WebProNews

Tag: Magazines

  • Are You Grabbing Traffic From Flipboard?

    This week, Flipboard launched a new web version. It’s available for the desktop for the first time after being mobile-only since 2010. While it already has millions of users from phones and tablets, this opens it up to more people, and to more usage from existing users. Think about those who spend all day on a computer at the office. It seems like as good a time as any to consider how you might be able to get some traffic to your blog or website from it.

    Is Flipboard part of your traffic strategy? Let us know in the comments.

    “By developing for mobile first (Flipboard was originally built for the iPad in 2010), we saw that content could shine again in a clean and uncluttered environment,” wrote Flipboard’s Mia Quagilarello in a blog post. “The Web evolved, too, with things like responsive design making for easier (and prettier) reading and navigation.”

    Nearly a year ago, Onswipe released some data finding that Flipboard drives the most traffic to publishers among four popular news apps on the iPad. In fact, it wasn’t even close.

    A lot has changed with Flipboard since then, and the good news is that most of it should only help you.

    Feeds

    Flipboard lets you submit your content through a feed, which can greatly help your content gain exposure if they accept it.

    “Optimized RSS provides users with a superior reading experience and is much easier to maintain than your website’s HTML/CSS,” the company says.

    Also helpful to know is that it considers multimedia content in the RSS feed to be a great way to “enhance the reading experience,” so it it supports not only articles but MP4, YouTube and Vimeo video formats as well as MP3 and SoundCloud audio formats.

    “We use social media to grow your audience by sharing your content with Flipboard users, who then share it with their friends,” the company says in an FAQ document. “Flipboard provides a platform for deep content engagement across a growing audience of social influencers and enthusiastic readers. Our readers make over 10 million social recommendations a month via the app to their friends.”

    To get your content promoted within Flipboard, you’ll first need to provide the service with a Flipboard-optimized RSS feed. Requirements include: the entire body copy of your articles (rather than just headlines/summaries), at least one image per article (no less than 400 pixels wide), at least 30 items, and updates pushed via PubSubHubbub (it prefers Superfeedr).

    Flipboard leverages HTML5 and microformats for design elements like pullquotes, media RSS (for images, video, and audio), and GeoRSS for geotagging within RSS. You can learn more about feed optimization here where it includes an example feed and details on feed structure, content markup, etc. There’s a feed validation tool here.

    “People use Flipboard to search and discover content in a variety of formats, including RSS, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, Instagram and more. Displaying full article content within the app is possible via optimized RSS, and we require this at a minimum before considering your content for promotion within our Content Guide,” the company says.

    Magazines

    Another way to get your content seen throughout Flipboard is to create “magazines,” and include your articles within them. This is a feature Flipboard introduced a couple years ago, which lets anyone curate content based on any topic they like. You can create a magazine, give it a name and description, and add all the content your heart desires. This can include your own content and/or content you come across on the web or within Flipboard itself.

    In October, Flipboard said that people had made over ten million magazines. This is when they introduced the third generation of the app (the second having introduced magazines themselves), which included the ability to follow topics ranging from very broad to very niche. You’re probably going to want to follow all the topics you can that are related to the magazines you’re working on.

    Another nice thing about magazines is that they’re indexed by Google:

    Some even believe Flipboard has SEO value.

    Creating magazines is easy. Just go to your profile on Flipboard and it’s pretty self-explanatory. Name it, add a description, and add content. You’ll probably want to include keywords in the title and description to help users discover your mags in search. In some senses, you can almost think of these like Pinterest boards.

    Flipboard actually blogged specifically about titling magazines about a week ago, offering up a bunch of things to keep in mind and possible approaches. They’re mostly about staying on topic, but also standing out from the crowd.

    “The takeaway is that you’ll be found in search by title or by topic, so it’s good to keep your magazine name easy to understand and to include a magazine description or tagline,” it concludes.

    As it mentions, you can always change the name later if you like.

    Go to the magazine editor tool at editor.flipboard.com to view analytics and make changes to settings. Make sure your magazine is in the right category.

    With the analytics tool, you can view articles by day (number of items flipped into the magazine), viewers by day (number of people who have seen items you flipped), and page flips by day (number of views of items you have flipped into the magazine).

