“Robert’s extensive background in creating content for all platforms – from film and television to digital - is an invaluable asset as we bring our iconic brands to life in new and compelling ways,” said Ms. Ostroff, in a statment. “For the 130 million consumers who are fans of the Condé Nast brands, this will be a new and immersive experience with the content they love.”

Mr. Green will be responsible for creating original content for digital video channels that are based on Condé Nast’s brands as well as working with CNE’s chief digital officer, Fred Santarpia, on expanding Condé Nast Entertainment's digital content and distribution.

As an executive producer of HuffPost Live, Mr. Green helped launch the 12 hour, (week)daily live programming stream last August. Mr. Green has developed a number of television shows and films. And, since 2007, has also been a producer at Another Green World, a production company.

Just this past April, Apple CEO Steve Jobs attacked mobile apps created using Adobe Flash. He wanted glossy publishers like Condé Nast to use Apple's proprietary development tools.

Condé has a lot riding on the success of Apple devices like the iPad. The company said it expects 40% of its future revenue to come from tablet devices.

During the war of words with Adobe, Apple even went so far as to ban developers from using third party tools, like Adobe's Flash CS5, to create apps for their smartphones and tablets. But after bitter backlash from developers and publishers, Apple backed down in September.

The announcement today by Condé Nast is a clear signal that companies still see a lot of value in using Adobe Flash to create rich media, such as the interactive versions of Wired and The New Yorker.

bpopper [at] observer.com

@benpopper

Here's the press release:

CONDÉ NAST WILL USE ADOBE TECHNOLOGY FOR DIGITAL MAGAZINE PRODUCTION

New York, N.Y., October 25, 2010 - Condé Nast plans to introduce digital replica editions across its portfolio of magazine brands using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite, it was announced today by Robert A. Sauerberg, Jr., President of Condé Nast. This decision comes as the result of an ongoing R&D period that included the introduction of five digital replica apps using two different approaches and tools in order to gain maximum learning in this emerging area. The company will continue to seek the best technologies to bring its award-winning content to market as platforms and devices emerge.

Digital editions of WIRED and The New Yorker are available for iPad and were created by the magazines using Adobe tools and workflows. Brands with apps already in the market - GQ, Vanity Fair and Glamour - will be recreated using Adobe tools.

"The innovative work our in-house team at Condé Nast Digital did made us first to market with replicas on iPhone and iPad and has allowed significant learnings," Mr. Sauerberg said. "Our team considered many factors to ensure we had a platform that could be continually enhanced to meet the needs of our consumers and distributors."

Joe Simon, Chief Technology Officer of Condé Nast, is participating in a keynote discussion about this announcement at MAX, Adobe's annual worldwide conference taking place in Los Angeles today.

"We have always intended to deliver our content on a variety of platforms and devices, and the Adobe Design Suite will help us efficiently achieve the ‘author once, publish anywhere' goal," Mr. Simon noted.

Condé Nast, a division of Advance Publications, operates in 25 countries. In the United States, Condé Nast publishes 18 consumer magazines, two trade publications and 27 websites that garner international acclaim and unparalleled consumer engagement.

“We were always looking in, you know, watching this party happen,” he told The Observer. “Really attractive people would go in and drunk people would stumble out, and we’d just be watching it,” he said, turning around and plopping down onto a plush, tan chair in front of his desk. He was dressed in crisp jeans and a white-and-blue-striped button-down shirt.

“It’s nice to finally be at the party,” he said.

Mr. Peres was referring to the party known as, well, the Internet, to which Condé Nast has arrived not-so-fashionably late.

Last week, Details launched its own Web site, finally breaking off from its former online home at men.style.com, which the men’s monthly shared with brother publication GQ. The change had been planned since July, when Condé Nast Digital president Sarah Chubb announced that the men.style.com “destination site” would change into GQ.com. The company hopes that two separate Web sites might entice more high-end advertisers that are familiar with the print titles.

