The Magazine Rack

Conde Nast Portfolio Marcom Material Ad Supported

2007-03-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

So I get in the mail a dm piece from Conde Nast Portfolio that has an insert for Visa Signature credit cards smack in the middle of the dm piece pitching me as a 'charter subscriber' a special preview of the upcoming Portfolio title. Even the back cover of the marcom piece had a FP ad for Visa.

Ballsy or boneheaded? I am not sure. I do know that I spent more time evaulating that sales piece than I did any of the so called 'preview' information.

The only take away worth anything more than a puff was John Grimwade's brief article on Infographics.

Either CN is holding a lot back for their launch or there is not going to be much there-there...

FHM closes its pages in the U.S.

2006-12-13T09:55:00.000-08:00

Emap has announced that FHM will be shuttered in the U.S. To see a seven year old magazine earning 1.25 Million circ give up the race is surprising. Perhaps not as surprising considering that Mediaweek is reporting that their circ fell 3% overall and over 6% at the stand. Even more so when considering that their ad sales were down 22% in 2006. Still, how badly was this title being managed where you can't make it enough into the black on those kinds of numbers? An all or nothing strategy? Obviously there is a ton of me-tooism going on in the once hot 'laddie space'.

The Future of Mag Dispensing?

2006-11-01T22:15:00.000-08:00

It's just a mock design but nice ... in secure areas, you could buy up entire blocks to display and dispense mags ...

Astounding ... From 1930 - Now ... That's Really Astounding!

2006-11-01T22:04:00.000-08:00

Apparently while JAGWAG is all about the future of publishing (Condé Nast's PORTFOLIO is not coming out next May!), for me, apparently, it's the week of internet collection of old science fiction magazines ... This will astound you, ASTOUND has been publishing since 1930 and here is nearly every cover ...

Psst! Hey Buddy...Wanna Be An Editor At Fortune?

2006-11-01T20:28:00.000-08:00

Good grief...so Fortune has another new Managing Editor...the third top editor within six years. Andy Serwer, a Senior Editor at Large at Fortune and resident talking head at CNN, is slated to take over the helm at Fortune in a surprising move due to its low buzz prior to its announcement.

With Conde Nast poaching a lot of talent to fill their stable with experienced biz writers for the upcoming launch of Portfolio, it will be fun to watch the category slugging it out in 2007. With the relative low growth (and decline for some) among the category, which title will give up the ghost? Fast Company? Inc? BizWeek? Forbes is looking skinny and acting a bit desperate with their buying of keywords over at Google against a search like "Fortune mag"...blood in the water folks and the sharks are already circling...

How Large of a Portfolio of advertising will it have...

2006-10-30T18:09:00.000-08:00

I have received at least three "it's coming soon" notices in the mail for the biz mag due from Conde Nast...Portfolio. While it doesn't launch until May 2007 (look for it in April), the high profile of this beast is sure to make its first issue a must read. They have a video up of Eric Schmidt talking about Google's future. Find it here.

The interview by the E.I.C. disappoints in my opinion. It is pretty clear that the era of fawning over CEOs is not over if Conde Nast has anything to do with it. Throw virtual rocks at Joanne Lipman, not me, if you agree.

Amazing Cool Database of Magazines From Another Era

2006-10-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

Amazing in scope and amazing that some survived to this day ... obscure, fun, cool, bizarre ... you'll spend hours perusing ...

From the Author's "About Us."

"The idea behind the magazine lists started many years ago when I started writing bibliographies for sf authors (such as James Blish and Clifford Simak) who had published extensively outside the genre and realised that, while the world of sf/fantasy/horror magazines was fairly well documented, things were very different in the outside world. Not only were there typically no indexes for other genres (such as westerns or sports magazines), but nobody even seemed to know quite which issues of which magazines existed."

MacAddict to Become Mac | Life

2006-10-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

Future - clearly knee deep in meetings have also announced that MacAddict will become Mac | Life - yes, with bar in the title - perhaps becoming the first mainstream magazine in America with a "bar" in the title. MacObserver reports readership is down 10,000 - and we're not talking Good Housekeeping numbers to begin with so ... MacAddict was getting a big tired and very thin so hopefully, they will wake up deliver for readers and advertisers MacAddict 2.0 ... a competitor MacHome also closed earlier this year as a magazine - website still lives on ... so while Mac sales themselves are blazing ... it's that damn pesky internet again ...

Ad Age Selects 41 Worst Covers Last 41 Years

2006-10-23T23:08:00.000-07:00

Hard to argue with the choices so far.

Will Future Need To Stop Wearing Shades?

2006-10-16T20:35:00.000-07:00

The future at Future US is not as bright as it once was. They recently announced to pull the plug on four magazines - two shelter mags that couldn't hang with the big dogs, one women's sports pub, and a new launch that just hit the one year mark - are all on the midden heap.

While this pullback is not as dramatic as the one seen in late 2000 when their golden teat known as Business 2.0 shriveled and shrank (prompting the closing of 10 titles and pink slipped hundreds worldwide), it is curious to this observer whether this is a trend we can expect to see from them every five years?

Their video game titles, such as PC Gamer and PSM, continue to shrink and their recent ad page counts in the November 2006 issues are slim considering two new platforms are launching. Indicative of the aging gamer demographic? Or something else?

[KC] They are keeping PREGNANCY - maybe if they changed it to VIRTUAL PREGNANCY or SECOND LIFE PREGNANCY, gamers would get it.

Radar Online Takes on the Masthead Pics

2006-10-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

Damn - they beat me to it - From RADAR ONLINE. I thought about doing such a piece but I'm lazy ... nice feature on those soft glow editor/publisher/ chief "casual-seemingly off the cuff" photo that represents all that I am hard on facts but soft on life ... that I'm rakish, glamorous and all egghead sexy but really, I'm all about being your advocate ... and never mind it took 40 rolls, 7 stylists and 8 filters to make me look like Clooney's brother or Rachel McAdams slightly older sister.

Harvard: We're Fun Also!

2006-10-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

Harvard (the school ;-) is not all just about Business or rowing, it's about keeping it real with "fans." (they already have an alumni mag)

They're launching a new Harvard lifestyle mag called 02138 - not quite as catchy as 90210 and apparently technically, most of the colleges are not really in zip code 02138 but who's going to argue with an endowment larger than some countries GNP.

The first issue features the Harvard 100 - not by income but by Harvard hotness ... whatever that may be ... though shocker, Peggy Lipton's daughter (first issue cover) is attractive - without or without a shirt :-)

On the Newsstands - Who's Hot

2006-09-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

See, when you sell a subscription for $400 a year and you're not peddling medical studies, the upside is people who used to read People now read you also ... do we need a new word for "reading' when all you do is look at pictures and no words have more than 2 syllables (celeb kids names excepted?).

IN TOUCH is #2 on the newsstands in the battle of celeb mags.

MEN'S HEALTH (the shirtless mag) is claiming they have usurped MAXIM as #1 on the newsstand - MAXIM says, "We have not been surped and for God's sake, put your shirt back on!"

MySpace: We Need to Kill Some Trees

2006-09-13T22:53:00.000-07:00

As someone who welcomes any new magazine on any subject ... well, almost anything ... I can only hope that whomever is the throw-bleach-in-our-eyes- creative-designer behind MySpace does not go anywhere near the proposed magazine ...

From AdAge:

"MySpace is actively considering whether to launch an ink-on-paper magazine to complement its insanely popular and remarkably valued online property. The editorial mix would likely cover standout MySpace members and their interests, from music to their social scenes. ..."

Hummina, hummina, hummina...SOLD!

2006-09-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

So Time Inc. is going to sell off 18 titles. And some of the old standys are in this group: Field & Stream, Parenting, even Popular Science.

We think this is good for the magazine business. Out of 18 titles at least one senior manager is going to say, "Screw it! I am going to get a sugar daddy and launch my own magazine!"

Granted one or two new launches might come of this and while they won't be on the scale of Conde's Portfolio, we could use something cool like Make or Paste.

It's Cool, It's So Hip It Hurts ... It's Only Online

2006-09-11T14:32:00.000-07:00

Fashion156.com is another trust-fund way too cool Euro fashion mag - only it's only online...

The Future of Print News

2006-09-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

Maybe when ePaper is perfected along with WiFi Max, here's what your newspaper will look like ...

NEWSMAP

Not A Bad Idea, Just Bizarro Choices

2006-09-09T23:23:00.000-07:00

From the NY Times, some publishers are trying to get college student hooked on their books by offering them free PDF/Digital versions ... not a terrible idea but instead of actually giving students a real choices, clearly whomever made these choices is a marketing genius who graduated from the School of Obvious Marketing ... sometime in the 1930's ...

"The School of Cinema-Television at the University of Southern California will get Premiere; the Parsons School of Design, Elle; the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, Foreign Policy; the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University BusinessWeek; and Notre Dame’s college of engineering, Popular Mechanics."

What no farming mags for people at A&M schools or Bass Fishing for Gulf Coast students ...