    “Updating your description and continuing to flip into a well-performing magazine can keep its momentum going,” wrote Flipboard’s Jenn de la Vega in an October blog post. “If a magazine is not getting as many views or interactions as the others, try switching up your sources or reevaluate its focus. In any case, it will be exciting to watch your magazines fuel Flipboard’s topics and get more visibility than ever before.”

    You can also invite contributors, so you might want to invite colleagues to help you add content.

    You can also rearrange the order of content, and set the cover story (again, not unlike Pinterest boards).

    Harsh Agarwal at ShoutMeLoud.com recommends regularly commenting on stories in Flipboard to drive additional visibility for your profile (which could lead to some new magazine followers).

    “This is probably most underused technique on Flipboard, but you can use it now to get more eye-balls to your Flipboard profile,” he writes. “Flipboard lets you comment on any post that you are reading and your comment is visible to only Flipboard users. You can use this technique to get more visitors to your Flipboard profile and convert them into followers.”

    The blog Ethical Entrepreneur once ran a post which claimed that it was able to quickly double its website traffic thanks to Flipboard magazines. Here’s an excerpt from that:

    Well not too long ago Flipboard rolled out a new feature called Flipboard magazines that lets you save and curate content into your very own magazines. Admittedly when the feature rolled out I played around with it and quickly forgot about it. I created one or two magazines and just kind of ignored it. I checked back a few months later only to notice that I had hundreds of subscribers! Wow.

    A few weeks ago I launched The Ethical Entrepreneur website and I immediately created an Ethical Entrepreneur Flipboard magazine. Not only was I “flipping” in interviews that I conducted but I also started to curate other great entrepreneurial content that I wanted people to read. Within a few short days I had hundreds of subscribers to my Ethical Entrepreneur magazine. Then I started to notice my blog traffic was increasing. In fact the traffic doubled within a few days. Keep in mind the website is only a month old. I checked my analytics to see where the traffic was coming from. Guess what? The traffic was coming from Flipboard!

    Some think it’s best that magazines feature a mix of your own content and content from others, but ultimately the choice is up to you. Some think simply replicating your blog in Flipboard magazine form is perfectly fine. It seems to be working for JeffBullas.com, which is seeing increased traffic from Flipboard:

    Marketing your brand is about being everywhere in a wide range of media formats to increase brand awareness and drive traffic to your web properties. So create your own Flipboard magazine for your blog. Load up your articles and you have your blog in a magazine format. Flipboard just happens to make it look sensational! As Flipboard is now not just an app now but also on the web you have added another distribution point to amplify your content in another format.

    On the flipside, digital marketer Howard Huang doesn’t think just pushing your own content is the best way to go. He writes:

    I don’t recommend this because sharing content that is only your own confines you into your own corner of the web and may limit your ability to attract engaged followers faster. You want to curate a well balanced portfolio of content related to your topic from all over the internet as well as your own.

    He also recommends basing magazines on “laser focused topics”. For example, instead of a magazine on as broad a topic as Golf, you might publish one on “Putting Green Techniques”.

    It probably depends on your topic and your ultimate goal.

    Need some inspiration for how to approach magazines? Flipboard has some videos showcasing some creators’ takes on it:

    Web Tools

    Flipboard offers several tools which you can utilize to help you improve your experience creating magazines and to promote them. The Flip Button lets Flipboard users who land on your content add that content to their magazines. The Profile Badge lets you display a link to your Flipboard profile, and the Magazine Widget is a nice way to link to your own magazines from your site.

    Beyond Flipboard’s own tools, third-party tools from companies like AddThis, ShareThis, AddToAny, and Shaeaholic enable you to give your website visitors another easy way to share to Flipboard alongside other social networks. Flipboard has a guide to these tools here.

    You’ll also want to use either the Flipboard bookmarklet or the Chrome extension, which both let you easily add any content from around the web to your magazines. Update your magazines regularly. These can also be found at the link above.

    Promoted Items

    Last month, Flipboard announced Promoted Items, which lets brands distribute articles, videos, products, or photos in Flipboard. Advertisers can promote items from their magazines or content from their website.

    “As brands continue to become content creators we want Flipboard to be an easy place to extend distribution of their stories, products, research papers, films and photography,” said Christine Cook, head of advertising partnerships at Flipboard. “Brands that already have content in brand magazines on Flipboard can now highlight the best pieces more broadly across Flipboard and reach an audience of millions.”

