Math Eludes Many Liberal Arts Majors

Strange article over at FOLIO saying that Sports Illustrated plans to hire four additional editors just to create a tablet SI. Favorite twitter response? @jeffdebalko "Makes as much sense as print only editors."

Jeff couldn’t be more right. Some publishers continue to think that the tablet platform OR the mobile OR the Kindle platform will yield huge results. The reality is that each of them will yield some results and you need the sum of those results to equal big results. Your best move: hedge your bets. Get on every device you can, as cheaply as you can.

MPA isn’t necessarily helping this concept, by offering a special page featuring publishers who now offer magazine apps. By acting like an app is the only way to get on these devices, they’re ignoring the hundreds of publishers (Nxtbook and others) that simply have iPhone or Android friendly versions of their product. If you get nothing else from this post, get this: YOU DON’T NEED AN APP TO BE ON THE IPHONE OR IPAD.

It seems like some publishers (who’ve been accused of "silo thinking" before) may be falling victim to the same thing, again. But the problem, these silos are smaller and will each yield lower profits. If not handled properly, some people could start losing money at a faster rate.

Neals Like Nxtbooks

I don’t know if that headline is exactly true, but the fact is that Nxtbook customers were well represented at last week’s Neal Awards. Congratulations to the following finalists and winners:

Finalist
"Trust Me, I’m a (Fake) Architect"
Architect
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"State of the Profession"
DVM Newsmagazine
Advanstar Inc.

Finalist
"Fully Vested"
Remodeling
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"Dialogue"
Architect
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"Turn, Turn, Turn: Torque Wrench Tech"
MOTOR Magazine
Hearst Business Media

Winner
"The Fuel Economy Solution? Gasoline Direct Injection"
MOTOR Magazine
Hearst Business Media

Finalist
"On the Grid"
Pool & Spa News
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"The Forgotten Feline"
Veterinary Economics
Advanstar Inc.

Winner
"Bargain Basements"
Builder
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"February 2009"
Incentive
Nielsen Business Media, Inc.

Finalist
"April 2009 Issue"
Architect
Hanley Wood, LLC

Winner
"July 2009 Issue"
DVM Newsmagazine
Advanstar Inc

Finalist
"August 24, 2009 Issue"
Business Travel News
Nielsen Business Media, Inc.

Winner
"dvm360.com"
DVM Newsmagazine
Advanstar Inc.

Finalist
"Ecohomemagazine.com"
EcoHome
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"EcoHome Update"
EcoHome
Hanley Wood, LLC

Finalist
"Scholastic Administr@tor Video"
Scholastic Administr@tor
Scholastic, Inc.

On the Hit List

FOLIO’s released the top 25 digital magazines according to BPA circulation. Congratulations to Nxtbook customers Drug Topics, Website Magazine and License! for cracking the list!

On Auditing

To be blunt, we don’t have a hard-fast opinion on digital magazine auditing. Well, we do: we think it’s in everyone’s best interest to talk about actual audience than subscription lists, but the reality is that Nxtbook is committed to providing publishers with whatever data they need, and those needs seem to be changing.

This post by Josh Gordon includes his thoughts on the new BPA standards (he’s not a fan) and this post addresses how ABC plans to look at e-Readers. 

Hold the Matches

Marc Andreesen says that if you have a print magazine, you should shut it down and plow forward on the Web. Be like Cortes, he says, and "Burn the boats." Here’s 4 reasons I think he’s wrong:

1.) While print publishers have been (sometimes correctly) accused of stumbling their way online, there are many more stories about publishers who’ve learned their in the content business. They’ve got online properties, print properties, events, etc… They have multiple streams of income and – in most businesses – diversification is good.

2.) The online world is easier for publishers, but that doesn’t mean it’s better. Where costs are greater, competition is less. Where costs are greater, it’s easier for quality to stand out.

3.) Magazine advertising continues to be one of the few forms of advertising appreciated by consumers. (When’s the last time you like a banner ad?) Those creative wins have made their way to digital magazines, but without that influence, digital magazines would likely contain the same banners with the same lousy click-through rates.

4.) History rewards methodical evolution. It doesn’t reward stagnation, mind you, but it rewards gentle, methodical improvements. If your house it too cold, you don’t burn it down and build another. You insulate it better.

That being said, Andreesen has some points I agree with whole-heartedly, most notably his thoughts on the iPad: "No matter how many iPads the Apple sells, the Web will always be the bigger market. “There are 2 billion people on the Web,” he says. “The iPad will be a huge success if it sells 5 million units.”

The Nxtbook philosophy on the iPad is somewhat counter to that of our competitors. We do think you need to be on it. We do believe your advertisers and readers will like it. However, it will certainly be a sliver of your readership. Thus, it’s our mission to get you onto it – and in fact, all devices like it – with minimal cost and effort on your part.

Where’s The Josh Gordon Report?

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me about the Josh Gordon Interactive Magazine study in the past few months, well I’d have fifty cents, but that’s not the point. The point is that the report is complete and ready to be released.

Before you get all click-happy, it’s important to note what’s different about The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines than any other report the industry has conducted, because – as a company that’s sponsored a lot of these reports, we can tell you – this one is different. To note:

1.) This study only focused on magazines that have demonstrated revenue generation success. If you weren’t making money with your digital magazine, you weren’t in the study, period. That isn’t to say that cost savings isn’t a real reason to do a digital magazine (it’s still the number one reason), but to say that this study only looked at magazines that had cracked the revenue code.

