Paul joins Pod1 from consumer magazine publishers IPC Media, where he was responsible for digital strategy and new product development centred on mass-market female titles. Prior to this, Paul worked across a series of roles in IPC, latterly heading up their internal digital department which he formed in 2002. Over the next four years, Paul was responsible for launching over 30 new websites at IPC including Marie Claire, Ideal Home and most recently the re-launch of countrylife.co.uk and initial product development on Good To Know. Before joining IPC, Paul was managing director for a digital design, development and hosting company he founded in south Manchester in 1998.

The website was developed in partnership with Instyle US, and unlike all other IPC sites it uses Time Inc‘s 6 year-old Vignette based CMS and tools. However it also uses IPC’s Symfony-based “CMS2″ technologies that were developed for Country Life.

I’ve not seen any comment or analysis in the press yet – they’re just reporting the launch as per the release.

This is the first IPC site to come out of my old department that I’ve not been heavily involved in, and I think they’ve done an excellent job – I believe it’s pretty much on budget and on time, and from a quick click around has well tested.
The site has much more of a celebrity focus than I’d have thought, with fashion constantly in the background – but that’s the way the US site has been moving recently as well. Previously it was much more product based. However the US site does still cover more products than the UK site, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until they build up the archive over here.

The launch is being supported by a paid-search campaign – which makes sense since they chose to launch with a brand new domain which would get sandboxed.  I noticed that one of the keywords they’re bidding on is [celebrity news], which I’d imagine is pretty competitive – and somewhere we’re going to want to push Now and Look as well.

If anybody spots any critics of the site, I’d be interested to see them. In the meantime, have a look yourself and feel free to comment below.

• IPC Connect appoints digital expert - mad.co.uk
• IPC Connect appoints Paul Lomax as digital publisher - New Media Age
• IPC appoints Lomax to digital role at women’s titles - Brand Republic
• InStyle to launch in travel size - Media Week
• And last but not least: IPC Connect appoints Paul Lomax as digital publisher - FloridaBoating.com (!?)

Both New Media Age and Brand Republic appear to have mixed me up with Sarah Summers in this paragraph, which you will note did not appear in the press release:

Lomax will oversee “general strategy” across Pick Me Up, Chat, Now, Women’s Own and the newly launched Look, among others. Lomax’s first responsibility will be to oversee the roll out of Look‘s website, which is still at soft launch stage.

I’m not overseeing “general strategy” nor is it my first responsibility to roll out Look‘s website…

Oh, and the mad.co.uk report (which you can only see if you subscribe) gets the Look URL wrong – it’s Look.co.uk, not .com.

Progress brings change and we need to continue to evolve to meet the cost pressures and challenges presented by our rapidly shifting industry. While we continue to invest in our core magazines, we are also focused on transforming our workforce and broadening our digital capabilities in order to become a truly multi-platform publisher.
- Ann Moore, the chairwoman and chief executive of Time Inc

Hopefully it’s not going to create a ‘them and us’ feeling around Time. Personally I’m hugely in favour of integrated print and digital teams (except the technical teams which from experience has to sit more central). Let’s just hope nobody stands up in front of all the print editors at tells them that “print is dead” like our editorial director did back in 1999…

Meanwhile, IPC Media [my employer] appears to be recruiting “Online Editors”, but does not specify which brands you’ll be working for – you apparently have to specify on application… But make sure you can “demonstrate Web 2.0 skills”!

The appointment of Paul Lomax as digital publisher for IPC Connect is announced today. Currently internet technology manager within CALMtech – the team responsible for designing, building and evolving many of our brand websites – Paul will take up his new role on Monday, January 8, reporting directly to managing director Evelyn Webster.

Announcing the move, Evelyn says: “I’m delighted to welcome Paul to the Connect publishing team. There is already a raft of excellent work taking place in the digital space across Connect, and Paul’s impressive track record in website development will be a great asset as we progress our digital strategy still further.”

Paul joined IPC in 2001 as senior solutions developer on the relaunch of ybw.com, and subsequently played a major role in the NME.com relaunch in 2002. In his current role, he has been involved in the launch of over 30 of our brand websites across CALM, Connect, SouthBank and tx and most recently has been leading the major development of countrylife.co.uk, which will establish it as the premium property portal when it relaunches in February.

Head of electronic media Kim Hollamby adds: “It’s hard to overstate Paul’s contribution to the development of IPC’s online interests over the past six years. His energy is boundless, his ability to absorb new knowledge unmatchable and his desire to make a commercial success of our websites constant. I’m delighted that he will be able to bring fully all of that to bear in his new role.

He will be a hard act to follow, but we will be announcing some key changes over the next few days that will illustrate perfectly that Paul has also grown a great team of people around him.”

Plus Serendipity was annoying me – I’m hoping we shall “eat our own dogfood” with the release of CMS2.0-beta, and I might start blogging again to give it a run for its money.