Check out Refinery29 this morning and you’ll notice that the site has had a complete overhaul. R29 — once a fashion and beauty site — has evolved into a so-called “lifestyle platform” with a new navigation bar and visual identity, more videos, and other back-end additions that they hope will keep readers clicking through ad infinitum.
With the relaunch, R29 is no longer just considering magazines and other fashion sites (like, uh, the Cut) its competition. Instead, they are eyeing shopping platforms like Amazon, eBay, and Polyvore. By August, Refinery plans to feature over 40,000 editor-curated items that direct users to affiliate websites to buy. Readers can currently click the new “shop it now” button, after which they are guided by technology that personalizes the content. Basically, the more you use the site, the more it learns what you like. Then, in a perfect world, it takes you to articles of interest (or items you’d probably buy). If this is the future of media, it seems to come with a pretty intense credit-card bill. The company plans to roll out more e-commerce and mobile features in August.