2.) This study – mostly – looked at digital optimized publications. Though that wasn’t the intent, a fact came to light very early on: most of the magazines that are making money are, in fact, optimizing their content for screen reading.

3.) If you look at numbers one and two, number 3 won’t surprise you. But when you realize that Gordon surveyed audiences of successful, optimized magazines, he found that they loved them. A lot. The numbers speak for themselves, perhaps a bit too loudly, if you don’t keep reminding yourself of this fact: These aren’t readers of all digital magazines. These are readers of successful digital magazines. In that vein, it’s somewhat like asking an audience that just attending an Academy Award Winning film how they feel about going to the movies.

4.) When presented with the study, we felt that it only made sense to present a study about "interactive magazines" as an interactive magazine. Thus, it’s designed for screen reading and interaction. If you like what the Nxtbook Digital Design Team did with the layout and animation, drop me a line at mgrimm [AT] nxtbookmedia.com and ask how we can help you do similar things with your next digital magazine project.

OK, enough waiting and thanks for being patient. Feel free to view The Case for Advertising in Interactive Digital Magazines by going here.

Publishing Expo New York Review

I had the pleasure of sitting on a panel at the Digital Magazine Symposium at the Publishing Business Conference & Expo this week in NYC. This was the third year for the Symposium – and the third that Nxtbook has been a sponsor.

Greg Hano and Rob Keenan were two of the superstar publishers on the panel, which was chaired by Josh Gordon of Smarter Media Sales. Hano and Keenan both offered keen insight into their digital publishing successes, which were enjoyed by the crowd, smallish as it may have been.

Regarding attendance, virtually everyone I spoke with had this to say about this show: "Great traffic on Monday. Lousy traffic on Tuesday."

For some reason, Napco elected to hold the Symposium from 1 – 5:30 on the last day of the magazine schedule. Keep in mind that the exhibit hall closed at 3pm. No doubt this had an adverse effect on the Symposium crowd. Why an event that’s been popular the 2 previous years was relegated to that time slot is anyone’s guess, but as a sponsor, we were somewhat disappointed. Fortunately, what was lacking in quantity was made up in quality, both from the moderator, the panelists (present company, excluded), and the attendees, all of whom had a great time.

Publishing Expo in New York

No sooner than we wrap up Publishing Expo in London than we come back across the pond for Publishing Expo in New York City from March 8-10. Be sure to stop by the Nxtbook booth (419) to see Beth & Eric and don’t miss the Digital Magazine Symposium there on Tuesday from 1:30-5:00.

Fipp Digital Innovators’ Summit Review

As we wrap up the Fipp Digital Conference, here’s a list of notes and observations from Berlin:

1.) I really like Ben Edwards’ philosophy at the Economist. The Economist – if you didn’t know – has a digital edition, and a Kindle edition and an iPhone edition. (Frankly, if they worked with us, we’d give them all 3, but I digress.) Anyhow, they believe that eventually they may optimize content for the devices, but for now, their defensive strategy is to get on every device they can and see which ones are successful enough to justify improving upon the format.

2) The average CPM in Europe is 7 euros.

3) I remember how all the digital conferences three years ago were all about websites, websites, websites. Nobody wanted to talk about digital magazines. Now, they’re all about digital magazines and mobile. Funny how things change.

4) At last week’s Pub Expo in London, the iPad talk was completely rabid. At Fipp, the sizzle is still bigger than the steak, but the attitude is a bit more rational. Curiously, the Kindle was barely mentioned at Pub Expo, but came up periodically at Fipp.

5) People at Fipp were very excited to see Josh Gordon will be presenting the results of his study at a Fipp/Nxtbook Webinar on March 30. You should join us by going here.

6) Prescott Shibles from eMedia Vitals asks a lot of questions. But given his profession, that’s probably a good thing.

7) Laura Imkamp is another up and coming journalist dedicated to this space who is the type of multi-media specialist that Paul Conley says you need to hire today. Tony Silber or one of his competitors should get her an assignment ASAP.

The highlight for me was seeing a presentation by Bjorn Jeffery, one of the major architects of the much discussed Bonnier video. Bjorn discussed 5 of the 10 design conclusions his team applied in the final concept. We hope to discuss them more in a future post.

9) Demand Media had a speaker at the show. If you don’t remember them, they’re the guys that Tony Silber wants to go to hell. They gave a dynamite presentation and you had the feeling publishers were planning on replicating their model, right up about to the point where the guy said they pay $15 per story (after the question being asked a few times). Curious to see if they’ll be invited back again.

10) All in all, it’s another good event from Fipp. They continue to produce events that – in my opinion – are not as good as FOLIO’s best stuff but quite a bit better than many of the US shows.

John Loughlin Gets It, Kind Of, But Kind of Not

In a presentation at Fipp this week, John Loughlin from Hearst said publishers need to get on all of the coming devices. But the challenge, he admitted, is not going broke while you’re doing it. Which is a pretty smart thing to say.

Except, two slides later, Loughlin showed a Skiff demo, which is the product that Hearst is building.

The irony of course, is that Loughlin is right: publishers need to be on all of these devices. But hearing someone say you need to be prudent with your money and then showing you the way they’re spending money kind of comes across to me like the guy who goes to the beach once a year deciding to buy a condo because he says, "It’s a great investment."

A better idea? Partner with Nxtbook Media. We’ll get you on all of the devices. In fact, last week I shared a video with a link that wasn’t live. Today it is, and it shows all of the devices we can get you on today, without having to build your own e-reader company.

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