Damn, Is It September Already?

2006-09-04T23:04:00.000-07:00

Like the other coast friends, I prefer to take August off.

It's all very civilized - even if it means being stripped search at Teterborough, and your evening ends trying to read the If-I'm-passed-out directions tattooed on Lohan's back ... now, the fun & games are over and it's back to the blog.

Relaunch Cracked? Are they Mad?

2006-08-15T10:03:00.000-07:00

An investor group that bought out the assets of Cracked is releasing their first issue on the stands today for $3.99. This appears to not be your daddy's Cracked of half baked cartoons and satire. This has some money behind it and from what they are sharing on their web site, they have some talent lined up to write for it too including one of my favorites from MST3K - Mike Nelson!

Launched ... 2006. So Far ...

2006-07-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

Here are the notable launches so far for 2006 - only listed if there's a website, frankly if you launch a magazine in 2006 without a website, step away from mimeograph machine, get back on your donkey and ride back into the 20th century ...

Most of the launches seems to have a point which is a good thing - during the last internet boom, there were plenty of vanity projects that had no real point ... there are still some just in it for launch parties and to have ego boost photos on the masthead but most are legit and interesting enough ... in this day and age, that might not be enough to make a go of it but we could use all the idiosyncratic launches we can get our hands on ...

Looks Pretty Good:

108 - Baseball Nostalgia
Adorn - Crafting (cool looking design)
Atlanta Peach - Atlanta style/fashion (from the geniuses of OCEAN DRIVE)
Atlantan - Atlanta style/fashion (apparently, it is Hotlanta)
Arts & Crafts Homes - Architecture Art & Crafts (classy looking)
Beckett Elite - High End Sports Memorabilia
Beckett Massive Online Gamer - Online Multiplayer Video Games
Bene - Italian Design & Style (very cool looking!)
Blueprint - Martha Stewart's Architecture/Design
Chicago LifeStyle - city mag, not quite world class yet
Delicious - UK foodie
Fair Game - Women Soccer
Fairways & Greens - West Coast Golf & Travel
Form & Style - Plus Size Women Fashion & Style
Hallmark - If you have a cable network, you have to have a print companion
HouseDIY - Somewhere between REAL SIMPLE and THIS OLD HOUSE
ID3 Podcast Magazine - Podcast
Illiterate - Art/Poetry
Imbibe - Mixed Drinks
ImagineFX - SciFi EFX (with DVD)
Innovative Home - Architecture & Design
Conveyer - Hip Jersey City mag
Lemon - Another hip art.culture downtown mag
Massive - The other massively multiplayer online video gaming mag
Melangé - Sexy Lifestyle
MissBehave - Hip Girl's Teen Lifestyle
New York Front Desk - City Lifestyle
Ocean Home - Aspirational
Pulse - Not the defunct Tower mag, sexy fashion lifestyle
QuinceGirl - Spanish Sweet 16 Quinceanera's Celebration
Radiant - Stylish Young Women Lifestyle
Relish - Nice looking food mag - will they relish the tough competition?
SacTown - Nice classy name for Sacramento city mag
Savvy Mommy - Hip motherhood
She Knows - Cooking/recipes
Shop Smart - Consumer Reports for young women
Stone - Lifestyle, fashion
Smash - Tennis Mag Jr ... though isn't everyone in tennis underaged now?
Vox - Long Island/Hampton hip lifestyle
What's Next - High End Lifestyle & Travel
World Bride - Brides of 'Color'
You-Tu - Latino Lifestyle & Fashion

Looks Interesting Though Not My Cup of Tea:

3V - Christian GQ
A Public Space - Art & Culture
Baseball Youth - Little League/Youth Baseball
BassFan - The Sport of Professional Bass Fishing
Beer Advocate - No Beer mag has succeeded so far ...
Bella - Spanish Women's Fashion
Breath of God - Christian Young Women
Christian Professional - Christian Fast Company
Civilian Job News - Career mag for military to civilian life
CNBC Euro Business - Business Mag (Surprisingly weak design)
Crawl - Jeep mod mag
Create the Dream - Candle, Soap & Herbal crafting
Creative Techniques - A HOW magazine for design creating 'pop art.'
Crier - Art (artist designs each issue)
Draft - The better looking but will probably fail like the first 25 beer magazine ...
EAT: Exotic Adventure Travel - Attempt at Maxim Travel - not quite there
Equine Wellness - Horses
Fertility Today - No smarmy comments
Gift Shop Mag - Trade mag of notable new merchandise for Gift Shop Owners
Golf Magazine Living - Golf Real Estate Development
Green Builder - Trade mag for "Green" Developers
GreenSource - "Green" Construction
Heart Healthy Living - Food & Health mag (weak design)
Hope for Women - Christian Young Women
Hunting Camp Journal - For Hunting Property Owners
Full Size Jeep Magazine - For Cherokee owners only
Jamaican Eats - Nice looking food & travelogue mag
Journal of Christian Youth Ministry - Title pretty says it all
Junk Market Style Decorating - Is this something people really want on their coffee table?
Kitchen Mag - Is there a room without its own mag?
Kokoro - Martial Arts
LRL - Land rover Lifetstyle
Lidia's Italy Shopping - Tie in to KQED Chef
Maximum Fitness - Guess Minimum Fitness folded
MedicaLife - Lifestyle Mag for Doctors
Nine - Girl's Teen Fashion
North Virginia - America's 2000th City Mag?
Poker Life - Texas Hold 'Em
Positive Thinking - Mental/Physical Health
Real Fighter - You better be one to wear the t-shirt in public that they also sell.
Scale & RC Boat - RC Watercraft
Shattered - Women Business
Shereese Hair & Beauty - Hair & um, beauty
Shock - Most controversial launch of 2006
Sister, Inc. - African American Business Women
Standout - Gay/Lesbian
Success - CEO Business magazine
Sweet Tea - Northwest Florida ... Porches
Tapout - Ultimate Fighter (cool logo - most other mags could learn something!)
Traditional Lowriding - Website placeholder ... so far, SFW ... Next Week? :-)
TrueGirl - Christian Girl
Urban Savvy - Urban Lifestyle
WakeSurfing - Wakesurfers
Web 2.0 Journal - for Web 2.0 Designers & Webmasters
Wicked Act - Dancehall Reggae
WonderTime - Parenting

Me'h (We're Just Here for The Classifieds and Plastic Surgery Ads):

BoomNC - Retirement in North Carolina (could use a real designer)
Generations Hawaii - Hawaii Retirement (seriously needs re-design)
Golf Events - Golf Corporate Outings (weak design)
Helen - Lafayette, Indiana Women
Internet Genealogy - Was this designed on an Amiga?
Jorrest Teen - Vanity project?
iSalsa - Salsa
Movmnt - Urban Lifestyle (cheap looking)
Nightlyfe - Too hip to spell correctly - too much flash to let anyone in ...
St. Mary's - Some city somewhere ...
Texas Family - For parents in Texas
Today's Groom - So far, there's been 10 attempts to get grooms to care ...

Single Magazines For Sale

2006-07-29T21:49:00.000-07:00

If you don't live a giant news-stand, here's another place to get individual copies of mags ... though it seems to be designed in 1998 and for the life of me, I could not figure out how to actually order from this place ...

Int'l Herald Tribune: The Audio Version

2006-07-29T21:44:00.000-07:00

The International Herald Tribune is offering an interesting feature - free for its readers ... er, listeners:

Step 1: Select any news section or individual article to add it to your podcast. You can even create custom filters for your favorite topics.

Step 2: When you're finished AudioNews will create a custom podcast URL based on your selections.

Step 3: Use iTunes, Juice, or your favorite podcast software to download AudioNews directly to your PC or portable media player.

BabyTalk Controversy

2006-07-29T21:35:00.000-07:00

Babytalk scares readers with photo of giant baby and a curved portion of our largest organ ...

MySpaced Out: ElleGirl & TeenPeople Drop Out

2006-07-26T16:01:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, ElleGirl announced it was dropping out of the teen rat race - today surprisingly Time Inc decided to close up TeenPeople - only two months after hiring a new editor and "looking forward."

Both will live on as websites.

Time Inc. ... We Do Use a Lot of Ink

2006-07-26T15:54:00.000-07:00

In case you're curious about the 145 magazines that comprise of the Time Inc Magazine Publishing Group, here ya go ...

Core Statistics
22.5% - Percent share of overall domestic magazine advertising spending as of March 31, 2006

350+ million - Copies sold each year by IPC Media – The U.K.’s leading consumer magazine publisher

28+ million - Number of U.K. adults that IPC magazines reach – 70% of U.K. women and 50% of U.K. men

(And yes, PROGRESSIVE FARMER is part of the US titles).

Dick Van Dyke - The Comic: Too Real to be True

2006-07-26T15:45:00.000-07:00

Here's the story of a short-lived comic book spin-off of the Dick Van Dyke Show ... it's wacky with a great deal of detail ... it's so surreal that you'd swear it was too weird to be real ... or maybe it's just all too real ... it's on the internet, it must be real, right?