Men.style.com had been overseen by Condé Nast Digital, and magazine editors and writers were given strict publishing schedules for the site’s content. Staffers were only allowed to send new magazine content twice a month and were restricted to a certain number of photo slide shows, quizzes and additional features. There were no daily blogs, sparse commenting features and mostly faulty search functions. Worse, article URLs had mucky Web addresses, with a men.style.com slapped on them, which confused readers and bruised writers’ egos.

“It was a nice little science project we rigged up,” said Michael Hainey, GQ’s deputy editor, referring to his magazine’s former online home. He was in a conference room with GQ’s in-house multimedia editor, Andy Comer, and assistant Web editor, Andrew Richdale, who together run the just-launched GQ Web site. Mr. Hainey, in a camel-colored corduroy jacket and tailored jeans, offered a tour of GQ.com on a giant screen, pointing out two new blogs, online forums, how-to videos, podcasts and GQ’s City Guide feature with a grease pencil. He describes the new site to GQ staffers in a language they understand. “I call it a Mini Cooper: it’s nimble, it’s fast, it looks great,” he told The Observer.

“This is where a man begins—he searches for his life here,” he said.

But touting a Web site where writers can blog (wow!) and readers can comment back (gee whiz!) seems a little silly in 2009. Sure, both sites are gorgeous, with simple design and lots of potential, but the joke among Details staffers is that, even now that they finally have a functioning Web site, “it’s very 1999.” Mr. Hainey, for his part, figured GQ was slightly more advanced. “We’re very 2002 right now,” he told The Observer. 

Well here’s something a little more exciting: Last week, GQ also announced that the magazine will have a new iPhone app, available for $2.99 per issue, debuting with their crown jewel: the December “Men of the Year” edition. They expect it to be available in the iPhone app store the day the print publication hits newsstands, Nov. 18. (Though, with that price tag, why one wouldn’t just cough up two more dollars for the print edition and all its shiny photos is a bit of a mystery.)

Elsewhere at the Condé Nast Digital revolution: Wired is working with Adobe to get content on mobile screens besides the iPhone; The New Yorker is the most subscribed-to magazine on the Kindle; and Concierge.com (the online home of Traveler) just yesterday announced a new app that will allow users to turn vacation photographs into emailable postcards. Condé Nast Digital senior product manager Chris Gonzalez told The Observer that “tons of other apps” are in the works. “Every publication is asking, ‘When can you make one for my magazine?’” he said.

DESPITE THE SUCCESSES of sites like Wired.com and recipe resource Epicurious.com, Condé Nast has often been accused of forgoing quality Web sites to save glossy print titles. Fearing that the Internet would “cannibalize” print sales, Condé Nast built sites for most magazines that seemed more like teasers than destinations—they existed online simply so that readers might be enticed to click on the “subscribe” button to get the all the good print stuff. 

But in the post-McKinsey age, some Condé Nast executives are eager to mark the launches of Details.com and GQ.com as a glittering new beginning for the company, where attempting to make money off the Web will (finally) get its due focus in 2010.

Condé Nast Digital’s newly named publisher, Josh Stinchcomb, who was formerly in charge of ad sales as executive director of Condé Nast Digital Business Group, said more mobile apps, e-commerce and premium paid subscription models (like the one already adopted by Condé Nast Digital’s niche technology site Ars Technica) are on the way. He also said that along with a Golf Digest Web re-launch in January, two new Condé Nast sites will debut during the first half of the year. “There’s no reason for us to not experiment, and we’ll find the right approach,” he said.

Mr. Peres, for his part, is getting his Web legs by leaning on Paul Katz, Details.com’s new Web editor. “It’s actually really hard; I’m a magazine guy, we’re print people,” he admitted. “I have to learn a new language. I have to learn to say things in a smaller space, I have to say things on a daily basis, not a monthly basis. That’s why it’s good to bring on guys like Paul, who are Web-fluent. I’m more like a Web illegal.”

greagan@observer.com

“We were always looking in, you know, watching this party happen,” he told The Observer. “Really attractive people would go in and drunk people would stumble out, and we’d just...