    “For the past seven years, we’ve worked closely with brands to create content that our readers can easily discover, no matter where they are,” said Emily Allen, SVP of Ad Strategy at Business Insider. “Promoted Items allows us to extend our sponsored content’s reach to millions of Business Insider followers on Flipboard monthly. It’s a powerful vehicle for increasing discovery.”

    These are all things you can keep in mind if you wish to draw some extra traffic and/or business from Flipboard, especially now that it’s more widely available than ever before.

    Are you a Flipboard user? Do you curate magazines? How do you use Flipboard to drive traffic to your website? Discuss in the comments.

    Images via Flipboard

  • Charlie Hebdo Gets Help from Google for Massive Print Run

    Though French weekly Charlie Hebdo was knocked down, the satirical magazine is looking to bounce back in a big way – and Google has stepped up to help the cause.

    The paper is planning a massive print run next week – a million copies. To put this into perspective, Charlie Hebdo’s normal run is 60,000. According to the publication, next week’s issue will contain eight pages – half of the normal 16.

    On Wednesday, masked gunmen opened fire at the magazine’s headquarters in an apparent terrorist attack. Twelve people were killed, eight of whom were journalists for Charlie Hebdo. The casualties included the magazine’s editor since 2012, cartoonist Stéphane Charbonnier. Authorities have identified three suspects – brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, who are still on the loose, and Hamyd Mourad, who is currently in police custody.

    With much of its staff killed in the attack, Charlie Hebdo needs some help to meet it ambitious goal. Enter Google, who has pledged to donate €250,000 from its press innovation fund to help the cause. This donation matches another €250,000 that was pieced together by other French newspaper publishers.

    Google has also placed a “Je Suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) graphic on its French homepage as a sign of solidarity.

    Image via Thierry Caro, Wikimedia Commons

  • Macworld Ends Print Publication, Reduces Staff

    News broke today that the print version of Macworld is being shut down as IDG laid off most of the staff. The online version will continue, but also with a reduced staff.

    The news emerged from tweets by staff, which were picked up by Valleywag earlier.

    From Senior Editor Roman Loyola:

    From Editor Dan Miller:

    The fate of the Macworld/iWorld conference is unclear.

    Image via Macworld

  • This Chart Shows That Google Is Bigger Than Newspapers And Magazines

    Business Insider has put together a pretty interesting graph that is getting a lot of attention in the media. It illustrates, citing data from Google, the NAA and the PIB, that Google is now bigger than both magazines and newspapers in terms of advertising in the U.S.

    Google vs newspapers and magazines

    Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget presented the graph as a slide at the Ignition 2013 conference, and it really does paint a vivid picture about just how big of an impact Google has had on the advertising industry as the print industry declines.

    And again, this is just the U.S.

    Google is reportedly on pace to do $60 billion in revenue this year, most of which will come from advertising. And they’re even giving away some for free.

    In some countries, Google is working with publishers to help them monetize their content using Google ads.

    Image: Business Insider

  • Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Rolling Stone Issue Does Gangbusters Sales. Because Controversy Sells. Duh.

    Any press is good press, right? Especially when the press is talking about the press itself.

    Two weeks ago, Rolling Stone magazine decided to put a giant image of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover. Not a photo of Tsarnaev in handcuffs, or bloodied in the back of that boat. Nope, Rolling Stone decided to put a big dreamy-looking photo of the terror suspect on the cover – one that made him look more like Jim Morrison than a terrorist.

    And that was the point, at least according to Rolling Stone.

    “The cover story we are publishing this week falls within the traditions of journalism and Rolling Stone’s long-standing commitment to serious and thoughtful coverage of the most important political and cultural issues of our day. The fact that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is young, and in the same age group as many of our readers, makes it all the more important for us to examine the complexities of this issue and gain a more complete understanding of how a tragedy like this happens,” they said in a statement.

    Basically, the whole point of the article was to look into how this sort of thing happens. How this seemingly normal kid (by all accounts) could turn into a monster. Because he looks like a rock star.

    Explanation or not, Rolling Stone knew that the cover would spark outrage. And it did. Twitter was a mess for a few days. Various chains like Walgreens and CVS boycotted the issue. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino wrote a strongly-worded letter to Rolling Stone about their “obvious marketing strategy.”