;-)

Apple, Not Far From the Tree

2006-07-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

If Absolut is the best magazine advertiser of the past 25-30 years, Apple is not far from that title ... of course, the famous 1984 TV commercial doesn't count for print but this was a 32-page insert in Newsweek to introduce the original Mac.

Issue-By-Issue Magazine Measurement Service To Launch

2006-07-26T00:26:00.000-07:00

FROM PRESS RELEASE

"... a new print ratings service scheduled to begin continuous measurement of publication audiences this fall. This new method of tracking print audience levels and engagement on an issue by issue basis may change the way in which advertising in magazines and national newspapers is bought and sold, by providing information that is comparable to that of electronic media. “The Beta test proved that continuous measurement of issue-specific audiences that is both timely and credible can be provided at a reasonable cost. This information will enable publishers to provide a level of accountability not previously available, while providing substantial insights into the underlying dynamics by which their publications attract readers,” says Rebecca McPheters, McPheters & Company President."

CLICK ON TITLE BAR to JUMP and READ.

Free to Read ... Not So Much

2006-07-26T00:17:00.000-07:00

"new research suggests that consumers who receive unpaid subscriptions to upscale city and regional magazines are far less inclined to read them, and when they do, they don't value them as much as magazines they pay for. The findings, which were revealed recently to members of the City and Regional Magazine Association, comes from a study conducted by a media researcher known for reaching upscale media consumers: Monroe Mendelsohn Research, authors of the so-called affluent study. To understand what impact a barrage of new upscale, but freebie, magazines are having on the market for paid circulation magazines, Emmis Communications, one of the largest publisher of city and regional magazines, commissioned MMR to survey readers. The result: a majority of 2,250 randomly selected consumers surveyed in key markets where such magazines are published either were unaware of the free magazines, or said they did not read them."

Revolver, Revolution, Imagine, Future - One More Into the Er, Breach

2006-07-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, Harris Publications launched REVOLVER MAGAZINE and Imagine Media launched REVOLUTION.

While Harris has evolved REVOLVER from a mainstream music magazine to one covering metal/death metal - REVOLUTION folded up shop after a few issues.

REVOLVER was and is essentially pointless. There are a handful of nice/great/ interesting UK music publications such as NME, MOJO, Q, and UNCUT - for some reason, American music writing has whithered to a quality best described as almost-as-good-as-the-Sam's-Club magazine.

ROLLING STONE is as much of a music magazine as MTV is music television.

BLENDER is acceptable - amusing but not very ambitious. Perhaps the confined quarters of GB (being an island and all that) and the desire to hang onto to a pub & club expense account drives the need for top notch writers. Meanwhile in the States, while our radio is mostly bland pre-programmed, robotic and payola based - the reality is that the music that sells/downloaded illegally is wonkily diverse - from Atlanta crunk to crystalline pop to alt country to trip hop to alt ... and while the pop stars are covered by People & Us - they niche 300 magazines cover the rest in America ... so anything vaguely general interest is poo-pooed ... nothing new on this front for almost any hobby field magazine in America.

So, REVOLVER revolved themselves into a death metal magazine. Not that anyone really cared but give them credit for proving that you never give up - even if you haven't a clue ...

Speaking of REVOLUTION. It was supposed to be the intellect's dance magazine.

That's sort of like saying, the intellect's TV wrestling magazine or the intellect's ultimate fighter magazine ... and I say this as a trance/house/trip hop music fan.

People who like dance music don't really need to read about it - they just wanna know the best white label secret tracks being played in some obscure club around the world and at midnight raves.

Okay, apparently many trance music fans are also on E but that's another blog - anyway, it's hard to read when you are dancing on a beach in Ibiza under the moonlight with 20 sweaty supermodels (that's just my life - you might want to substitute Des Moines, the closed Kmart and your geography teacher :-)

If you are going to be a pompous intellect magazine about house/trip-hop/trance dance music ... it also doesn't help your case when the writing is not very intellectual and rather dull. Plus, there's really not much of an advertising market because the people they want to reach are already at the clubs drinking tequila shots from a sponsored hostess.

The included CD's were nice but REVOLUTION stopped spinning after about 6 issues.

But Imagine which became Future is determined to stay/get in the music business - so after buying a bunch of guitar lesson magazines, they have acquired the lamest and shortest of breath music magazine, REVOLVER - guess they just love the REV word - any magazine with that name, we'll buy it!

I wonder how the death metal fans will feel when they switch over to dance?

Reader's Digest - The Party Animal

2006-07-23T21:31:00.000-07:00

The Reader's Digest - yes, still publishing and still making money - though in ways that might surprise you so if you need some street marketing ... Main Street that is - you gather up 5,000 consultants to throw parties in their homes and sell, sell, sell to friends, family and neighbors ... what could be more neighborly?

A Taste of the Action only costs $199 (not including shipping or handling - it is the Reader's Digest after all). just so they don't forget their roots, your consultant will be happy to sell you some magazine subscriptions also.

Or you can make $100 to $300 the old fashioned way ...

And while the web site clearly has too many elements on one page, you even get podcasts - way more 21st century than THE NEW YORKER.

Conde Nast Acquires NutritionData.com

2006-07-23T21:20:00.000-07:00

Press Release:

"Conde Nast announced today that it has acquired NutritionData.com, a leading health and nutrition Web site that provides high-quality tools and information to consumers eager to embrace a healthier lifestyle."

Guess I won't be a regular at NutritionData.com

New Fangled Technologies ... of 1949

2006-07-23T21:09:00.000-07:00

Fun covers from way back - the 1930's to the 1960's, from Modern Mechanics to Popular Science.

Animation Timeline-UK Sight & Sound

2006-07-23T15:30:00.000-07:00

The timeline of animation as an film art form - from UK's Sight & Sound magazine.

Should New York Be Called New Amsterdam Again?

2006-07-20T06:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, we're going to take a sidestep and talk about newspapers for a second.

So the Wall St. Journal is going to start selling advertising on their front page one-upping (or one-downing) The New York Times (the NYT began selling ad slots on the front page of their Business Section months back).

I can hear the reps at the WSJ now "Hey Joe...me take insertion order from you long time...". I wonder if Mr. Crovitz at the Journal realizes he's going to need new business cards which change his title from Publisher to Pimp.

I May Not Make My Base Commission This Month

2006-07-16T20:15:00.000-07:00

So, if you think you have it rough? Imagine selling lifestyle & travel ad space for Time Out ... in Beirut.

The Business End of Conde Nast

2006-07-16T15:54:00.000-07:00

Old news is that Conde Nast is launching a business title.

Update: they have decided on a title - PORTFOLIO.

If the photos on the website are any indication, hopefully, we are returning to the days of real photos in business pubs.

After all, the best parts of Koyaanisqatsi were the showcases of man's power to build, stack and reach for the sky ... what is not the Strip at Vegas but our new Colossus at the harbor of Rhodes?

Of course, the market is pretty soft in the business/financial mags but at least it'll be a nice ad package with Wired.

Absolut - ly Great

2006-07-14T01:28:00.000-07:00

The best magazine/print advertiser of the past 25 years has to be Absolut - the most audacious and brilliant is probably the flat snowglobe but it's hard to beat some other amazing things they've done like the crossword puzzle socks ... below are some samples of my favorites but of course, the two books cover the whole history of Absolut advertising.

It goes to show you what imagination and well, a nearly un-limited print budget will do for you :-)

You can gather up some of the best known modern day artists to produce a series of modern art:

Some of their classic ads along with a giant foldout:

Or actually bind in Absolut wrapping paper holding 4-5 holidays cards:

Or bind in word-magnets - this tiny photo doesn't really do it justice - click on link to see ot full sized:

To Absolut, thanks for the memories and all your creativity and showing everyone you are only limited by your imagination.

If Your Readers Are Not So Bright, Take ALL Their Money

2006-07-09T18:22:00.000-07:00

If you really, really, really, really want your readers to pick up copies at the news-stand and supermarket racks, this is brilliant - charge nearly $400 a year for a subscription - no, not a trade or a newsletter for the defense department, it's OK! It's OK Magazine's wacky but brilliant strategy and if you love it so much, why not ask their readers to go to cash-advance paycheck office to gather up $400 clams (with a vig of about 200%) so it'll arrive a few days in the mailbox every week or so ... because Jen, Brangelina, Gwen, Xina & Paris are worth giving up that blood medication.

Yep, We is More-rons ...

2006-07-08T16:06:00.000-07:00

If you ever wanted a thousand links to book publishing and book selling stats and links, follow this page from Para Publishing (vanity press)

And while this is more related to books, here are the reading ... er, non-reading habits of our fellow nitwits and if these stats are true, frankly, they are nitwits ...

Who is Reading Books (and who is not)

One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.

Many do not even graduate from high school. 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.

42% of college graduates never read another book.

80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.

70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years
(ed: Amazon.com & Barnes & Nobles.com would explain this one)

57% of new books are not read to completion.

