When Did We Get Into the News Business?

When we’re covering stories nearly a week before FOLIO does, something is amiss.

 

Book Review: Get Content. Get Customers.

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you know that we like Joe Pulizzi. He’s a smart fellow, head of a cool little Web thing, and just an all-around nice guy.

And yet, we haven’t posted a review of his book until now. This was because — nice guy or not — we hadn’t read "Get Contet, Get Customers" until this week. (Editor’s Note: We’ve also read Bart Yasso’s "My Life on the Run" and recommend it mightily.) Fact of the matter is the nightstand stack was simply rather high and it had to work its way to the top. Wow — are we glad it has.

If there’s a better book on custom publishing, we haven’t seen it. More importantly the book covers all the bases on social media and new technology, too. We like Pulizzi because he doesn’t just drool over Web gadgets — rather, he drools over how business can use them, and the tips and case studies included within the pages of this book are certain to educate (and entertain!) any custom publishers trying to figure out how to go to market today.

Of course, what’s not to love about a book with a few references to digital magazines? But once again — what’s to love about Joe is that he doesn’t give our technology too much or too little credit. Joe understands that digital magazines are simply another weapon in the war for reader attention, and he gives them their just due.

Your move: if you work in custom publishing, buy this book for everyone you work with. You might be an expert in social media, but we’ve learned that many people just don’t see how to plug into these new tools and techniques and those people will thank you for turning them on to this awesome publication.

 

links for 2008-07-25

• The Prepaid Press – July 15, 2008
  Here’s a great video introducing the content inside the digital magazine.
  (tags: video)

People Love the Flash…

Did you know the chances are greater that you’re running the most current version of Flash than they are that you’re running the most current version of your Internet Browser?

Despite the fact that 40 percent of the population isn’t using the most recent version of their Internet Browser, within six months of release more than 80 percent of people have updated their Flash player.

Worldwide, Flash still has nearly 99 percent penetration. The study didn’t include Silverlight and other plug-ins with minimal penetration.

What this means to you? With an audience that has demonstrated regular updating of the service, Flash users are highly likely to be running the most current versions, which allows publishers to create cooler content, better videos and offer a more dynamic reading experience than other magazines.

Five Years and Still Going Strong…

Five years ago this week, NXTbook Media was born. Since then, we’ve made the "X" and the "T" smaller, but have made everything else bigger and better…. Bigger (and better) head count, bigger (and better) offices, bigger readership numbers, more pages read per reader, bigger this, better that, more, more, etc. etc. Rinse and reuse.

For all of us, it’s been a fantastic ride, made all the better by working with great customers who’ve helped us to pave the road for readers of the future. And for that, we thank you!

Earlier this week, the company had a wonderful dinner at the Catacombs – a local restaurant more than thirty feet below the ground. It was tremendous opportunity to enjoy how far we’ve come and how far we plan to go.

Ad Pages Up in July?

With all the doom and gloom of the U.S. economy, we did a little study here, examining average page counts of all Nxtbooks in the past 90 days. While this evidence is far from the last word, perhaps things aren’t so bad.

In May the average Nxtbook had a 51 pages. This dipped down to a little more than 50 pages in July. However, July’s looking great, with an average page count per book of 55.47 pages. Hopefully this is a sign of good things to come for magazine publishers.

Copyright – Schmopyright

Several months back, we wrote about Issuu, a free DIY service for digital magazines, which works fine, so long as you’re into donating your content to others:

By distributing or disseminating Uploader Submissions through the Issuu Service, you hereby grant to Issuu a worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, assignable, fully paid-up, royalty-free, license to host, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, distribute, and otherwise exploit your Uploader Submissions, in any media forms or formats, and through any media channels, now known or hereafter devised, including without limitation, RSS feeds, embeddable functionality, and syndication arrangements in order to distribute, promote or advertise your Uploader Submissions through the Issuu Service.

Whenever you’re talking "free" and "DIY," that’s a nice recipe for getting a lot of submissions that the users don’t have permission for and for a while Issuu seemed to be the Net’s largest repository for liberated content…until now.

Mygazines is a company like Issuu that’s been released in beta format. Like Issuu, it’s free and like Issuu, it’s a DIY product. Like Issuu, there seems to be lot of content that the publishers never dreamed would end up there. And like Issuu, they seem to have little regard for people trying to make money with content:

Mygazines may remove any Content and Mygazines accounts at any time for any reason (including, but not limited to, upon receipt of claims or allegations from third parties or authorities relating to such Content), or for no reason at all.

Of course, I could be overreacting. After all, anyone concerned about their content could always contact "John Smith," the name of the person who registered the URL (accordinging to WhoIs). Better yet, go visit the company, which claims to be located in Anguilla.

E-ink coming to a magazine near you…

In the future, we hope to save money with e-ink. For now, though, the plan seems to be to spend more and combine it with paper:

"…a forthcoming issue of Esquire will likely be the poster child for the change. According to David Granger, Esquire’s editor in chief, rags have generally "looked the same for 150 years," but all that will change when 100,000 copies of the September issue arrive on newsstands with a flashing electronic cover."

 

What Women Want

MinOnline is featuring the The Top 5 Women’s Mag Web site Picks. Nxtbook’s digital magazine of NYLON was named number two! Very cool!

 

It’s a Wonder He Gets Any Work Done Around Here…

Scroll around to find "rubber ducky round" and see developer Jason’s cubicle, featured on CNN.

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