    The police photographer who took the photos of Tsarnaev as he was being apprehended even lashed out at the cover, calling it “an insult to any person who has every worn a uniform of any color or any police organization or military branch.”

    The point is – people were mad. Very mad.

    But people still bought it.

    According to Magazine Information Network (via AdAge), the Tsarnaev issue sold 102% over average of the per-issue sales for the past year. Among 1,420 retailers, 13,232 copies were sold from July 19th to July 29th – that’s more tha double Rolling Stone’s average sales from 2012.

    Not only did the “boycott” not work in dampening sales, but the controversy actually increased sales – by a huge margin. When you take into account the fact that retail sales only account for a few percent of Rolling Stone’s total circulation, you can see that people went to the stores for this issue specifically.

    Rolling Stone knew what they were doing. And anyone that thought this issue would sell less was delusional. Sex sells. Violence Sells. Scandal sells. Controversy sells.

  • William Fine Dies; Publisher was 86

    William Fine Dies; Publisher was 86

    William Fine, the publisher of dozens of magazines in the 1960s, has died at the age of 86.

    According to a New York Times report, Fine died in Beverly Hills, California on Friday, May 17. He is reported to have succumbed to multiple atrophy syndrome.

    During the 1960s Fine published magazines for the Hearst Corporation. His magazines included Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and Town & Country. After leaving Hearst, Fine became the president of New York department store Bonwit Teller.

    Fine is, perhaps, most well-known for influencing drug law in the U.S. According to the Times, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller once sent Fine to Japan to discover why the country had such low drug addiction rates. Fine’s report focused on the harsh sentences drug dealers in Japan were given. Rockefeller soon signed into law harsh mandatory minimum prison sentences for drug possession, increasing prison populations and influencing drug laws for decades to come.

  • Check Out This Shining-Inspired Film Ink Ad

    Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece The Shining continues to influence pop culture on a regular basis, and an ad from Australian film magazine Film Ink is the latest example.

    The hype around the documentary Room 237 has no doubt played a role in much of the recent interest in the film, but The Shining will continue to inspire countless pieces of Internet fun for years to come, without a doubt.

    With the new Film Ink ad, we can’t help but be reminded of this Channel 4 ad for The Stanley Kubrick Season from a few years back:

    [via The Overlook Hotel]

  • Magazines Are Now Available On Google Play In The UK

    One of the more prominent selling points of Google Play is its large magazine library. Google even includes free issues of popular magazines on new Nexus devices. Unfortunately, our friends in the UK weren’t graced with magazines or music at the launch of Google Play in the UK. Google already fixed the latter issue, and now it’s fixing the former.

    Google announced that magazines are now available on Google Play in the UK. The magazines on offer at launch come from a variety of publishers including Condé Nast UK, Dennis Publishing, Future, Haymarket, Hearst UK, Immediate Media and IPC Media. Current issues will be available in digital format starting today, but there’s no mention of making back issues available.

    As for the specific selection, some of the launch brands include Men’s Fitness, Slimming World, Total Film, New Statesman, The Spectator, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, Vogue, Wired and more. Subscribers will have each new issue added to their collection for easy access on the cloud.

    Google is also introducing its U.S. Google Play promotion in the UK. All new Nexus devices sold will include free issues of Men’s Fitness, .net and Vogue. Not exactly the cream of the crop, but it’s a good way to see if you like reading digital magazines. Some folks still prefer traditional magazines, but they’re proving to be more and more of a financial liability as evidenced by how many were shut down this year.

    You can check out the magazine selection on Google Play here.

  • Newsweek Goes Strictly Digital After 80 Years

    Newsweek, which has been in publication for nearly 80 years, is adopting an all-digital format. In 2010, the publication merged with online publication The Daily Beast, and now the combined company has decided the print business is no longer needed.

    It won’t be all TheDailyBeast.com. Tablet apps will remain a major part of the strategy, as well as a premium web version of the publication.

    Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, Tina Brown, made the announcement in an article on the site this morning. She writes:

    Newsweek Global, as the all-digital publication will be named, will be a single, worldwide edition targeted for a highly mobile, opinion-leading audience who want to learn about world events in a sophisticated context. Newsweek Global will be supported by paid subscription and will be available through e-readers for both tablet and the Web, with select content available on The Daily Beast.