--Jerrold Jenkins.

Everything is Beautiful ... Everything is For Sale

2006-07-07T17:56:00.000-07:00

The WSJ (via Hollywood Wiretap) is reporting that Hearst's SHOP, ETC ... will become the first mainstream magazine to sell the cover.

I'm not sure why this shocks anyone. You knew it was a coming ... I think as long as people you tell people straight out - THIS IS ADVERTISING or THIS IS AN ADVERTORIAL, we're okay about it. We're adults. We're grown-ups (at least physically) so we can deal with it.

Just DO NOT HIDE IT or treat us as ninnies.

Hell, let's run ads on the bellies and thighs of hookers*

Just be upfront about it ... and BETTER yet, include a $5 coupon. We will all feel better.

Besides, SHOP, ETC is basically a SkyMall catalog with less words - not exactly much of a stretch ... and of course the bigger point is ... I'm guessing it's pure coincidence that on the cover of a dozen magazines EVERY MONTH are movie stars who just happen to have a movie coming out ... and if that's journalism inside, US Magazine should have about 15 Pulitizer's.

* Yes, this is fake. Page closed but screen cap on left.

MySpace All Over IT

2006-07-05T13:39:00.000-07:00

Ad Age is reporting that Seventeen Magazine is the first mag to put up their own MySpace page ...

For marketers (and phillosophers) out there, consider this ...

It really is the era that the brand itself is an living embodiment of the brand (can you get your head around that after a long weekend of beer, brats, brawts & chucks of undigested beef?)

Consider this ... three of the fast food chains have profile/pages up on MySpace :

Burger King, Wendy's and Jack in the Box

For those not in the know, you can ask to become someone's "friend," on MySpace - essentially creating a link and thus the network of friends can grow and grow ...

Burger King, Wendy's and Jack in the Box have 67,721; 85,321 and; 118,882 friends respectively.

And where are you in hearts and minds of MySpacers?

New York - Still a Hell of a Magazine Town

2006-07-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

What are the ten best magazines in America right now?

Three on the list pretty much center on one city ... fortunately, it's New York City - and they deliver & capture in print America's zeitgeist in one fell swoop EVERY WEEK*

Of course, being a magazine about New York has its advantage because even after 230 years, there's no denying that New York is the center of it all because if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere (as the colonial forefathers used to say over & over again (of course, they used YE instead of YOU)) - and if nothing else, ye still cannot get a pastrami sandwich as great as you can in NYC.

By jamming everything together in one 50 block radius, there is tension and competitiveness to be first, best or have the most ad pages - it also helps that the TV networks, art, theater, fashion, advertising, publishing and other entertainment industries are all there in that same 50 blocks.

So, there are some built in advantages but that doesn't entirely explain the distance between the quality of these three NY magazines and Los Angeles or San Francisco city mags - they are not just a continent apart in quality - more like the west coast mags are on Pluto in the middle of the Kuiper belt ... that's 5,913,520,000 miles if you're keeping numeric track ... and it's no East Coast bias talking here, I'm in S.F.

NEW YORK MAGAZINE held that "mythical" title of America's best magazine for most of the 70's and early 1980's and has pretty much re-captured that crown though it's not nearly as great as it once was but that might just because in the era of the internet, NYC is just a tad less important. While a little less newsy obviously, it is what TIME and NEWSWEEK hope to be - it's never un-substantial even when it's covering pop culture or when they have a celeb on the cover. Every week, they capture the topic most important to New Yorkers and ultimately to everyone vaguely interested in all the directions New York and its many industry leaders are pointed towards. And if that's too much reading for you, they even have included a brilliant weekly "approval matrix" graph paper grid dividing the trends of today into HIGHBROW & LOWBROW and then split into varying X/Y axis points of DESPICABLE or BRILLIANT ... (and promptly stolen by STUFF magazine).

Every issue is backed with solid writing, excellent photographs and world class magazine design. Of course, it's New York centric with occasional features that leave those who cannot name the 5 burroughs clueless but then TIME magazine keeps telling me to exercise and eat healthy so what's up with that? And since it's also an insider media mag - you also get a glimpse at new print campaigns. For the longest time, it was home to the annual ABSOLUT over-the-top holiday print extravaganza from a flat 3-D snowglobe with moving snowflakes to socks to word magnets.

The downside to many is that the last half of the magazine is essentially a roundup of movie and theater reviews (plus classifieds) - the weakest part of the magazine.

All and all, NEW YORK MAGAZINE is the ultimately Manhatten insider - perhaps spending a little too much at club openings, parties and in the Hamptons but secretly, we want all the gossip anyway but it's no lightweight celeb magazine as it covers everything about NYC and everything that the city touches - architecture, art, advertising, media, the economy, fashion, government, and where America is headed.

Hard to ask for much more from a magazine.

If NEW YORK MAGAZINE is a bit East Side, TIME OUT NEW YORK is ALL Village ... It is the charismatic wild cousin of New York Magazine who calls you up at 5 AM because he's locked in the freezer of the meat packing plant that was a nightclub from 2 to 4 AM. Time Out New York covers the rest of NYC that NY Mag might shy away from - its seedy and wild side. The writing is more uneven but it's always heartfelt and real - and yes, while it's more a city guide in terms of its focus on events, happenings and resturants - because it's NYC, it's always just a bit more important. They are also quick to poke fun at anything pretentious - and in NYC, that ahppens pretty often. While New York mags agate type reviews and back pages stuff & classifieds don't amount to much, TONY's (as they abbreviate themselves) strength is its hundreds if not thousands of reviews of EVERYTHING going on in NYC. While 75% of the mag is the "back-pages' stuff and at first glance, might be a turnoff, it's really a fascinating snapshot of the city that never sleeps and ultimately a snapshot of the city that truely is America's capitol (and capital).

A typical issue has a cover story on this week's big happening along with some other major event - then it's onto the fine print - several restaurant reviews and any new restuarnt openings along with their listing of the Top 100 places in the city. Then it's onto the weekly happenings for kids, museums, festivals and even street closures. Every issue contains a review of an art exhibit and in NYC, there are usually 4-5 opening at all times ... Other subtopics include Books, Clubs, Comedy, Films, Gay & Lesbian, Music Live, Music CD Reviews, Theater, On & Off Broadway, Radio & DVD ... and we're not just talking one page per topic or regurgitated press releases, there is a main page and then anywhere from 2-5 new reviews plus hundreds of real reviews - whether it's abstract photographs at some tiny gallery or the latest Pixar movie or some night club cabaret singer ... IT'S ALL THERE and ALL REVIEWED.

It is really a weekly moveable feast Michelin Guide to all that is NYC.

So even if you're NOT in NYC, you can see what you're missing at the Met or at the Met's Shea stadium - it's all there. Idiosyncrastic, Weird and Fun - it's the real New York City and if nothing else, an impressive feat of print production because they do it again EVERY WEEK.*

When you flip through it, you wish your town had as much going on in 200 square blocks ...

The third is the oldest - the venerable NEW YORKER. Of course when your writers included Hemingway, Faulkner, Capote and Benchley - you have just a little bit of history to bank on. Of course, it just proves that great writers no longer start at magazines - who do we get now?

I can't speak of its years in the days of Hemingway since I was not alive. I can only praise it from the 1980's to today. While Tina Brown seemed to be loathed by many - since I've never met her, I can only say she did a great job when she was at the New Yorker. She had a pulse of what topics would be relevant to our lives and to our intellectual curiousity - when she was at the helm in the late 1980's and 1990's, the New Yorker held the crown of best magazine in America. The new editor has done a pretty good job of upholding the fine tradition and it's still pretty great - just not the absolute best in America. Here is the strength of the New Yorker, (no cover lines BTW) ... WRITING. Yea, pretty radical. The comics are amusing and the newly added photos are nice but it flat out comes down to the writing. In fact, there's no point in the New Yorker printing cover lines on the cover because frankly, most issues don't seem to promise much ... if you glance at the TOC, you think - READ THAT, SEEN THAT, BEEN THERE, THROWN UP ON THAT ... but then you flip the page and the writing draws you in - topics you thought you had absolutely ZERO interest in ... Japanese Koi fish, WTF? but 8,000 words later - you suddenly start googling Japanese Koi fish to read more ... Even the book reviews draw you ins o 4 pages later, you are at Amazon looking up the autobiography of the general leading the British at the Somme - damn you New Yorker!

It is still weird reading the f-bomb in the New Yorker though and their idea of humor is quaint - as if Moliere told you a pun in French.

Part of the appeal of the New Yorker is how it seems as though they are in a bunker in the basement of the Museum of Natural History - writing as if everything else were a mere triffling but they are the only real scribes of our history and times ... that can be annoying to some but mostly, it's interesting, different and great writing is timeless. Bravo to Conde Nast keeping its spirit intact ...

So, there you go, read and subcribe to the three of America's best magazines. Thank you NYC!

