Why a Lot of Digital Magazine Surveys Suck

I was interviewed at length about my frequent complaining about digital magazine studies like this one and this one that report what readers say they do compared to what they actually do.

Most dismaying, perhaps, is that the links I’ve provided aren’t to the studies but to the major news outlets who considered the data accurate enough to be published.

It’s interesting – we’re a Google advertiser and I get a lot of surveys from Google asking me about their service, with lots and lots of questions. But not one of these questions asks me things that Google already knows the answer to: they don’t ask about CTR, page views, etc. They do ask about what my experience is as an advertiser and those are good questions. But to ask about things that data can confirm (or, more likely, refute) in a heartbeat is just silly.

Disclaimer: the interviewer is Peter Houston, who works for a Nxtbook customer, though in point of fact I don’t think he ever personally chose to work with Nxtbook, though I do hope we make it easy to do so. 

BPA Posts Interactive Magazine Study

If you haven’t read The Case for Interactive Magazines, yet, you really should. Heck, BPA’s even got it on their homepage.

Can You Tell Me About Anyone Else Who Did This?

Case studies. It seems like once a week we get a request for a case study from a prospect. And when we do, the requests can be awfully specific, eg: Can you please show me a case study for a quarterly magazine for red 4×4 owners living in California that’s using their digital magazine to make money?

But the reality, we have case studies for lots of industries but very likely, not yours. As Seth Godin writes:

Sure, the industries change, the goods/service ratio changes, regulation changes, names change. Doesn’t matter. It’s all the same.

People are people, and basic needs and wants don’t vary so much.

Put aside your need for a step-by-step manual and instead realize that analogies are your best friend. By the time there is a case study in your specific industry, it’s going to be way too late for you to catch up.

Bandwidth, Sync and Magazines

 

Seth Godin has a particularly provocative post re: bandwidth of products (how much fidelity they have) and how much said products allows the creators to interact with the audience.

Here, I’ve taken Seth’s chart and edited it to make it more magazine specific.

The one bubble shows what I’d call the public perception of magazines, a relatively "high quality" product that doesn’t have much interaction (letters to the editor notwithstanding).

The lower bubble shows where magazines have been trying hard to get to, now that they realize how important their audience is. Near everything Dan Blank writes and Michael Turro’s brilliant essay illustrate the need for greater audience interaction from magazine brands.

You’ll notice that Seth has placed a PDF neither where the public perceives magazines to be nor where thought leaders think they should go, but what happens if that PDF becomes a true digital magazine? If you add audio, video or animation, you automatically increase the fidelity of the product. You get more information into the product in a wide variety of formats. In short, you raise the bar re: the quality and quantity of content.

But you don’t need to stop there. By promoting digital magazines through Facebook and Twitter, you’re also moving the product over to where magazines need to go. By embedding Twitter feeds inside the publication, you’re doing it even more. These are all incredibly easy things to do inside your Nxtbook.

In the end, a Nxtbook’s greatest strength is its flexibility, the ability for it go both where your audience wants it to and where you think it should.

New Issue of LiNKED is live!

The new issue of LiNKED Magazine magazine is live! Our latest custom publication featuring NEW Media Marketing Strategies includes:

Using blogs to bolster the magazine brand. Here’s how Craft Magazine does it. 

How Make Magazine is using Podcasts to grow audience. 

How Northshore Magazine builds community on their website.

UK-edition Bonus Link:  The OPTIMIZED digital magazine. How Advanstar’s Phamaceutical Executive does it.

Don’t miss the latest edition of LiNKED!

Thank You!

Thanks to all who attended our special Nxtbook 3.0 webinar today. Attendance was awesome, the questions rocked and you all sounded as excited as we are!

A few housekeeping tips:

1. The webinar and slides are going through the archive process now. When complete, we’ll send you the link if you registered.

2. We mentioned the web page where you can view the FAQ’s about 3.0 and download the new animation specs. Do that here.

3. Forgot to register/attend? Contact your Account Manager today to get the 3.0 details!

Our Need for Feedback has Reached Epic Proportions

It’s true. We can’t get enough of what you’re saying. Here’s just three ways to let us know how we’re doing:

1) How’s that revenue generation thing working out? Nxtbook Media is a proud sponsor of a study coming out later this year on digital magazine revenue generation. Our objective third party researcher wants to hear stories about you making money with your digital magazine. If that’s you, drop me a line at mgrimm[AT]nxtbookmedia.com

2) 3.WHAAAAT? If you didn’t hear, Nxtbook 3.0 launched this week. Feel free to join us for a special clients-only webinar to get a front row demonstration and to ask any questions you have during this exciting transition period!

3) No, seriously. How are we doing? Come on – you’ve got 3 minutes to tell us how we’re treating you. That’s all it takes. Please click here.

One Good Looking Digital Magazine

Be sure to check out the new digital magazine from Nurse.com, a great looking book that does a lot of things right:

Optimized text for easy reading
User-friendly tabs for easy navigation
Gobs of rich media for a dynamic experience

This one’s a winner. Don’t miss it!

It’s All About the Links, Baby…

So, LiNKED Magazine (the custom publication of Nxtbook Media) went live today.

Here’s what you’ll find:
A great story about how Family Tree is using podcasts.
How Parenting Magazine is using Twitter. (While it’s always sketchy to claim to be the "first" anything, online, this is the first we’ve seen a live Twitter feed put in a digital magazine.)
A Grand tale: Imagine going digital-only with your magazine if your target audience was grandparents?

BONUS LINK:
LiNKED Magazine has also been released to the UK. LiNKED – UK has a special feature about how the BBC is using digital magazines to take America by storm!

Everything You Wanted to Know About Digital Magazines

The next issue of FOLIO Magazine & Audience Development includes a special poly-bagged supplement on the 2009 State of Digital Magazines. The digital version of this don’t-miss supplement can be viewed here (in the NEW Nxtbook 3.0!). But if you’d like to see the LIVE version, register now for the upcoming FOLIO webinar on the same topic.

Last year’s writer Jane Zarem delivers an encore performance nearly as good as the original.

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