MagBlog

Men's Health in the USA appears to be the first magazine to look at ways of exploiting the iPhone's new operating system, according to a report in Advertising Age (and elsewhere before that – see below).

The interesting thing is not that the magazine has an app entirely appropriate for its target readership, but that the app itself can lead to further investment in paid-for content.

This kind of reader/device synergy is something that all titles should have a think about.

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Labels: Apple, iPhone, magazines, Men's Health, men's magazines, web 2.0

Here's a little something for the very many students who write about the size zero debate and the enormous power wielded by women's magazines (they think).

It's not the magazine's fault if the fashion houses send them tiny samples - and now Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman has, not for the first time, said something about it. (I am not sure about the use of "lashed out" in Sky's standfirst though.)

Alexandra Shuman in the Daily Mail, 2007

In 1997, Omega watches withdrew their ads from Vogue because they felt the magazine used too many skinny models. Here's a reminder of that.

Labels: Alexandra Shulman, fashion, print magazines, Vogue

Here's a lovely thing.

My magtweet research account picks up tweets from all sorts of magazines including NJ Family. Just now they sent a link to recommended hiking routes for this weekend. Even though I'm in Wales, I felt compelled to look and I'm glad I did because it directed me to a great looking site.

A) Where's the one for Wales?

B) Think of the other possibilities.

Incidentally, magtweet also found me this article about magazines on Facebook – Cosmo still rules even though the account hasn't been updated recently. Eh?

Labels: magazines, mashup, Twitter, web 2.0

Perhaps the iTunes/Amazon marketplace (posts passim) isn't such a straightforward idea after all. A gatekeeper is a gatekeeper.

So the game is the same today as it was in the old days. The only question is where the money will end up. In the analog world the lion's share of the money ended up in the hands of big, bad media barons. This time around, the geeks in Silicon Valley are pocketing all the dough. Ironically enough, they present themselves as a bunch of pious, sweet-natured nerds who aren't doing this for the money—they're all about making the world a better place. The truth is that when it comes to exploitation, the new guys make those old media barons look like a bunch of amateurs.

Labels: amazon, digital magazines, digital revenue, distribution, electronic magazines, iTunes

"John Menzies Digital folds"

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http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-the-end-for-digital-editions-john-menzies-digital-axed/

http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-interview-sarah-clegg-md-john-menzies-digital-in-progress

http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-broadband-content-bits-joost-desktop-zinios-laptop-deal-fish4love-spoti

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Labels: digital magazines, distribution, John Menzies Digital

Not quite sure how this is going to work out or even where it's going, but ...

Reading the interview with Tina Brown in the Telegraph a couple of things jumped out and got my synapses firing.

First, she describes The Daily Beast as

“more a magazine approach to newspapers than it is a pure information journalism site”

And then:

She has 25 staff in New York, but uses the flexibility of the internet to use the services of a wide range of contributors. “With the Beast, we’re creating a sort of virtual newsroom all over the world. When we’re covering Mumbai I can suddenly activate five brilliant journalists who know much more about the subject than anyone I can send from head office.”

For some reason that last par reminded me of Monocle and its founder Tyler Brule's claim to have a better network of bureaus than many newspapers:

Referring to the lengthy pieces of international reportage in the launch issue, he said: "Coming from anywhere in British journalism, what's great is that we'll send someone [overseas] for 10 days, where the traditional thing on British newspapers is to think, can we get away with sending someone to Nairobi for two days and get some agency pictures in?"

Tuck and Brûlé insist that no copy in the launch issue was driven by PRs, press releases or news wires. Tuck said: "Every story has come from someone on the ground saying, I'll tell you what the most important story is, I'll tell you what you should be interested in".

The title has a London-based editorial team of 18, including three editorial bureaux editors in New York, Zurich and Tokyo. The "lean staff" based in its London offices, also home to Winkreative, will be supplemented by a growing network of global contributors.

Tuck said Brûlé's vision was "swimming against the tide" of cutbacks of international news organisations' staff levels. "It's not a reflection on the paper I come from, but it really feels like a statement of quality, and that's the most amazing thing — when people come in to see it, they can't quite believe the commitment to journalism." (from Press Gazette 23/2/07)

Perhaps where this is going is making a very sketchy tenuous link with the ideas that have been floating around recently about newspapers needing to serve narrow niches rather than broad demographic ledges.

More ideas welcome!

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Labels: magazines, media management, newspapers