fig.: On the picture you can see me at Burg Rauhenstein (built in the 12th century) in Baden nearby Vienna. Some say that robber barons settled in Burg Rauhenstein; although some Austrian historians say that robber barons never have existed ... de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burg_Rauhenstein_(Baden) Today, you can celebrate the Walpurgis Night from 30th April to 1st May in these old walls. You know the Walpurgis Night from Goethe's Faust where Mephisto seduces Faust to dance ... "Mephistopheles: ... A new dance is beginning; come! We will grab. Faust (dancing with a young woman): Once, I had a beautiful dream. In it, I saw an apple-tree, two beautiful apples glittered on it, they seduced me, I climbed up. The Female Beauty: You are very fond of apples, and have been so from Paradise downwards. I feel moved with joy, that my garden also bears such." More about Walpurgis Night, also called the Witches Night ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night Dr. Karin Sawetz, founder and publisher of fashionoffice.org (since 1996), is journalist, media researcher and fashion scientist. Karin Sawetz has a diploma from a higher-level secondary college for the fashion and clothing industry. She was awarded with the first prize for her design of the male work trousers for the OMV filling stations (OMV is Central Europe's leading oil and gas group) - the design has been realised. Before and while studying for the diploma she was designer for her own label, which she has presented international. Beneath her studies at the University of Vienna she worked as costume designer for theatre and film, was civil servant at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Economics (Department Fashion & Textile Industry), ... After she has finished her studies at the Institute for Journalism and Communication Sciences, the Institute for Film-, Theatre- and Media-Sciences, the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Vienna, and the Institute for Artistic Sciences, Art Education and Communication, Department for Cultural and Intellectual History, at the University of Applied Arts, she was lecturer at the University of Vienna and the Vienna Chamber of Commerce, published scientific studies, ... In the last years she focused her work on fashionoffice.org as an international magazine and organization for intercultural approaches in fashion and art. More publications> sawetz.com/publications.htm

FASHIONOFFICE INSIGHT
by publisher Karin Sawetz
Oct 2008


Robber Barons

I don't want to begin my story in the 12th century; this story would be too long. But it is good to know how robber barons made their money, because it seems as if the modern barons have settled down online. In the 12th/13th century robber barons abused their positions by stopping passing merchant ships and demanding tolls without being authorized.

The Photographers Work

In September, a talented photographer who made a great photo-story about the behind-the-scenes world of the London Fashion Week, offered us his work to be published on fashionoffice.org.

I had to answer this young photographer that "at this time we don’t buy photos from an agency or a photographer because it is not possible to measure the total circulation. We know that the current technical situation of the internet is a great problem for the ones who sell their intellectual property rights. As long as proxy servers copy content we can only measure a small percentage of the value of your work."

Property Rights

What can you do with this new information? If you are a publisher/provider you can sell monthly subscriptions and measure only a small percentage of the contacts movies, editorials, photo-stories, ... really have gained. This makes many things easier. You can calculate on the one hand for your costs for content with your subscribers and earn money with the advertising which is running on scripts that reach through the virtual walls of the providers' traffic management.

Or: you can build a new homepage for your local business and pay your photo-agency only the charges for the usage of their photos by the page impressions which are logged from your provider. As the provider copies your content on an intelligent traffic management server, you never get any proving that you are betraying - for sure against your will - the agency.

This is the reason why we don't buy any photo-stories from an external source at this time.

Browser Reports

The new technical situation of the internet gives publishers or providers the best chances to charge monthly without measuring real page impressions.

In fashionoffice.org/survey you can find out that the browser reports show up a very interesting change in today's possibilities to track HTM-sites: you can reach fewer visitors who are using Internet Explorer if you measure the traffic by embedding pages with scripts - such as advertising - from an external server.

Up-to-date tracking tools measure that approximately 64% of the visitors of fashionoffice.org are using Firefox.

Effects on the Market

Effects on the Market of Publishers/Advertisers and adjoined branches (text, photo, video, music, programmers, artists, ...): if the download of intellectual property can not be charged with fees or with advertising by counting, publishers must go new ways to re-finance their work; such as monthly rates.

Traffic Sources

Tracking traffic is a challenge! Standardized webserver management and up-to-date tracking tools are in a permanent race; ones are trying to minimize traffic, others are working to measure actual data about pageviews, visits, traffic sources, ... This race is made upon the work of Online publishers, photographers, agencies, ... by delivering and tracking their data and its usage. Good examples for the troubles which are caused by this race give the results of the traffic sources for the domain fashionoffice.org. Read more on fashionoffice.org/survey

FASHIONOFFICE INSIGHT Sept 2008

FASHIONOFFICE INSIGHT Aug 2008