A team behind a new online arts magazine has gone to the drawing board and hopes its initial strategy will help propel online traffic.

Artoronto.ca, covering the art scene in Toronto, went live at the end of May and contains art reviews, extensive art listings (upcoming exhibitions) and other art news, explained Phil Anderson of Publishers Three. Anderson is working alongside Emese Krunak-Hajagos and Steve Rockwell.


Rockwell publishes Dart International, Krunak-Hajagos has written for several publications in Canada and in Hungary and Anderson said he has published a small community newspaper and helped launch an art zine, Artery, in the mid-1990's, as well as having written for several publications.

"We felt that there was nothing out there that was serving this particular niche. There were some other online blogs ... but we felt ours could be different," noted Anderson about the new project. "We are planning to offer more critical discourse and cover not only the popular events, but some exhibits that might not be written about otherwise."

He said the publishing group realized early it would not be able to create many revenue opportunities until it had established itself and increased traffic. The magazine's content is currently being created with help from volunteer interns, and "we are currently offering free art listings and trying to build a database slowly. A lot of our marketing is simply word of mouth," explained Anderson. "The more events and exhibits we cover, the more people will go to the site and the more traffic we have."

Once the magazine is better established, Anderson is hoping to generate enough revenue to pay writers and expand.

It's too early for any print edition plans, added Anderson. But he said the response to the website "so far has been very positive".