With their red-hot blog, brand new online mag and many other projects, this happy couple discusses their publishing enterprises

BY JONATHAN RIGGS

More than two million people worldwide visit OhlalaMag.com every month to brush up on fashion, entertainment, travel, celebrities, and sexy men through a gay male lens. It's such a huge site now that it's hard to believe it started as the personal journal of a gay couple, Aleksandar Tomovic and Stephane Marquet, aka “The Ohlala Boys.” Today, it's the crown jewel in their media enterprise, which includes seven spin-off blogs (such as HotinHollywood.tv, ManChic.com, and OutNext.com).

“We enjoy every second of our lives,” Tomovic says, “but we do remember where we come from, and it is from far, far away.”

Marquet hails from France, and Tomovic's from Serbia, and the pair met in Paris. The combination of their talents and personalities not only resulted in a love match, but also the creation of their parent company, Outnext Media. Today, their offices are in Los Angeles where they manage their international projects and keep spinning new and creative ideas, including their newest venture: the online Bello Mag.

“We created Bello Mag as a magazine we ourselves would love to read,” Tomovic says. “It's a collage of all our passions coming together in one beautiful format. We are just trying to put out there something that we believe is new, interesting, and above all, inspiring.”

“Let's say, we have created a mutant-X-blog—the next generation of blogging in a much more professional and serious way,” Marquet explains. “Some people have called us pioneers in the world of blogging, so we look at Bello Mag as yet another new frontier.”

“We're weaving into it all that we love from paper magazines. What is totally different is the medium—we've used all our know-how to make the Internet a more welcoming platform for great content with the twist of new technologies: videos, interaction, animation, and more,” Tomovic adds. “This is where we believe the world of magazines is headed.”

Their creativity doesn't stop there. The magazine's tagline is “Lifestyle Alphabet for Modern Men,” and it's broken up into 26 sections corresponding to—you got it—the alphabet. So how will they fill those hard-to-match letters each month?

“I have a secret to share with you—I am unbeatable in Scrabble!” laughs Marquet. “I always get to use my Q, and my Z, and my X!”

“Oh, don't get me going on some of those French words that start with those letters,” Tomovic says with a grin. “Those words are my favorites.”

Publishing entrepreneurs, masters of the web, world travelers, sexy accents—is there anything the slightest bit dorky about these two?!

“We like to be with our friends, enjoying home-cooking, and drinking tea by the (gas) fireplace,” Marquet says. “That's our L.A.”

“We have a life that is as normal as it gets. We can certainly get our friends and correspondents into all the amazing parties and events here or in Europe, but these are events that we ourselves do not, in fact, attend,” Tomovic says. “We prefer to stay on the sofa and watch TV while reading newspapers, books, or magazines. We're what you'd call homebodies. Um, did I just ruin the fantasy?”

No matter how much success they enjoy or how many new ventures they start, these two manage to stay humble and to keep their original blog active and popular with its millions of fans.

“This all began with OhlalaMag.com and it has taken us on many new and exciting adventures,” the boys say, “and we wish to thank, from the bottom of our hearts, all of our loyal readers and correspondents who helped us get to where we are now. Merci beaucoup!”

For more information, visit www.bellomag.com and www.ohlalamag.com.