourned until Monday when Time Warner unexpectedly declared its interest in buying Savoy, one of four Vanguarde titles in addition to Honey and Heart & Soul. Time owns a 49 percent stake in Essence Communications, which initially planned to enter a joint bid with Graves Ventures (owner of Black Enterprise magazine) but then changed its mind. Graves went on to bid on its own. To win the auction, Time Warner will have to double the $300,000 bid entered by Jungle Media Group, which had been custom publishing Savoy Professional, a spinoff of Savoy. Should Time Warner trump Jungle’s bid, the latter will still end up with Savoy Professional and access to Savoy’s subscriber file. Meanwhile, Graves Ventures has dropped out
of the bidding, according to Deryck Palmer, an attorney for Provender Capital Group, Vanguarde’s majority owner. — J.B.