links for 2008-11-26

• Connections – November 2008 – Page Cover
  (tags: digital-only-magazine)

Google Thinks You Don’t Look So Well…

We try not to deviate from digital publishing stuff here, but hey – it’s a holiday week, which means readership is a tad low anyway. Besides, this is kind of cool.

Google is using their search trends tool to predict when the flu will hit your state the hardest. More impressive? They show how their results are more accurate the agency tasked with predicting flu outbreak. Check it out here. 

Sometimes They Come Back Better…

Not all titles die for good.

A few years back, Digital Magazine News was the first publication to cover our little cottage industry. Quite frankly, I wasn’t a fan, but we ran a few ads because – well – it was the only game in town. Other media players in the industry were too unsure (uneducated?) about digital magazines to cover them properly, so for a time Digital Magazine News was the only media outlet to cover the space. They didn’t do a great job of it, mind you, but they tried during a time when no one else was.

In the past few years, thankfully, through webinars, tradeshows and third party research, the medium has found a critical mass of acceptance among most publishers – and even some (but not all) journalists. Around that same time, Digital Magazine News didn’t so much stop publishing as they seemed to just not publish another issue. It was a quiet death, I suppose.

A few months ago, Digital Magazine News announced it was coming back. Curiously, the publication (owned by digital magazine vendor QMags) didn’t come back in a digital magazine format, though. It came back as an e-mail newsletter, which probably says something, though I’m little uncertain of what.

At any rate, I just finished their newest issue and must confess – I like it. Made up of case studies and digital publishing news from the past several weeks, there’s a fair amount of good meat in there. The news section felt dated to someone who stays on top of these sorts of things, but the case studies provide gobs of data to those wondering about digital magazine metrics. The format still leaves a lot to be desired, but on content alone, I’d call it a decent comeback.

Magazine Publishers: Where Do You Stand?

There’s a highly provocative article over at Advertising Age (Really, the type of article I’d love to see from those who say they’re "covering" the magazine industry…) which asks a very poignant question: Do you still believe in the very act, the very business, of publishing?

That big publishers can’t manage to sell enough print ads, in a post-print media economy shadowed by a larger economic meltdown, is not exactly shocking. What is shocking, though, is that they’re essentially saying to scrappier, upstart online competitors: Take our business, please! We’re throwing in the towel! If we can’t play by the old rules of publishing — the profit-soaked, imperial model with endless layers of coddled management ensconced in luxe trophy offices – then we don’t want to play at all!

This reads a little harsh, until you look at a recent article at FOLIO (naturally, of course, about a title folding) in which a representative says, "We fully plan to bring it back when the economy turns around.”

While this type of thinking makes all the sense in the world in the boardroom, doesn’t it also read as a blatant attempt to commoditize the concept of specialized audience, which – as Turro has pointed out – is what really makes magazines special in the first place?

Make no mistake: those magazines that haven’t listened to advertisers will have a tough battle in ‘09, but those uninterested in their audiences probably won’t even get the chance to fight.

Jealous Much? (of B-to-B Publishing)

What you see is always wholly dependent on where you stand. Junta Joe points us to this mostly downer of an article on the media industry, which includes this gem:

There are also reasons for optimism elsewhere in the media, in the nitty-gritty world of business-to-business publishing and text books. Companies like Reed Elsevier, which has moved its print products online over the last decade, and Financial Times owner Pearson, whose education business sells teaching materials to American states, may lack glamour, but profits are relatively stable and, vitally, they do not depend on advertising.

BBC Knowledge Goes With Nxtbook…

Even in this climate, new magazines are launching.

From the start, it seemed like a match made in Heaven. When the BBC announced they were releasing a magazine focused on the US market, a Nxtbook made a lot of sense. Our British office is located across the street from the BBC and if a British company wants to put a magazine into the US, what better choice than an American digital publisher with a British office?

BBC Knowledge is a paid title for print subscribers, but you can get a sneak peak of the October issue here. The photography in this magazine is top shelf and a great example of how a digital magazine can show content in a way that few websites do.

Can PC Mag Survive As An All-Digital Magazine?

Make no mistake – everybody who pans digital magazines will call this move another nail in the coffin for PC Magazine. The Steve Smith’s (whom we rarely agree with) and the Michael Turro’s (whom we often do) will likely not applaud the decision to go from dabbling in digital magazines to turning to them for core readership and revenue.

(Meanwhile, FOLIO posted about the death of print and the elimination of seven positions, while the digital magazine… uh never made it into the article?)

Critics will say that PC Mag should focus on the website, but maybe PC Mag knows what we’ve been saying for years: People consume digital magazines differently than they consume website content. Fewer of them read the digital magazine, but those that do stay longer, read more pages and click through at a higher rate. All the time. Period. Why shouldn’t a publisher cater differently to a different audience?

We’re not Zinio, so of course we think PC Mag could’ve chosen a better partner. From our vantage point, their strategy seems to involve driving you to their website, while we believe your content should drive traffic to you, but the fact remains: this strategy could work.

In fact, it already has. Three years ago, a british publisher killed their 30 year-old magazine (PC Mag is 27) and went all digital overnight. Today, the publisher’s revenues are up, their digital magazines always crack our Top 20 readership list, and the brand is stronger than ever. You can read their story here.

Power to the Tweets

Yet another great example of a publisher tweeting news of their new Nxtbook. Is this a homerun tactic? Absolutely not – but it’s a nice single up the middle. Online circulation growth is a game of bunt singles and Texas leaguers, and if you do that for nine innings, more times than not you’ll win.

Third String Good Enough for First Place…

With two booths out of town last week, we were forced to send the Nxtbook Media third string booth to the Harrisburg Regional Chamber of Commerce show. Still, the booth didn’t blink: instead coming home with honors as the Top New Booth at the show.

Nxtbook reps Duane and Shanelle probably deserve some of the credit – don’t these two just ooze approachable and knowledgeable? 

Where’s Bill?

A couple of years ago, Microsoft made a big splash with its WPF (Windows Presentation Format) by announcing the release of Times Reader, a pretty slick product for online readers of the NY Times. Bill Gates and some fella from the Times did a joint presentation: one of those old media meets new technology sorts of things. We did – and still do – think it was a pretty cool application. Still, the fact of the matter is that the WPF format – like it’s close kin "Silverlight" – has struggled to gather marketshare and wide adoption.

So perhaps it was no surprise at this morning’s Adobe Max conference to learn that a new version of Times Reader is launching, based on Adobe’s AIR 1.5. For the Nxtbook development team, this is unneeded (but certainly welcome) validation that our product development path is following the needs and desires of users and publishers alike. Not surprisingly, Bill Gates was nowhere to be found at Adobe Max. Perhaps he was shopping with Jerry Seinfeld?

 

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