When Tokyo-based quarterly magazine ART iT announced the discontinuation of its print edition and that all content would move online following the publishing of its June 2009 issue, it seemed like yet another example of how the popularity of the Internet had combined with a global economic recession to shut down a once-promising media company.

Founded in 2003 by its current editor in chief, Tetsuya Ozaki, ART iT brought a fresh approach to covering art in Japan by presenting all of its articles in both Japanese and English and extending its scope to the broader Asia-Pacific region. According to recent advertising materials, the magazine reached a circulation of 48,000 copies — not insignificant for a niche publication.

However, ART iT president Eijiro Imafuku, who acquired the title from Ozaki in 2005, told The Japan Times that the magazine struggled to recoup the ¥10 million production costs for each issue and that its quarterly publication cycle limited advertising revenues. Imafuku, who has a background as an IT entrepreneur and is the founder of the fund Fine Art Investment, was frank in his assessment of the magazine's finances.

"Over the three years I've been backing ART iT, I've actually lost money," Imafuku said. "When I took over the magazine I was concerned with supporting an important outlet for Japanese art and had no delusions that it could suddenly become profitable."

Yet, visitors to ART iT's revamped Web site, www.art-it.asia , which officially launched on July 1, will find that Imafuku has turned an apparent setback into an opportunity for innovation. One of the most prominent features of the site is a social network service (SNS) that enables registered users to post blog entries and photo albums, e-mail each other and form online communities. The service is free for individuals. Commercial galleries and nonprofit institutions must pay for access to similar functions in the site's ArtPartners section.

Fifty-nine Japanese and international artists, curators and writers were invited to join a section of the site, ArtBlogs, spotlighting art professionals. While the new site will also feature content created by the editorial staff, including video documentation of exhibitions and artist interviews, as well as free digital copies of the entire print back catalog, its success or failure will depend on user-generated content.

The move has few precedents among international art publications. In early 2008, the London-based periodical ArtReview launched an SNS on its Web site, www.artreview.com , that allows its 16,000-plus members similar capabilities to the new ART iT site. Other art publications generally commission their online content, such as editors' and contributors' blogs, from approved writers. There are also pre-existing online art communities ranging from The Thing, active since 1993, to Saatchi Online, launched in 2006. In Japan, Tokyo Art Beat (TAB), founded in 2004 as a bilingual online listings service, has steadily increased its editorial content and the ability to customize the site, and now boasts 10,000 daily visitors.

Imafuku, who said he did not use any of those predecessors as a template, was able to draw on his IT experience to plan and assemble the ART iT site in three months. He explained that ART iT's position as an independent publication enabled it to make such a drastic change.

"Large-scale publications in Japan fear that if they put content online, then users will gravitate to the Web site at the expense of the print product," he said. "There is also concern with quality control of the user-generated content.

"Without any stake in the industry, we had nothing to lose."

The ART iT site distinguishes itself from other Japan-based SNS sites in that it is designed to attract both international and Japanese users. New members have already registered from countries as diverse as Australia, Germany, South Korea, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Continuing the magazine's commitment to bilingual publishing, the site provides bloggers an auto-translate function between Japanese and English , with plans to eventually add Chinese and Korean. Contracted to a third-party developer, the function is in its initial stages and has had trouble recognizing artist names and art-specific terminology.

For example, when art-film distributor Tomo Suzuki posted a blog entry about American artist Matthew Barney, it converted the Japanese phonetic rendition of Barney's name into the English phrase, "Matthew the bunny." An English post by Bangkok-based writer Brian Curtin also took on new significance, with the word "gay" being auto-translated into its literal counterpart, "youki," meaning "cheerful."

As the industry grows increasingly competitive, print and Internet publications alike have to strategically work across mediums as well as languages. TAB co-founder Kosuke Fujitaka told The Japan Times that his organization found that regularly printing the free Tokyo Art Map has helped drive users to the TAB Web site. Now based in New York, where he runs a sister Web site to TAB, New York Art Beat, Fujitaka also said that being part of a physical community has enabled him to adapt his service to local needs and has led to meetings with American developers of applications for the Apple iPhone.

Imafuku said ART iT plans to edit selected content from the print issues for publishing in book format, starting with an extended correspondence between international curators Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hou Hanru. Mobile Internet browsing of the ART iT site will be limited to Japan's big three wireless providers, SoftBank, DoCoMo and au, and will be unavailable internationally.

Nevertheless Imafuku is hopeful that ART iT's role as an art-focused online community will attract both art professionals and general readers.

"Many established artists around the world have their own blogs, China's Ai Weiwei being a prominent example," he pointed out. "But from the user side, if you don't know about the artist you won't find the blog. We are aggregating a lot of different writers and creating a user-friendly portal for this information."

Discussing his expectations for the site, Imafuku addressed the polarization between the nonprofit, alternative and commercial sectors that he says characterizes the Japanese art scene.

"I don't think we can change the culture overnight, but someone has to create an opportunity for it to happen," he said. "There's no way to know what the results will be. We are providing the platform, and then it's up to everybody to help it evolve."