Friday, April 15, 2011
Magazine front covers: adapt or die
The front cover is the most important page in the magazines – that's one of the lessons we drum home to students on the MA/PgDip in Magazine Journalism at Cardiff Journalism School. It's a lesson that is repeated by just about every one of the many industry speakers who visit Cardiff.
But a couple of pieces of recent research show that it's only true for print magazines on the news-stand.
Kevin Sablan's Almighty Link site carried a piece about newspaper front pages that holds lessons for any print publication going online – or probably for any online journalism, whatever the "home" platform. Seven well considered points about what a "front page" means to online readers: The front page isn’t what it used to be
I found the piece above via Adam Tinworth's blog, introduced with the comment: "I've seen this clearly in our metrics. Front pages of websites just don't really matter." Given Adam's position as Editorial Development Manager at Reed Business Information we know those metrics are extensive and reliable.
Then, as if to confirm the line of thought, Ellie Behling asked "Are publishers paying attention to what consumers want from iPad magazines and newspapers?" on her blog. Analysing a recent survey, Behling quoted Zinio's global executive vice president and chief marketing officer Jeanniey Mullen: "It's not about necessarily just shopping for the cover anymore; you might be looking for fish recipes."
This doesn't mean our insistence on the importance of a front cover is wrong; in fact while single copy sales are under pressure – or falling – the front cover of a print magazine becomes even more important. But it does underline two points:
1) what has been found to work in print may not transfer directly to a digital platform
2) if the front page can be a Tweet, a Facebook stream, search engine results, a text message, a Flipboard panel, RSS feeds or an Instapaper collation magazines need to be showing their faces on all of them.
But a couple of pieces of recent research show that it's only true for print magazines on the news-stand.
Kevin Sablan's Almighty Link site carried a piece about newspaper front pages that holds lessons for any print publication going online – or probably for any online journalism, whatever the "home" platform. Seven well considered points about what a "front page" means to online readers: The front page isn’t what it used to be
I found the piece above via Adam Tinworth's blog, introduced with the comment: "I've seen this clearly in our metrics. Front pages of websites just don't really matter." Given Adam's position as Editorial Development Manager at Reed Business Information we know those metrics are extensive and reliable.
Then, as if to confirm the line of thought, Ellie Behling asked "Are publishers paying attention to what consumers want from iPad magazines and newspapers?" on her blog. Analysing a recent survey, Behling quoted Zinio's global executive vice president and chief marketing officer Jeanniey Mullen: "It's not about necessarily just shopping for the cover anymore; you might be looking for fish recipes."
This doesn't mean our insistence on the importance of a front cover is wrong; in fact while single copy sales are under pressure – or falling – the front cover of a print magazine becomes even more important. But it does underline two points:
1) what has been found to work in print may not transfer directly to a digital platform
2) if the front page can be a Tweet, a Facebook stream, search engine results, a text message, a Flipboard panel, RSS feeds or an Instapaper collation magazines need to be showing their faces on all of them.
Labels: Adam Tinworth, digital magazines, Flipboard, iPad, magazine craft, Reed Business Information, RSS feeds, Twitter, Zinio
Monday, September 29, 2008
RBI deal falls to floor, scatters everywhere
Bidders in the auction of Reed Business Information are re-examining their calculations after discovering a shortfall in the staple financing they were offered by the publisher to complete the deal. (Thanks to FT.com)
And the moral is, always check the stationery cupboard first.
Labels: B2B, magazines, print magazines, Reed Business Information
Friday, July 13, 2007
Magazine market shows mixed messages
Emap's consumer magazine revenues are down but its digital revenues are up (and likely to increase, according to this report); Reed Business Information is freezing recruitment. The periodicals garden, b2b or consumer, is looking rather like my own garden at the moment: wet, uninviting and populated by unhappy looking plants.
Dennis is trying to drum up interest from its own readers and doubtless Emap will decide that trusting its magazine-centred communities is the sensible thing to do next.
There is also renewed speculation around Emap selling off its tv assets.
Yet, while all this is going on, I keep getting job opportunities posted to me.
Put that together if you can.
Emap results: Yahoo/Reuters, the Herald, MAD, the Scotsman, BBC.co.uk
RBI: Press Gazette
Dennis: mediaguardian
Emap tv: Yahoo/Reuters
Dennis is trying to drum up interest from its own readers and doubtless Emap will decide that trusting its magazine-centred communities is the sensible thing to do next.
There is also renewed speculation around Emap selling off its tv assets.
Yet, while all this is going on, I keep getting job opportunities posted to me.
Put that together if you can.
Emap results: Yahoo/Reuters, the Herald, MAD, the Scotsman, BBC.co.uk
RBI: Press Gazette
Dennis: mediaguardian
Emap tv: Yahoo/Reuters
Labels: Dennis, digital revenue, Emap, magazines, RBI, Reed Business Information, web 2.0