* Well, in magazine publishing, there are really only 46-51 weeks a year :-)

Direct Web Links:

NEW YORK
TIME OUT NEW YORK
THE NEW YORKER

Disposable - Wasn't Always the Case

2006-06-30T20:18:00.000-07:00

Maybe magazines wouldn't seem so disposable and more vital if the covers didn't seem the same month after month - what are publishers saying to readers? It's just the same old - same old?

Perhaps by making them seem less disposable, they won't seem to be date stamped like milk ... and bad in a couple weeks ... maybe we need to go back to the days of old like these Fortune mag covers from way back ... who would not want a nice framed version of this on your wall? Versus the Fortune covers of today?

Old time Fortune covers from Nostalgiaville.

Do "cover lines" really sell the magazine? Or is it marketing CYA and the presumption that you have to over-sell everything? What about to subscribers? What do they need cover lines for?

Was it really art prior to the late 1980's or was it just a matter of limitations - that when you got your Mac with its 1,700 typefaces and fonts, why not use everything? Why not throw 16 sizes of every weight on a cover in 15 minutes where as before if you tried that, the typesetter with calluses on his calluses (including his missing finger) would walk up 7 flights of stairs - cuss you out in Welsh and beat you to senseless with a horsehide mallet.

Of course, they still use the horsehide mallet in Sales but that's another story ...

They REALLY Don't Draw Them Like They Used To

2006-06-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

A great compilation of illustrated print ads from the 1950's and 1960's - collected by FLICKR blogger Leifpeng. All fun and great stuff - even if I have no idea what it is. I would like a lot more ethyl in my car ... why? So I can have the best-est Chevron Christmas Ever! Because it's keen ... Nestle Keen! Or if you want to beat back those nasty carbonated boys sodas mom & dad, Hi-C is the one ... aka the makers of SnowCrop ... do I want to drink anything called SnowCrop?

Some things don't change - General Mills - giving away a MILLION DOLLARS in 1960 ... what's that in today's buying power - $25 million?

Or light up a Camel, endorsed by Brian Keith, Rock Hudson and a couple military guys.

Now known as Squirt, it was once Rummy ... (and just as popular!)

How about 99.9% sugar for the kinder - Karo for the pancakes?

High tech is high tech.

But above all, don't be a Dopey Dan.

How Do You Get on the Cover of Time?

2006-06-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Yea, in the days of yore, you needed to beat back the forces of facism or split an atom to get choosen to be on the cover of TIME ... I said peeshaw to that ... in fact, you don't even have to birth a baby in Nambia ... two clicks and you are this weeks cover of TIME magazine ... or PLAYBOY or on the cover of THE ROLLING STONE.

(Other links on page might be NSFW).

Brain Surgery or Subscribe to a Mag

2006-06-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

MAGHOUND

If you thought clicking YES on a magazine subscription or filling out a subscription card or poking Ed McMahon in the steam and giving him $3.99 in 4 separate envelopes ... is just too easy of a way to subscribe to a magazine ...

Here's a deal from Time Warner where you have to put on your thinking cap, take off shoes and launch EXCEL just to subscribe.

Choose a package of 3, 5, or 7 magazines fora package of 3, 5, or 7 magazines for one low price. You'll get 3 magazines for $6.95 per month, 5 for $9.95, or 7 for just $11.95 per month. Add extra magazines to any package for just $1.00 per month each, up to a maximum of 20!"

If I were smarter, I could tell you if it's a good deal or not ... the mascot is cute if that's anything ...

Harvard Business Review - Good enough for Yalies

2006-06-21T11:53:00.000-07:00

I picked up the most recent issue of HBR at the Atlanta Airport which set me back $10 or the equivalent of a 12 oz bottle of water and a Snickers bar from one of the HMS Travelhost spots. Normally, $10 for any magazine really will make one pause but in an airport concourse that level of spending is typically small time so it didn't engage my "Warning Will Robinson!" filter like it normally would hanging out at the reading couch at Border's.

I found it interesting that the issue had a cover dot promoting their own edit piece. Rather than whore themselves out for that last sliver of ancillary revenue the publisher decided to blatantly tout their own wares. Score one for growing a pair to fend off the ad creep on their cover.

The up front items were hit and miss with most of the main features solid save for one on Avatar-based Marketing (I don't expect fanboy based edit in HBR. It's bad enough seeing this dreck everywhere else).

I have to admit that I was intrigued by one of the cut lines: Eager Sellers and Stony Buyers: Understanding the Psychology of New-Product Adoption. That story had even more value than I had hoped and is exactly the type of useful and insightful edit from from a magazine flying the banner of an Ivy league school.

Speaking of that cover dot - it was heralding an exclusive interview with the Chairman and CEO of GE, Jeff Immelt. Well worth the read. Also, a surprising story on the benefits of making mistakes. That article alone should be sent annonymously to your bosses. If you haven't taken a look with an issue of HBR, take a flier on it or if you are not in an airport concourse, get on down to your local library and read the June 2006 issue for free and take the sub card home with you.

Magazines at Costco & Amazon - $165k ... For you - $6.99

2006-06-10T01:08:00.000-07:00

First Costco and now Amazon - individual magazine for sale. Of course back in the days of the Internet 1.0 - you could buy magazines for 50% off and free shipping - naturally, that was not really much of a business and they all went out of business. A few single sales places still linger (no free shipping ...) like MyMagstore.com might be the only one standing.

Min Magazine's Top 22 Launches of the Past 20 Years ...

2006-06-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

Min magazine, a trade magazine which features the people behind the magazine industry has selected the Top 22 launches of the past 20 years ...

Here are their choices in case you will not be attending the luncheon ...

Cooking Light	Maxim
CosmoGirl!	Men’s Health
Country	Midwest Living
Country Weekly	More
Elle	O, The Oprah Magazine
Entertainment Weekly	Parenting
ESPN The Magazine	People En Español
InStyle	Real Simple
In Touch Weekly	Traditional Home
Lucky	Wired
Martha Stewart Living	Wizard

And their winner? COOKING LIGHT ...

Were the ballots sent out Friday at 11:00 AM on a Friday during the Summer to their fellow Manhattenites?

So first choice listed alphabetically won - COOKING LIGHT?

Honestly, it seems an oddball choice ... you would think the most notable launch would be something completely out of the box and defying convention:

COOKING LIGHT is nice but it's hardly Earth shattering. It's GOURMET with lighter receipes ... how ground breaking is that?

While they are all deserving to be called out and congratulated for being successfully, I think you want to seperate out the real gutsy versus the ho-hum line extensions ...

EW is the best of the best of the truely deserving:

(in order)
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
MAXIM
WIRED
MARTHA STEWART
ELLE
WIZARD
INSTYLE
LUCKY
REAL SIMPLE

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY is/was essentially the first prosumer magazine ... or a trade magazine for the average reader. While entertainment is really the only field you could pull that off in, no one thought anyone wanted a WEEKLY magazine devoted to the nuts & bolts of the entertainment industry - that its main focus wasn't on celeb profiles or photo essays of celebs at home. In some ways, you could call it a spinoff of ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT which proved that yes, people were interested in box office grosses, weekly TV ratings, studio execs, showrunners and the people behind the Oz curtain. Only Time Life would commit so many resources to such a launch - especially after their disasterous TV Guide knockoff launch. With its first editor, it was easily the best magazine in America for 2-3 years right off the bat. It was a weekly zeigeist snapshot before the internet - if you wanted a pulse of America pop culture, there was no equal. It has slipped some - mainly because now on the internet, you can pull up grosses for every Pauly Shore movie with two clicks or what was the box office opening of Heaven's Prisoners or the TV ratings for The Jake Effect. No matter, how obscure, it's there ... and EW was the first print magazine to prove that we are all entertainment finance geeks. (trivia question - who was on first cover? HINT - like People Magazine's first cover Mia Farrow, it's not a mega superstar celebrity ...)

MAXIM - while it's easy to pooh-pooh Maxim (regular readers of Maxim might want to take this opportunity to go - he said pooh - hehehe :-) but they too proved that "general consenus" was just incompotence or just clueless ... that ... young men didn't want to read anything but nudie books. While that's never not true, Maxim proved they were interested in scantily clad women and a real guide to modern life (DETAILS: When to wear a bowtie ... MAXIM: How to Kill a Bear with a bowtie). Yes, it's silly, sophmoric and not very lofty but Conde Nast, Hearst and others all missed this ... that's saying something. Along with FHM and the other laddie books, that's some 5 million readers that came out of NOWHERE. That trumps COOKING LIGHT anyday but of course, giving the award to Maxim would just prove how clueless they really were.

WIRED - Also for the first 4-5 years of its life, America's greatest magazine. The basically saw the burgeoning tech industry in Silicon Valley-SF was to begat more than just geeks and some chips - that a whole 'nother freakin' world was coming. They chronicled all that was and all that was coming. Another time capsule of America (and in this case, the world) is right here in the first 4-5 years - not a rehash of the news or petty disagreements between us humans but what else was possible when we try to build a better future.

Those are clearly the top 3 groundbreakers. The next batch were also groundbreakers but to a lesser extent:

MARTHA STEWART - Regardless of how you felt about her or feel about her now, the small empire she built was pretty amazing and while she had some successful cookbooks and TV show appearances, there was not a lot of precedence for a magazine essentially solely devoted to the activities of one person. It wasn't one of the fake "licensing" deals like Joe Montana's RedZone or the Gene Simmons mag where they showed up to get a few snapshots that were then scattered in every issue - she was clearly in charge of every aspect of the thing and was deeply involved. She has paved the way to a slew of other self titled mags including O-OPRAH MAGAZINE and the new Rachel Ray magazine.

ELLE - It's a good pick but not a great pick. The first few years of Elle were dazzling, it was oversized with dazzling photos and layouts. It was very European but apparently not good enough. It's edges are pretty much gone and you'd be hard pressed to notice the difference in photo spreads between Elle, Vogue or Harper's B. The strike against listing in the top 3 is that Elle was very successfully in Europe so it's hardly surprisingly to bring/brand it over here ... the only major gutsy move was going against Conde Nast & Hearst but Hachette was also a big player ...

WIZARD - Wizard proved that a small niche book (comic books) could be fun & dazzling in its own right. That it didn't need to treat its subject with kid gloves or solemn-ness - that they could poke fun while informing. The layout, design and stock were also excellent - something most smaller publishers neglected (not to mention the typos). But this list really should be ones that broke into the mainstream. So, while it's successfully in the small pond, it hasn't broken into the mainstream.

INSTYLE - For those who think of Time/Life/Warner as some dinosaur, you couldn't be more wrong. They look things over, find an opening, develop and grow to mammoth sized (okay please help me finish my analogy from the Cretaceous to the Pleistocene to Modern Times :-) People Magazine is the most profitable magazine in America ... but sometimes celebs would get crowded out over those pesky "real" stories like runaway brides, missing white girls and blue dresses ... the last thing most magazine publishes thought America needed was a safe haven for celebs where all the photos are approved (no pictures of ratty sweats, smoking a cig, driving with their kid on their lap and dropping donut jelly on her flat head). Where the photos are all beautiful brides, shopping sprees or at the spa with their same sex friend ... all approved, all with filters and photoshopped to sheer perfection. The flip side of the papparazzi is InStyle. It's all very nice but not very good - to quote some plablum pop song. It is nice and I suppose we could use nice.

REAL SIMPLE - You could say Real Simple is the extension of InStyle (along Time Warner/Life) only it's not about celebs but about nice things around us. It's also very nice but like the hostess who greets you warmly, after you're seated - that ephermal moment is gone forever. What was that? Was that a thing? Or were you imaging it all? It did prove that a magazine doesn't need a lot of actual words to make it a magazine ...

Which leads us to ...

LUCKY - There was some precedence. While magalogs had had some success and tech snapshot books were popular in the UK, and REAL SIMPLE launched a few months earlier ... Conde Nast did take a chance at being ridiculed in putting together a magazine with hardly any text, just photos of stuff and stickers to mark YES, NO, THINK ABOUT. Sheer genius. All the ad revenue and not much work. Conde Nast strikes again. The first shopping porn magazine to achieve success ... the knock off from Heart hasn't made much headway and the men's version failed.

The rest?

Cooking Light - Gourmet (launched, what in 1935?) with light recipes. Who did not see that one coming?

CosmoGirl - Humm, not even the first "little sister" book. Wasn't TEEN PEOPLE first? Why is that not on the list?

Country - When have people NOT been collecting country clutter?

Country Weekly - Country Music magazine ... I see the multitude of hip hop magazines is not listed ...

ESPN - While it proved that there was room for another sports book, having a 80-million "father" is a nice launching pad. Virtually every special interest cable network launched a semi successful mag to set an example (Nick, Nick Jr., Biography, etc, etc ...) so what's new here?

InTouch Weekly - A cheaper US Weekly 2.0 ... nothing to see here, move along.

Men's Health - While a fine magazine (though frankly, I could use less bare chested men but maybe that's what the real readers want :-), it got trumped by Maxim's launch. It actually contains more real info than pretty much all the other men's books (See BEST LIFE) but most of it is devoted to exercise & nutrition but if you read about 6 issues, you'll notice that they start to contradict themselves (January - eat lots of oatmeal, June - stay away from oatmeal, eat barley).

Midwest Living - Okay, I admit, I do not know anything about this magazine as I do not live in the Midwest and I'm barely living ... (ba-lump-bumm) ... Did they nominate this mag just to prove they actually don't just read mags published in midtown Manhatten?

More - Yes, nice there's a women's magazine beyond the supermodel-couture fashion mags but there were a couple of failed launches previously but finally, the demo was right. Nice but hardly out-on-the-limb business plan.

Oprah - Yes, you could not find more devote followers of the Religion/Cult of Oprah but it helps when your TV show reaches 15 million daily but after the success of the Martha Stewart mag, easy to business plan and launch.

Parenting - Humm, a magazine for parents ... that took a lot of moxie to approve.

People En Español - Again, they were the first "mainstream" publisher to launch a Spanish version but not 20-year memorable. The people who launched LATINA were more gutsy.

Traditional Home - Same geniuses who realized that Parents must live ... where?

I guess they are only going with launches of mags that have survived 20 years (though InTouch is what, 2 years old?)

in place of some of the "ordinary" launches - I would nominate as some of the best (not top 3):

DWELL - a dazzling magazine of design and esthetics ... clearly one of the best magazines in America right now. Published in SF so it might as well be published in Montana - apparantly.

TIME OUT NEW YORK - Based on Time Out London but if Elle and CosmoGirl qualify, TONY (as they call themselves) clearly trumps at least 8 of their choices. Fun editiorial and literally thousands of reviews each week ...

Or if you want a foodie mag - SAVEUR is amazing.

Or Conde Nast Traveler which actually launched in the late 1980's but I think they stretched to get EW in there ...

plus a couple that have folded up shop - I guess it's not the launch but the longevity they are counting ...

(trivia answer: EW's first cover - KD Lang)

Going Digital? CM Tells You HT Move Your Print to Digital

2006-06-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

Are you a magazine publisher thinking about going digital? Circulation Management Mag shows you the way - don't forget to download the PDF chart of all the e-digital players who'll show you how.

Are You Lawyered Up?

2006-05-31T15:18:00.000-07:00

Looks like as generic run of the mill ad aimed at the "hip" crowd ... extreme sports ... video game console ... wait, is that a swarm of locusts covering the crop field?

Nope, just the most amount of legalese EVER ...

SERIOUSLY.

More words than the BILL OF RIGHTS and the MAGNA CARTA?

Why not? After all, it has something to do with gum and video games ...

WTHF?

And So It Begins ... It's All MySpace ...

2006-05-26T16:03:00.000-07:00

Seattle newspaper, SPOKESMAN REVIEW posts its Entertainment Calendar online on MySpace ... beating Murdoch's own papers to the punch ...

Yea, MySpace, its look & feel? ... proves that on the internet, nobody knows that your creative director is a dog.

And Now For Something Completely Different ... Diecast X

2006-05-25T14:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is my laziest review, I basically copied my Amazon review but if you like or collect diecast cars, this new addition is nicely done ...

There are quite a few diecast magazines or collecting magazines that have a section on diecasts but right now, this new magazine has clearly set a completely new benchmark.

Unlike other magazine categories, diecast magazines have tended to be a fly-by-night operation with sloppy page layouts, smudgy photos, low res printed on poor newsprint or if bound like a real magazine - filled with typos, grammatical errors and written by someone with a GED ... earned on the third try.

Diecast X is NONE of those failings. On the production end - it rivals "real" car magazines. Solid paper stock, excellent and professional design, layout and editorial (and no typos! :-) but what really makes it first rate are the photographs ... professional set up, lighting and of course, excellent reproduction ... again, that rival the real car magazines such as AUTOMOBILE or CAR & DRIVER. Every page has 2-5 photos - all in color or appropriate monochrome (historical).

These qualities alone are worth reading and subscribing. Then you add in first class writing writing and editorial - you have a great magazine. The editorial covers a lot of ground and while it is a specialized topic, they write with general readers in mind - and do not get too arcane or geeky ... it's a fun read but informative.

Even the ads are from high end diecast companies & retailers so they are also top notch.

This magazine is not really well known so if you know a collector, this would be a great gift or if you haven't seen it on your newsstand, this handily beats the rest out there.

The only quibble is it only comes out 4 times a year.

A DigiSet of Nylon With Your MySpace

2006-05-22T21:27:00.000-07:00

Mediapost's 'Just an online minute' email newsletter recently inked about an NYT report that Nylon has signed a deal to issue a free digital edition of Nylon's June/July music issue for MySpace. Yup. For free.

There's no way a deal like this could be structured with a print edition (since MySpace has about 70 million registered users even 10% of them wanting a free mag would stunt any publisher's growth).

On the face of it, sounds like you can't lose here. It's a win for the advertisers in that issue (the digital version is said to mirror the print version), the digital version goes on the virtual rack one day before the print version, Nylon is bound to convert some subs (that alone could be worth this effort) but all is moot with an eye on the ROI that MySpace is bound to be jamming them for the 'opportunity'.

Simply Real Smart

2006-05-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Real Simple has what the movie business calls legs. Not only did it do well out of gate but it continues to rake in the cash from advertisers and delight readers which all adds up to a sure fire money machine for Time Inc.

The first time I picked up this title from the newstand, it even felt different. The selection of that smooth but velvety cover stock spoke to me in subtle tones. The layouts are, well, simple, without being bare bones.

The stories are short and quite useful. Several of the recipes actually work well and are designed to help streamline the home life after a busy day.

It succeeds on so many levels that their own largesse is beginning to dampen its allure through - horrors! - line extensions and one-offs. But it now also has Real Simple TV, which premiered nationwide on PBS in January 2006, and Real Simple 2- in-1 cleaning tools, which went on sale in Target stores in February 2006. Talk about brand power.

The most recent issue I read may not have been as fulfilling as the month prior but it was still filled with more than enough value to justify its cover cost (not the discounted sub cost - the cover cost). How many magazines can you say that about?

Interesting facts: Five of TimeWarner's 10 most profitable magazines were launched in the last 20 years. Real Simple, which is one of those five, turned profitable in just over three years after it was first published in 2000. Milk that baby!

It is easy to dismiss a juggernaut like Real Simple once it is up and plowing through fields of cash but when it launched no one really was looking forward to another title in this field. I think I still hear the faint echo of that collective groan. But, hey, if you really want to groan go pick up a copy of Good Housekeeping.

Just how poor could their timing be to have Tom Cruise on the cover? And what's with that cover photo?! Geez, put the PR and Art Director filters on pause people. With all the backlash going on with the sofa jumper you can bet the editors are popping the Tylenol as they review their sell-through numbers.

Cargo Magazine: Why Do the Good Ones Go First?

2006-05-19T01:02:00.000-07:00

Sure, DETAILS, the smallest niche magazine* lives on but CARGO, an interesting magazine dies a quick death. When CONDE NAST struck paydirt with LUCKY. A magazine that essentially put the mag in magalog. It featured photos of women's fashions - not just a few but hundreds if not thousands - you want to see what's new in purses, how about 50 photos of them all set against a white background? And conveniently stickers are included as post-it note functions to tab them as BUY IT, CONSIDER, HUMMM .... It became one of the fastest growing magazines, so why one for men - CARGO. It was nice - professional photos and designed more manly-like but very much in following the concept of LUCKY ... and yet, it never really caught on - every male version of the hightech/consumer electronics lust-shopping magalog attempt on the male end has failed from T3 (licensed from the successful UK title) to SYNC to VITALS to MOBILE PC to CARGO (plus countless others) - ad dollars too scattered unlike women's fashion & perfumes who will buy 50 pages in one issue just because? Do interested parties prefer the specific books on A/V gear, on computers, etc ... instead? Maybe men just prefer it online? (there are a couple dozen others but UNCRATE is my favorite).

Alas, there is one that launched a few months ago (MEN'S HEALTH) BEST LIFE. We shall see if they can break the trend - a full review to follow.

* DETAILS: Are you a gay man who masquerades as a metrosexual who wants to read a men's magazine with half-naked men on the cover and prefer your celeb nubile young women in chaste petticoat-like photo layouts? Then, we have the magazine for you!

Warm Your Cockles

2006-05-19T00:32:00.000-07:00

absolutstocking.jpg
Originally uploaded by Sir Mag a Lot.

Normally, this would um ... knock your socks off? But after you can insert a flat WORKING snowglobe into the pages of New York magazine - the follow up of stockings is still great, just not freakin' great. Yes, within this hard cover stock is a window to peer at not just stockings but BRANDED stockings. One of the great print advertisers of all time - ABSOLUT.

Everyday I Write the Book ... Record the Podcast, Edit & Shoot the Video

2006-05-17T12:14:00.000-07:00

Of course, eventually we'll all be our own 24/7 magazine, blog, podcast & videocast (as with IPTV, who needs a dish or cable?) ... though I suspect we'll just end up with more of these sites versus these ... or perhaps the future of news is this ... or this? Or this or this, that and the other thing? Or the current major players is the way to go?

Yea, What I Said ... Only More Coherently

2006-05-13T11:03:00.000-07:00

Yea, What I said about "TIME MAGAZINE 2.0," and what the future version of news should be - here's a professional edited and written take on that very subject from the WSJ.

Is TIME On My Side?

2006-05-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

Since it's time to renew my subscription to TIME, why not write about it?

It's still an amazing thing - 80 to 100 pages EVERY freaking week - packed wall to wall with information, photos and a wide breadth of knowledge, know-how and production value in every issue.

It is pretty amazing in that aspect - that there are literally thousands of people gathering all this information, distilling and presenting it to us every week - on the dot.

40 years ago, it must have been amazing to have this arrive at your mailbox - with TV news 15 minutes a day and footage days old, TIME was needed to understand the world - but today?

With the world more and more complex - with us being able to watch a war, a palace coup and a trial verdict in real time with instant analysis on the spot and with commentators around the world - do we still need TIME?

Yes & No. It's still a nice roundup of the news in the past week, where we might be headed the next week and pop culture happenings. But it's no longer an immediate and must-read.

There are in a tough spot - how do you re-invent TIME? And if you do, will people follow?

Do you risk it all? Do you roll the dice and hope that people will join in? Or is the cause too late - that until they drop so far off the scale will they brave the completely re-set and call it TIME 2.0?

In a nutshell, TIME is supposed to make you smarter but in today's world - people care and don't care about a lot of things equally. People are wildly interested about some things but will not spend a minute reading about some other thing - how does a "general" interest newsmag capture the pulse of America?

Does it smarten up or dumb down?

If I had to set a plan, I would try to smarten it up. We know a lot of stuff or have access to a lot of information but we do not know the context of anything ... We need a mini "Dummies" Guide in every article to get us up to speed - if you're talking about the Kashmir, we need to go for a ride in the wayback machine so we understand ... we also need a new journalism - where simply getting an opposing viewpoint is not really helpful ... that if Exxon says something and Greenspeace says the opposite, that's all fine but are the facts they are citing real or false?

Once upon a time, we were smarter having read TIME - now, we might know more "stuff" but are we smarter?

Now, would I have the guts to press the button to blow up TIME 1.0 so TIME 2.0 could come bursting out of its staples? I don't know ... do people really want smart?

Here's a Shocker - Post Office to Raise Magazine Postage Rates

2006-05-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

The link is actually to postalwatch.org because who really wants to read the official post office's notice on filing for a postal rate hike.

Of course, after all these years of being beat on the head by the post office with rate hike afer rate hike (of course, us non mag publishers just wonder why you don't raise it to $.99 for first class and be done with it) - but the big question is?

Why do magazine publishers put up with it?

Is there some intrinsic value+ in a reader getting it in their mailbox? Even 20 years ago, I could understand but who really cares now? Why aren't there alternative methods of distribution?

Sure, you could work out something with the newspaper carrier but why not take a bolder intiative?

Why not offer consumers a choice?

Why not team up with a supermarket, Wal-Mart, Target, etc?

Why not offer subscribers a choice? Instead of spending all that money on postage - why not mail readers a gift card good for 12 issues (or whatever the term) that's good at a retailer of their choosing? AND offer $1 off purchases off anything else at that store at the same time? Retailers would be happy you're pulling in a customer 12 times a year - they'd be happy to pay most publishers $20 for the priviledge, right? And they would appreciate knowing that they can just grab it off the rack right then & there - magazines are also able to exactly track when subscribers grab the issue - alleviating any readership issues - it's clearly an ACTIVE reader that puts it in the cart.

The weeklies probably won't want to do this as it does cut down on newsstand sales and people might consider it a pain in the a** to have to troop down to a store 46-51 times to read the damn mag but monthlies - why not?

You save on postage, you know you have an active reader and retailers are happy to know they are specifically bringing in this customer 12 times a year ... what's wrong with my idea?

Arianna Throws the Gauntlet Down, Sort Of ...

2006-05-09T11:36:00.000-07:00

Arianna going to the American Society of Magazine Editors confab has some thoughts on the future of print, specifically magazines ...

Greatest Print Ad EVER? Absolut ...

2006-05-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

absolutsnow.jpg
Originally uploaded by Sir Mag a Lot.

In addition to blabbing about new mags, launches that successed or failed - it's also important to highlight the best print ads of all time ... starting with one of the greatest EVER.

Okay, in 1-D, it doesn't look like much but believe it or not, it was a flat snowglobe bounded into the pages of NEW YORK magazine.

Did I say snowglobe?

The thing with "snowflakes" if you jiggle it?

YEP.

That's right. This is a flat snowglobe where if you move the piece back and forth, the snowflakes move.

