Finding a Place for Luxury Online

As we all know it took luxury brands so lont to understant that the internet is here to stay and that they had no choice but to embrace it. But now that the internet bug has been caught by nearly every brand that qualifies itself as 'luxury' and has let to a line-up of branded and somewhat 'flashy' website, another question is currently being whispered around - 'what next?' - In other words where does the luxury brand go online from its website to ensure that it finds and maintains its right ful position on the internet?

Many claim to have the answer. Some say that it's a question of integrating the latest technologies and applications to ensure seamless navigation on the website. Others encourage luxury brands to jump on the bandwagon of the social web through blogging and twittering their lives away, literally. Yet others say that luxury brands should have memeber-only websites where privileged content is shared with only a 'happy few'. Another famous 'advice' is to reproduce the web content on the iPhone in the standard catalogue-like format. Others even say that the iPhone should be dissed and that brands should create their own phones. And we shouldn't forget the famous Search-Engine Optimization campaign in luxury land.

You're probably wondering what I think and I have to say that I find some of these comments quite shallow and in some cases I would even say ridiculous. Okay, I wasn't born with technology with a computer cord tied around me neither do I have micro-chips in my brain ut come on guys, we have to acknowledge that the issue of luxury in the digital world is more profound that trying to outdo competitors and facilitating easy revenues for all manners of agents and developers that claim to e experts of luxury and technology. I've discussed these issues and more in Luxury Online so keep an eye out for the book's publication in November. In the meantime if you love gloss online, take a look at Fauchon.com, one of my references for online brand image re-interpretation.