New York Magazine to Expand The Cut Blog It used to be that New York magazine's cheeky blog items expounding on fashion and politicians were accessories to the main attraction - the articles in the flagship magazine. But next month, New York is shifting more attention online. New York Media, which includes the magazine and its Web sites, is investing heavily in its blog The Cut and turning it into what Adam Moss, New York's editor in chief, calls "a high-end fashion magazine with the scrappiness of a blog." The blog, which started in 2008, used to be run by a four-person staff and featured about 20 fashion posts a day. But in recent months, the magazine started hiring people like Maureen O'Connor from Gawker to broaden its content and improve the site visually. The expanded site, which will be introduced the week of Aug. 13, will make it easier to look at clothing at fashion shows and offer more creative fashion shoots by younger photographers. New York executives say they consider their competitors to be Web sites like Vogue.com on the fashion side and Jezebel.com for lifestyle features. As many magazines struggle to keep up with declining circulation, New York executives are betting on one of the few areas that is seeing growth. Lawrence C. Burstein, New York's publisher, said fashion is its leading advertising category and jumped 34 percent this year from the year before. Advertising for beauty products like cosmetics grew 100 percent compared with a year ago, and Cartier, Burberry and Bottega Veneta have agreed to advertise on the expanded site. The Cut's expansion is also aimed at increasing the national and international audience online. A spokeswoman said that while 68 percent of New York magazine's print circulation is in the New York area, only 22 percent of its online readers are local residents. Only 14 percent of The Cut's readers live in the New York area. New York is not the only magazine trying to expand its fashion coverage. On July 25, The Daily Beast is starting a Fashion Beast blog relying on contributions mainly from its writers Isabel Wilkinson and Robin Givhan.