Yea, anyone can do it ... oh yea, and BOUND INTO A MAGAZINE ... SENT THROUGH THE MAIL.

On top of card stock (the Absolut Wonderland artwork) was a heavy piece of rectangular plastic sealed with a gelatinous goo and "snowflakes" particles. It was too slow moving to really shake but it would glide along inside.

Extremely cool for consumers.

Amazing and outrageous for us in the business. Holy cow!

You want to do what?!

That's what advertising should be about.

Now, nearly 15 years, it's still in great shape, the goo is still gooey and NO ONE has topped this piece yet. There are others we'll cover in the next weeks & months but why not start with the best? EVER!

(here is an alternative view - you can see the snow moving to the right)

Fun to Launch a Mag - Then the Printer Bill Comes

2006-05-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

ebay.jpg
Originally uploaded by Sir Mag a Lot.

This is one of those high-concept ideas that sound great but then the open bar closes and you're wondering why you're in bed with ... no not Natasha Henstridge but the Species II.

Published for about a year in 1999-2000, it seems like a natural. eBay was then one of the hottest if not the hottest internet commerce site - one that was actually making money and it was a goldrush to clear out the attic and garage - why wouldn't a magazine work ... the problem is as old as time. It does sound like a good idea but is it an actual good idea?

Unless you are selling $1,200 newsletters to universities and corporations, you have to figure out if you have readers ... or better yet, readers that advertisers want to advertise to ...

And in this case, the answer was pretty much no.

ebay was smart to partner with Krause (or Krause may have pitched them) - Krause publishes dozens of antiques and collectible magazines and hundreds of price guides. Krause's mags are best described as handcrafted and quaint. If you collect quilts or barb wire, Krause has a mag for you - they might only have a thousand readers of that thing but considering there are only 1,400 people interested in the subject - it's not bad.

eBay - the mag was their attempt at the big time - Color! (for Krause, it was a big deal) but beyond that they were pretty much stumped on how to write for the thing - should they write for the newbie collector on how to buy? Or the newbie seller? well, seasoned buyers did not want to give away "real" info about their hobby - damn, newbies with a computer driving up the prices of Kansas prairie barb wire ... damn those Yankees with their new fangled ways - if I get my hands on them, I'll wrap their necks in peaborough barb wire! And of course, sellers were loath to really go indepth into shining too bright on a light on their selling technique ... so basically, you ended with editorial that covered a lot of collecitble topics but all with EXACTLY the same point. eBay can be fun! Buy what you think is fun! Sellers are fun! ebay is cool!

You might fall for one issue but month after month?

And of course, collectible is a pretty huge field and frankly, people only want to read what interests them already - if they collected human souls (as they used to sell on ebay before they got all corporate) - you really didn't care much about antique tin dolls so of course, you had editorial that only interested a small % of readers and of course, info that was so generic you could substitute moon soil, wooden teeth and wireless routers for the keywords and get exactly the same advice ...

As for advertisers, the readers were either people looking to get rid of stuff (what are you going to sell to them? more crap?) or people with specialized interests but if you had an oversupply of barb wire to sell - um, wouldn't you be better off trying to sell it on eBay the site versus running a print ad in eBay - the still life magazine?

Remember people, a magazine is about writing, readers and advertisers.

eBay - the magazine. A fine idea at midnight on a paper napkin after 16 drinks. eBay - the magazine at the light of day - just a pounding headache and blockage at the information cortex.

Video Games Print Ads - The Dregs

2006-05-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

Video games prints ads are surpringly mostly inept ... a screen shot or two, an illustration of the main character, some cheesy cliche along with a cheesy pun and a bunch of tiny icons to decipher ... but 1up.com has selected the worst of the worst and they are Atari landfill bad ...

Details - The JV Team at Conde Nast

2006-05-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

Of course, when you are bootstrapping a magazine together, it's easy to excuse design or typos or sloppiness inherent in a one-man operation but DETAILS has access to great resources yet may be the WORST MAGAZINE IN AMERICA. The tea cozy ads in the NATIONAL ENQUIRER are awfully written with cheesy illustrations but at least there's some effort put into it. DETAILS is a lot of nothing.

DETAILS started out life as a downtown Manhatten club magazine - something akin to a hip New York magazine and then evolved into a hip city magazine. Conde Nast decided they wanted to add it to their roster since GQ was starting to skew older but decided to make it more of a young man's magazine. Of course, the problem is that CN did not want the new punk on the block to encroach on the revenues of GQ or prevent GQ from grabbing younger readers so DETAILS has also been viewed with a suspicious eye and whenever it gets a little more circ or revenue, CG immediately does a re-design. But as junior GQ, it served a purpose - you can only pack 400 or so pages in an issue of GQ before the binding starts to give way so they could always throw in some ad pages their way as part of the contract. Expectatations were not very high - there was this belief that young guys were not really commited mag readers (versus the 15 million young women readers) so GQ/Details & to a lesser extent Esquire did not have to work all that hard. Of course, there were specialized books & the mags with nudity or nudity+ but in their category, if Conde Nast & Hearst believed there was no more room for young men's mags, who were you to argue? Of course, a British publisher believed otherwise and even more to follow. Conde Nast does not appreciate being wrong so of course, Details was re-designed once again to do battle with them but they could never quite get it right.

Why? It's certainly not for a lack of resources? The formula for Maxim is not really difficult - girls in provocative poses but not quite nude (versus Maxim in other countries) and short burst editorial that mocks convention and short editiorial features of death - preferably gruesome spectacles ... so perhaps this was too lowbrow for Conde Nast to chase? After Maxim & FHM moved passed a million and more circ, it was time to take action for yet another re-design - this time they were serious - this was a RE-LAUNCH. They were re-setting the counter to ZERO and calling it a PREMIERE ISSUE ... this the result of focus groups, test designs and the collected brains of Conde Nast ... THIS WAS the barrage to take down Maxim & FHM a peg or two - THIS WAS THE volley they fired ...

Yep, I'm sure you said it also ... to shake up the young men's mag category - what we really need is a nearly nude Robert Downey Jr. - that will kill our competition.

Really, Huh? WTF?

But after all this time - where are we? A half-wit GQ - do we really need that?

Or perhaps even worse. Every magazine works on the premise of their "targeted reader." MAXIM is easy - it's the frat guy or the wanna be frat guy or the frat guy who refuses to grow up - that's fine. Pick a target and delivery that - great - so who is DETAILS?

It's very confusing.

It's a men's mag which mostly features guys without their shirts.

It's a men's mag that talks about oogling women but usually features blurry chaste, overlay arty photos of them.

It's a men's mag that tries to talk about being a guy but seems to think guys in their 20's gets into a debate about DH Lawrence.

It tries to talk about real style as doing your own thing but really, you must get this year's cashmere socks at $375 a pair to go with these loafers at $1,800 - they are to die for!

... Yea, you keep reading it and thinking, is this some poorly written new gay men's magazine? Not that there's anything wrong with it but at least a magazine like OUT is honest with you & itself.

So, do we really need a men's magazine for guys who are beards but want to come out of the closet?

Of course, only Conde Nast could sell $50 million dollars worth of ads for such a narrow definied niche. (okay, I don't know the exact revenue stream of DETAILS but why else haven't they shut it down?)

There are lots of other mags who are confused about who they want to be when they grow up (ROLLING STONE) but at least the writing is good - the writing is awful in DETAILS, the photos dull, the layout a mess and the main male interview every month pedantic and boring (since the real stars are in GQ or Esquire).

There's nothing wrong in being a gay magazine and there's nothing wrong in a magazine where you mostly oogle women but there's not a big intersection where they two interests collide - what do you end up with?

DETAILS.

The Worst Magazine in America.

Without Your Own Mag, You are Nothing ...

2006-04-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

How the boys from the SUITE LIFE OF ZACK & CODY are launching their own mag ...

Foreign Policy Magazine - Champ or Chump?

2006-04-25T14:07:00.000-07:00

Foreign Policy at the newstand. It was the Jan/Feb 2006 issue with our interesting neighbor down in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, on the cover. The dominant cutline right over a photo of the grinning leader read, "Hugo Boss - How Chavez is refashioning dictatorship for a democratic age".

Frankly, I was intrigued by the cover (score one for them) and bought it. The editorial was solid and broached a few subjects that I had not previously encountered. The article on the NRA as global lobby and the story about Vladimir Putin's crackdown on the new oligarchs in Russia were more interesting but no less disturbing on some levels. And that is a good thing.

The layout is mostly two-column in layout and easy to read. The art direction is ok with the only real letdown being the oft visited area of Bangladesh for the amazing destruction of massive ships by hand. This subject has been visited in many other magazines with much more potent production values to gain much ground with readers here.

The publisher is the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which makes you suspect where they might lean but I really didn't detect any major slant. Another plus.

All in all Foreign Policy gets it right I hope to see them increase their current publishing schedule to a more frequent one. Overall I'd rate this beast at a solid B which may not make it a full bore Champ but it is definately not a Chump. Check it out.