3 MAGS HATCHING IN CN NEST
By KEITH J. KELLY NY POST

Conde Nast is creating an incubator for new magazine ideas under the eyes of editorial director James Truman.

Truman tells Media Ink that S.I. Newhouse Jr., chairman of Conde Nast and its parent company, Advance Publications, has greenlighted an off-site magazine development incubator - believed to be a company first.

Truman is about to start looking at three new ideas - an art magazine, a magazine for an "alternative lifestyle in the post-workaholic era" and a third concept he can't divulge at the moment.

The site is on a floor in an office building on Sixth Avenue - a few blocks away from the new Conde Nast headquarters in Times Square.

"It's a side project that I'm doing," said Truman of the incubator. "The idea is to get away from the typical big massive Conde Nast launch project."

So far, there is only one full-time employee, Art Director Eric Courtmanche. He worked at Wired but has spent the past few years in Vermont working out of the industry.

Truman said of the low-key project, "If we have a prototype that we like by next spring, we couldn't think about launching before sometime the following year."

But he said there is not pressure to necessarily get it out the door. "We might have one magazine - or the three magazines could become one. We might have a special issue for one of our existing titles or a custom-published title."