Playboy's Digital Edition Tries to Go SFW

Playboy is changing its digital edition so users can read it -- just for the articles.

In an effort to become more viral Playboy.com will offer more lifestyle pieces and ditch the nude photos, according to Digiday. By cleaning up the content, Playboy.com believes it can be shared more readily on social media and even be safe for work (also known as SFW).

The new strategy is to boost its overall readership and cash in on millennials' love of lists and interesting content, according to Playboy. “Girl content does well, but there’s a ceiling on that,” Cory Jones,  Playboy digital content senior vice president told Digiday. “But if you’re doing really shareable fun viral things, you do even better. That content has a higher ceiling.”

Quantcast gave Playboy's digital audience 5.2 million unique visitors last month, but that number has stayed flat since last year.

Instead of nude women, expect to see articles on cocktails, funny tweets and the like -- it's targeting 25 pieces of editorial content per day. There will still be some "risque" content, but not nudity. (The nudie pics will be available on Playboy Plus, another digital edition that's subscription-based.) But can Playboy exist and grow without the expected centerfold? Some critics say no.

“The young readers that they’re for are not going to think of Playboy.com as a place for the type of content Playboy is creating," Graham Nelson, senior vice president of media agency AMP, told Digiday.

"Our clients are not interested in another Buzzfeed, or GQ or list-focused media publisher.” 

 Apparently Playboy knows the new revamp is a gamble, but hopes it will work out anyway.

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