    Four years ago we launched The Daily Beast. Two years later, we merged our business with the iconic Newsweek magazine—which The Washington Post Company had sold to Dr. Sidney Harman. Since the merger, both The Daily Beast and Newsweek have continued to post and publish distinctive journalism and have demonstrated explosive online growth in the process. The Daily Beast now attracts more than 15 million unique visitors a month, a 70 percent increase in the past year alone—a healthy portion of this traffic generated each week by Newsweek’s strong original journalism.

    Brown admits that the business has been increasingly affected by the “challenging print advertising environment”.

    The transition to all digital will happen early next year. The last print edition in the U.S. will be the December 31 issue. Newsweek will celebrate its 80th anniversary next year.

  • Nintendo Power Is Ending After 24 Years

    I was a Nintendo diehard growing up. The NES and SNES were the very definition of my childhood. I would defend Mario and Zelda to the death when somebody would claim that Sonic or Sword of Vermilion was better. The biggest contributor to my Nintendo fandom, however, was Nintendo Power.

    It’s unfortunate then that today came news out of Ars Technica that Nintendo Power was closing. It appears that its current publisher, Future Publishing, can’t work out a deal with Nintendo to extend the license. It’s a shame too since Nintendo Power was one of the most influential video game magazines in the late 80s/early 90s.

    Nintendo Power was first published in 1988 as a glorified marketing device to advertise the latest and greatest games. It was more than that to Nintendo obsessed kids like me though. Each issue was chock full of tips, tricks and secrets for games that I never would have completed were it not for Nintendo Power. It didn’t hurt that the magazine had one hell of a sales pitch:

    After owning the magazine for 19 years, Nintendo licensed out the name to Future Publishing. Future is the major publisher behind other console-specific magazines like Official Xbox Magazine and Official PlayStation Magazine. It only made sense for them to get ahold of Nintendo Power as well.

    Thankfully, it looks like Future won’t be firing any of the writers after Nintendo Power ceases to exist. They are apparently being moved to other Future properties like GamesRadar and MacLife magazine. Here’s hoping that Nintendo realizes their mistake and renews the license. It’s almost too sad to see such a giant within the gaming community just go away like that.

    It’s not entirely certain when the last issue will be published, but you can bet that I’ll be picking up a copy. Maybe I can show my kids 20 years down the road just how awesome game publications used to be.

    As an aside, check out this collection of Nintendo Power covers. The magazine, especially the early ones, had amazing cover art. It’s worth a trip down memory lane just for them.

  • Helen Gurley Brown Dies After 47 Years Of Editing At Cosmopolitan

    Helen Gurley Brown, the long-time editor-in-chief for Cosmopolitan magazine, has passed away at the age of 90. She took the editor-in-chief role in 1965, and held it for 32 years, before being replaced by Bonnie Fuller. Gurley Brown remained with publisher Hearst, however, keeping an editor role for the magazine’s 59 international editions, all the way up until her death.

    “Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry,” said Hearst CEO Frank Bennack. “She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential ‘Cosmo girl.’ She will be greatly missed.”

    Gurley Brown was also known for her best-selling book Sex and the Single Girl, which was published in 1962, when she was 40. She was married to film producer David Brown.

    Hearst shared the following letter from Bennack to staff:

    Dear Hearst Colleague:

    I know you will join me in feelings of great sadness upon learning of the loss of our dear friend and colleague Helen Gurley Brown. Helen passed away this morning at the McKeen Pavilion at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after a brief hospitalization. She was 90.

    It would be hard to overstate the importance to Hearst of her success with Cosmopolitan, or the value of the friendship many of us enjoyed with her. Helen was one of the world’s most recognized magazine editors and book authors, and a true pioneer for women in journalism—and beyond.

    Life here will somehow not seem the same without her near-daily arrival at 300 West 57th Street.

    Donations may be made to The Pussycat Foundation, c/o Karen Sanborn, Hearst Corp., 300 W. 57th Street, New York, NY 10019. The foundation benefits women in the United States by assisting them in joining the workforce, while pursuing their career and creative potential, as well as providing other charitable assistance. A fall memorial will be announced at a later date.