When the recipient opens the postcard, they'll see where the user originally snapped the photo and there will be a link on a map so they can check out Concierge.com's travel guide for that destination (if there is one). Users can also opt-in to share their postcard in a gallery on the Concierge.com website, which is here.

Since the app has an ad revenue model, Westin is signed on as the sponsor at launch, and their ad will show up when photos are being loaded onto the site. 

The new app is just one of many that Condé Nast Digital has in the works. Along with building the technology to get magazine issues like GQ on the iPhone and other publications on more mobile readers, Conde Nast Digital is also working on service-y and location-based applications like this one. We smell a GQ City Guides application in the works. Senior product manager Chris Gonzalez, who worked on the GQ, Epicurious and Style.com apps, told the Observer that "tons of other apps" are in the works. "Every publication is asking, 'When can you make one for my magazine?'" he told the Observer.

In an interview with the Observer, Mr. Stinchcomb told the Observer he has worked for Wired.com from 1996 to 2001. He left for business school and worked in finance before returning to Conde Nast in 2004. He said Wired.com was successful in figuring out what worked on the Web for the magazine's readers, and he hopes to continue fostering the communities that build around titles into more cohesive Web sites. "The [Wired] editors really understand what is means to be in a magazine and what means to be online," he said.

He's also hoping to borrow pay models pioneered by sites like Ars Technica, Conde Nast Digital's niche tech trends site, which offers a paid premium membership. Users pay $50 a year and get an upgraded package with access to exclusive content, databases, live online chats with editors and industry leaders and more. Paying users see ad-free pages on the site and even have a say in the editorial process to steer reporting and topics--almost like becoming a shareholder in Ars.

He also sees more e-commerce, and paid and free mobile applications and digital issues coming for titles across the company.

We've been tlaking about as more investment int eh indivual brands in teh indivuals site, teh oportunity were becing more rodbubts we wnted to be set yup in a way that took adveantage of that. seeliong teh print in a more seeamlessway, a natural evolutions.m the brands were.

Mr. Stinchcomb admitted that he is more familiar with the male-focused "tech business space" and is still learning about the women's sites like Glamour.com and Style.com. "The fashion media world is a new one," he said. "I've been asking my wife a lot of questions, for one. It's a new world."

Mr. Stinchcomb will have to play catch-up fast, since he's in charge of making money for not just those "male-focused" sites, but all 26 of Conde Nast's digital sites.

Drew Schutte, senior vice president and chief revenue officer, made announced in a press statement, along with an explanation of his new "sales structure," in which three advertising directors will be responsible for specific brands and will report directly to Mr. Stinchcomb. "Each of Condé Nast Digital's 26 online brands will now fall into one of the five categories, which are fashion and beauty; food, well-being and travel; bridal; technology; and culture and thought leader," according to the press statement. Thought leader!

"The improved sales structure allows for more focus on the individual brands as they grow, while leveraging the scale of all 26 sites," said Mr. Schutte in the statement. "This offers increased flexibility for our advertisers to reach our engaged audience of nearly 50 million unique users per month in a multitude of new ways. The new structure also allows for seamless coordination with our print sellers, as we meet the increased demand for cross-channel selling."

The company announced today that CondéNet properties (style.com, epicurious.com, et. al.), will finally be consolidated with Condé Nast's other digital properties—like b brides.com—into one big happy family called Condé Nast Digital.

The idea, hopefully, is that it'll make it a little bit easier to make some money selling ads against the Condé Nast brand, instead of dividing the entire empire piecemeal.

Nat Ives at Ad Age is skeptical about the idea: "It's not obvious whether the new structure will help Condé make more money online. The company has made changes before. It only fully absorbed CondéNet, which had been a unit of Condé's parent company, Advance Publications, in 2005. The next year it moved the magazine sites' production chores from CondéNet to the magazines themselves."

In other words, who knows if this will work?

But Condé Nast C.E.O. Chuck Townsend thinks it can't hurt any!

Here's the full release: