MagBlog

I don't mean to be bitchy or dismissive, but does anyone else discern a certain descending pattern in this sequence:

Vogue, Dazed & Confused and Wonderland

Anyhoo, that was the work/experience of the editor of men's magazine Buck (which made its debut last November and I have just discovered courtesy of this article in the Independent).

By the way:

He [Steve Doyle, Buck's editor] spent a year working in the City in the private-equity sector before leaving the job in July 2007, hoping to pursue the magazine goal.

So we can clearly rest assured that he knows what he's doing as far as money is concerned.

And food too, apparently:

For Doyle, a particular innovation in finding a new audience is the focus on food. "No other men's publication carries such an amount of coverage," he claims. "Almost a quarter of the magazine is food-related."

Anyone remember Eat Soup? (Remind yourself on Magforum)

Labels: Buck, magazine, magazines, men's magazines, print magazines

Hey ho, behind the times as usual. Andrew Losowsky reported the first magazine/iTunes/iPhone combination last year on Magtastic Blogsplosion.

Any further sightings or corrections gratefully received and acknowledged.

Labels: digital magazines, digital revenue, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes iPhone, mobile, web 2.0

The FT has now joined the iPhone movement, according to Press Gazette.

I swear that I wrote the previous post (about an iTunes equivalent for magazine distribution) BEFORE I ever saw this article about a magazine app for the iPhone (and also available through iTunes. The author makes an interesting point about the importance of touch and feel to magazines ("haptics"), and then relates it to the iPhone's touch screen.

Meanwhile in another part of the forest, US News & World Report thinks it is a good idea to launch a weekly paid for news magazine in pdf format. I am not sure I agree with Martin Stabe, whose cryptic tweet indicated he could see three major problems with it; I'm guessing the operative words are news, paid for and pdf. News is a highly perishable commodity, no doubt about that, but informed summary and analysis is not – at least in paper form, if the paid for inky The Week is anything to judge by. The pdf format is more tricky as Mark Potts points out in a Recovering Journalist post:

PDF products are beloved solely by printie publishers and editors who think readers want to read the news in a print-like layout, and don't understand that a) electronic delivery is a completely different format than print and b) readers really don't want to have to print out their own magazine or newspaper.

And in yet another leafy glade, Richard Addis suggests on Shakeup Media that newspaper publishers should, among other things, "Create one single national website for local news."

Labels: digital magazines, electronic magazines, haptics, iTunes, magazines, mobile, news magazine, print journalism, readertorial, weekly magazine

Ideas for new business models for the media are springing up all over (perhaps the current general economic climate is encouraging creative thought). I have suggested in earlier posts that Amazon might provide some ideas; here are a couple of pieces that consider the iTunes model for news operations:

David Carr in the New York Times

Paul Bradshaw's response to the above

Labels: amazon, David Carr, iTunes, New York Times, Paul Bradshaw