    All good wishes,

    Frank Bennack

    Earlier this year, Gurley Brown donated (as part of her and her late husband’s joint philanthropy efforts) $30 million to Columbia and Stanford Universities, creating the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation, which is designed to represent “the increasingly important connection between journalism and technology,” according to the schools. David Brown attended both.

  • 360 Magazine and X360 to Merge, Says Publisher

    Imagine Publishing, the publisher behind the magazines Play, How It Works, and SciFiNow, announced today that two of its video game magazines will be merging. X360 and 360 Magazine will be combined to create one title that will cover all things Xbox 360 related. Imagine stated that the new magazine will be the “strongest-ever Xbox 360 title.” Imagine will be putting the current Editor of 360 Magazine, Dan Howdle, in charge of the new magazine, which will carry on the X360 branding.

    “Having been involved with both magazines throughout the last five years, it would be fair to say that X360 and 360 Magazine have always occupied their own individual niche; there have always been elements each has realised with greater effectiveness than the other,” said Howdle. “The new X360 combines the power of these unique strengths into one highly desirable whole. I could not be more thrilled at being a part of the team that’s going to make X360’s future a reality.”

    The first issue of X360 to be authored by the combined staff is issue 87. That issue, which will hit stores on July 11, will feature in-depth E3 coverage and an enhanced DVD.

    “By merging these two magazines, we have a chance to better focus ourselves on creating exactly what is needed is push the X360 brand forward,” said Rick Porter, editor In chief at Imagine Publishing. “Ultimately, we’re now in a position to create the best possible package for the Xbox 360 gamer, and ensure the X360 brand goes from strength to strength in the challenging single-format magazine market.”

  • Playboy Puts Every Issue Online, Optimized for iPad

    Well gee-golly, ain’t that something!

    Today, Playboy Enterprises has launched i.Playboy.com, a site that gives you access to every page from every issue of Playboy ever published. That sure is a lot of…articles.

    Here’s the scope of what we are talking about here: 130,000 pages from over 57 years of magazines – every centerfold, pictorial, reporting piece, interview and even every advertisement.

    In addition to providing users with access to all issues from December 1953 to present, the site will also feature exclusive videos and curated content recommendations submitted by members of the Playboy Commission, a high-profile panel of celebrated individuals from art, design, fashion, media and technology. Commission members will provide their own content suggestions from the Playboy archives for users to explore and enjoy each month, beginning in June.

    The site, i.playboy.com, is optimized for the iPad, meaning you can navigate the service with relative ease and fluidity. Each magazine issue that you open has a content page with yellow highlighted areas that users can tap to jump quickly from section to section within the issue. A promotional video at the site tells users to “zoom in for more detail” by pinching the screen. I’m sure people will.

    A subscription to the service will be offered for multiple time-frames. It will run users $8 per month if they pay monthly. A year’s subscription is $60 while a 2-year subscription is $100. You will save a substantial amount of money by going with the 2-year plan.

    Here’s what Playboy’s content officer Jimmy Jellinek says about the new service, as quoted at the Chicago Tribune:

    Jellinek is optimistic people will pony up the $8 per month or $60 per year for a service that’s “meant to appeal to that sense of collective nostalgia and affinity.” He calls the website “the world’s sexiest time machine” and “an anthology of cool” for a magazine he refers to as “the Mount Rushmore of literary greatness.”

    In an age where the next naked girl in just a *free* click away, will people pony up the cash for Playboy online? The magazine has always had the reputation as “classy” pornography, which is more than can be said for much of the stuff on the web. Will the nostalgia factor create subscription sales? Are the interviews with famous people like John Lennon and articles by Jack Kerouac enough to draw people in?

    I would think that every page from every Playboy issue ever published is quite an historical document in its own right, and that could drive enough interest to make i.playboy.com work. I mean, come one – when’s the last time you saw the Marilyn Monroe Playboy spread?

    Does i.playboy.com interest you?

  • Is Creating a Unique Experience Enough To Get People to Pay for Digital Content?

    John Loughlin, Executive VP and GM of Hearst Magazines, which publishes Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Popular Mechanics, and other popular titles, provided an inside look into Hearst’s content strategy for the digital age here at ad:tech NY. 

    Do you think Hearst’s success in traditional publishing will extend to triumph in the online world? Let us know in the comments section.

    With 14 magazines and 23 sites, the company has 40 apps to accompany them. "Our digital library is a huge asset," he said, later adding "It’s not just the assets. It’s what you do with them."

    Hearst goes well beyond simply re-creating its print experiences for digital platforms whether they be the publications’ websites or mobile apps. For its sites it creates unique content. For its apps it not only creates unique content, but unique app experiences altogether. Many of Heart’s brand apps offer different services or entertaining experiences that aren’t just reading. And this goes beyond even video, audio, and animation. It’s about creating a interesting experience. 

    John Loughlin of Hearst Talks Digital Content Strategy

    None of these apps are free. Loughlin says that while much of the Blogosphere says this stuff should be free, he disagrees, noting that these bloggers should see the bills that come along with developing this stuff. 

    "It’s not just about brand exposure," said Loughlin. "It’s about creating a sufficiently strong impression."

    "When people ask me, ‘Is print dead?’ I say hell no" he added.

    Hearst’s paid print subscriptions sold via the web have gone up significantly in the last four years.

    While I’ve long been skeptical of the notion that a substantial amount of people will pay for digital content when there is so much other content available for free, 

    Hearst has the right idea when it comes to making this work, I think, if it’s really going to.  It’s all about keeping it unique and creating interesting experiences beyond just readable (or even watchable or listenable) content.

    Let us know what you make of Loughlin’s thoughts — and if you have any additional ideas — in the comments section.

  • Newspapers and Magazines Come to Kobo eReader, iPhone and iPad Apps

    Kobo announced that it is now offering newspapers and magazines for the Kobo Wireless eReader and its iPhone and iPad apps. The selection includes "dozens of top U.S. and Canadian publications". As an added bonus, the company is offering a two-week free trial period. 

    Kobo is backed by Indigo Books & Music, Borders, REDgroup Retail, Cheung Kong Holdings, and others. In July, Borders launched its own branded eBook store powered by Kobo. At that time, Border CEO Mike Edwards said, "The race to emerge as a retail leader within the digital category is just starting." 

    Kobo-eReader.Since then, Samsung has unveiled its Android-powered Galaxy Tab, and Kobo announced that it would be supplying the e-reader technology for it. Kobo has apps for the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android, and Palm Pre. 

    Today’s announcement, however, only applies to the reader, the iPhone and iPad apps at this point. Publications include: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Scientist, The Seattle Times, Wilson Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, American Scholar, China International Business, Columbus Dispatch , Guideposts, Harvard Business Review, National Review, New York Observer, PC Magazine, Publishers Weekly, Reason, The Christian Science Monitor Daily Briefing, The Nation, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, Vancouver Province, Vancouver Sun, Victoria Times-Colonist, and The Globe & Mail.   

    The company says it will continue to expand its offerings in this area. The newspapers’ and magazines’ formats are emulated on Kobo’s offerings. Still, readers can customize text sizes.

    "Kobo continues to build on our commitment of making sure that consumers have the best reading experience on any device with the largest selection of content worldwide," said Kobo CEO Michael Serbinis. "We’ve had tremendous success with eBooks and we’re very excited to expand the Kobo offering to include newspapers and magazines with a two-week free trial, allowing consumers to try first without any obligation. We continue to bring on top publishers to ensure that Kobo’s newspaper and magazine offering meets our customers’ highest expectations."

    After the two-week trial, monthly subscription prices start at $13.99 for newspapers and $2.99 for magazines. Kobo also claims to have over 2.2 million eBooks available.

  • Less Print Magazines Being Launched, But Also Less Dying

    According to MediaFinder, which claims to be the largest online database of U.S. and Canadian publications, 90 magazines were launched in the first half of 2010. That is way down from 187 titles launched during the same period in 2009.

    MediaFinderHowever, despite the significant drop in new titles launched, there have also been a great deal less to die. Only 87 magazines went under during the first half of this year, compared to 279 in the first half of 2009. Additionally, 16 print magazines converted to online-only formats, compared to 43 in 2009.

    "More magazine titles would have ceased publication but fortunately were acquired and continued publication," says Trish Hagood, President of MediaFinder publisher Oxbridge Communications. "Smaller companies took advantage of the opportunity to buy magazines from Reed Business Information and Nielsen Business Media, who were struggling to divest themselves quickly of many b-to-b titles."

