Virgin's iPadazine vs. The New Gawker: Branson and Denton Pitch Media Visions

Herewith, a closer look at Virgin's foray into digital publishing: Project, which Richard Branson, his daughter Holly (Virgin's Project head) launched today at a press event in New York.

Contrast Virgin's approach with that of another iconoclastic Brit — Gawker Media founder Nick Denton—after the jump.

Described by Virgin as the "first global magazine app for creative people about creative people," Project is a monthly digital magazine now available for downloading by iPad users at $2.99 a pop. It's, naturally, being heavily promoted on Facebook, Twitter and at projectmag.com.

With Jeff Bridges promoting Disney's upcoming Tron: Legacy on the first "cover," launch advertisers Lexus, American Express, Panasonic, Ford, and Kronenbourg 1664 "rose to the challenge" (in Virgin's words) "of this new technology to create innovative, powerful advertising that harnesses the power of the iPad for the first time."

Virgin's rich media iPadazine was unveiled the same day another irreverent British entrepreneur took the wraps off his new media reinvention.

Take a peek in the clip below at how Gawker Media founder Nick Denton plans to relaunch his network of sites (including his flagship Gawker site) in January. He's adopting AOL's Project Devil mantra to create a more advertiser-friendly, visually tweaked (but still pro-story torture) iPad-ready format.

Denton explained the looming relaunch in a blog post titled "Why Gawker is moving beyond the blog" today; as did Branson, in a briefer blog post about Project on his site.