    The food category led new magazine launches with 10, while the home category led shutdowns, losing 10 titles. However, the home category also gained 5.

    In the B2B space, 35 titles were lost, while 17 were launched. Hat tip to AdAge for pointing to MediaFinder’s release.

  • Online Subscriptions Driving Magazine Sales

    Online Subscriptions Driving Magazine Sales

    Online subscription will generate 24 percent of new business sales for magazines in 2010, according to a new report from the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA).

    The percentage of subscriptions generated from the Internet has increased steadily since 2006:

    Magazines-Online

    "Magazine publishers are being smart about leveraging online marketing opportunities to expand their audience, grow readership and increase subscription revenues," said Nina Link, President and CEO, MPA. 

    "Internet sub sales have almost doubled in the last three years.  The web is now the largest subscription source for one in five magazines."

    Other highlights from the report include:

    *The Internet will represent 13% of total subscription sales (new and renewal) in 2010.

    *Magazine-branded websites are the leading source of Internet subscriptions, representing 43% of sales.

    *Other leading Internet sources include email, cross selling, upsells and third-party partnerships and affiliates.

    *93% of Internet subscriptions are sold direct to publishers.

    *The leading subscription agents are Amazon.com and Magazines.com.
     

     

  • E-Reader Owners Avid Fans Of Magazines

    Owners of e-readers are avid fans of magazines when compared to U.S. adults who do not own such devices, according to a new report from Mediamark Research & Intelligence (MRI).

    The majority (91%) of e-reader owners read magazines, while 84 percent of total U.S. adults are magazine readers. In addition, e-reader owners read an average of 13 magazine issues a month, compared to 11 issues for average adults.

    Current e-reader owners are more likely to have a favorable view about the value of magazines. Just over quarter (26%) are more likely than the average adult to say magazines relax them, 20 percent more likely than the average adult to report that magazines make them think and 11 percent more likely to feel magazines give them good ideas.

    E-Reader-Owners-Magazines

    "There has been a lot of conversation about whether e-readers and tablets will provide an added boost to magazine readership," said Anne Marie Kelly, SVP, Marketing & Strategic Planning at MRI. 

    "MRI’s data certainly show e-reader owners are strong fans of magazines–a good indication for the potential of these devices to become strong magazine platforms once they are broadly adopted by the marketplace."

     

     

  • Google Looking to Split Print Pages into Individual Web Articles?

    Back in 2008, Google filed a patent, which was recently published for public viewing. The patent is called "Segmenting Printed Media Pages Into Articles," and appears to imply that the company wants to take individual articles from print publications and turn them into individual articles on the web. The abstract says:

    Methods and systems for segmenting printed media pages into individual articles quickly and efficiently. A printed media based image that may include a variety of columns, headlines, images, and text is input into the system which comprises a block segmenter and a article segmenter system. The block segmenter identifies and produces blocks of textual content from a printed media image while the article segmenter system determines which blocks of textual content belong to one or more articles in the printed media image based on a classifier algorithm. A method for segmenting printed media pages into individual articles is also presented.

    Google News Archive has old newspapers

    An archived newspaper page in Google News (content not separated)

    A hat tip goes to Erik Sherman writing for Bnet, who says, "Although this could allow Google to convert stacks of periodicals into electronic archives, it potentially sends the company headlong into conflict with a famous Supreme Court ruling on media law."

    "There’s just one legal problem: New York Times Co. , et. al. v. Jonathan Tasini et. al. Usually called the Tasini case, freelance writers sued the New York Times and other print publications for licensing individual articles to database companies without permission from the writers, who retained the copyright on the articles," he explains. "One of the main turning points was that the publishers had explicit permission only to include the articles in the print publication. However, copyright law did not allow the publishers to break their publications up and make the articles accessible to readers out of the original context."

    He goes on to note that Google could go back far enough into old print archives before rights were such an issue, and would be dealing with freelance writers who mostly didn’t copyright their articles. The technology could certainly be used in any future partnerships the company could make with print publishers, should the publications ever wish to go that route.

    What do you make of the patent? You can read the entire patent application here, in patent application-speak.