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Topic: Magazines passed over for reading blogs, instead.
| Author | Message |
| 9over14 | Posted – 5/21/2007 3:05:17 PM | show profile I don't think that magazines need to be worried about blogs, but they should be worried about online magazines. Any magazine should have a good website associated with it and look to market the online community effectively or else it will become a dinosaur. A purely print magazine will have no chance in the future. I think blogs are a different form of writing completely, but that shouldn't make anyone comfortable. |
| doglady | Posted – 5/21/2007 3:33:12 PM | show profile The web is where people are heading because they fetaure subject matter that is quirky, diverse, creative, imaganitive, to-the -moment. Magazines package everything, they refuse to take risks, they print the same crap over and over . Lucky does well because it is very little written and has pictures of pretty clothes--plus some how-to advice on putting outfits together. People will always look at that. Check out the Redbook video pitch slam. Any idea that isn't mainstream or done a hundred times the EIC essentially dings. She says she has to lay a story out when she hears the pitch--what o load! in my years at some of the men's and national magazines, we'd have been fired if as editors we ever said anything like that! You let a good writer take the story where it goes! And the more challenging for the reader, the quirkier, the funnier, the more startling, the more off the beaten path, the better. The web grabs these stories and just puts them out there. The writers are funny and the voices are unique. Magazines are crap and will go down the tubes not because the web is the hot new trend or because it's free--but because magazines refuse to print good writing. The web does, the blogs just put stuff out there, they don't agonize about this market group or that reader base, or Shelly in Ohio or Jennifer in the tri-state area. That's why the web/blogs rule right now. It's where the good writing is. Bad writing, too, but that's the point, it's all out there. The reader can read about different things, not the same crap regurgitated over and over. If Redbook did the tattoo story, complete with funny stories about what kind of tattoos moms and when, plus a story from a few women about what they think when they see a soccer mom with a tattoo (any soccer mom get a kid related tattoo?), I'd read that. For sure. And I'd think, wow! This in Redbook! Maybe I ought to pick it up more often. Meg Ryan's intimate secrets aren't doing in for me, gals at Redbook. Neither is the 200th reading of ways to keep my marriage hot. |
| Chamsah | Posted – 5/21/2007 3:37:29 PM | show profile Eric Sherman you wrote: Also, advertising in magazines has been roughly flat - not good, but not a situation with so many ads being pulled at once that magazines must downsize. Uh, are we working in the same industry??? That's EXACTLY what is going on. Check out how many major pubs shuttered in the first quarter. Then count how many people have been laid off, in addition to the hundreds Time Inc sent out on the street. The cuts, the downsizing, the budget slashing..... How can you stick your head in the sand? Why do you think this happening? What's your theory. |
| doglady | Posted – 5/21/2007 5:20:31 PM | show profile I could be wrong, but I think Ellegirl and YM both were shut down despite ad pages being up. So I'm really not sure what's going on other than a coupla people decided that with teens the way to go is the web, period. Meanwhile, TeenVogue still leads the pack. Edited by a forty-soemthing mother of two, who does not drink Red Bull, have a MySpace page or pretend to be 19. To quote another great former editor and industry "darling", Maybe it' s not because she's not stupid. |
| Chamsah | Posted – 5/21/2007 8:57:17 PM | show profile Doglady I'm no business-person (thank god) but if a magazine is losing money for a substanical period of time and/or is losing readership (which is what I am guessing what happened to the mags you mentioned -- their readers grew up and were not being replaced by their younger peers) they'll eventually pull the plug. Period. One thing I've learned about my layoff: it's all about money, period. For creative types like us, it's difficult to accept when we want to put out great writing and great ideas from great writers. If only that's what kept good magazines alive and cause the crap ones to shut down.... |
| doglady | Posted – 5/21/2007 9:18:03 PM | show profile Probably the case with most magazines, but Ellegirl and YM were not losing money. They were doing quite well. It was thought by media critics who were shocked by the folding of both magazines that the publishers and corporate heads saw that the future for teen magazines was in the web, and just decided to end print and focus on the Web. That print was too risky, that the magazines were doing well but based on the ever-changing teen market could go under. Which doesn't explain how The New Yorker has managed to stay in business--it's been in the red forever (just recently for four years in its history has it been in the black, and that may change soon, since NY magazine is all the rage). I think it's not about money anymore and that's what's so scary. It's not about how much money a magzine makes, but how much it COULD LOSE in the future. Execs see print as expensive and risky and threatened, and are trying to insure against that risk by making their magazines copy the web, rely on the web, or fold print and go online altogether. Not by putting a unique magazine out there, with great writing that's a treat to read and--here's something original -- keeping it OFF the web???!!! I don't know much about management; but I know a lot about trends and how fast they crash and burn--and that the only way to sustain a market is to offer a quality product that doesn't just SERVE the reader but surprises him or her. And magazines aren't doing that anymore. On the one hand they can't (we get all the new news we want 24/7 on the Internet and CNN) and where they could surprise the reader--with great content --they're not willing to take the risk. |
| doglady | Posted – 5/21/2007 9:29:23 PM | show profile after all--think about it. With our short attention span, and all this information available on the Web, how come books are doing so well? I 've read that books are faring better than magazines, that nich publishing houses are gaining. Books have always sat at the bottom of the publishing money-making heap. SAme thing with movies and HBO. How come HBO is doing so well? It's not free. I think it's because THERE IS GOOS STUFF ON HBO--and crap in the theaters. Given the option, people prefer material that's original, creative, makes us think. That doesn't treat us like we're idiots. I would say that's why CDs aren't selling. Artists are being pressured by labels to sign contracts that bind them to churn out crap. They are encouraged to produce hits, not artistic expression. Who wants to buy a CD full of commercialized crap? I can get one or two of the songs I like that managed to make it rhough the crap and skip the rest--or just buy the independent stuff I want that no label will produce. This may in fact be the beginning of a whole new modern renaissance for American Art. Word, song, film--people are simply no longer willing to pay hard-earned money for over produced, commercialized regurgitated crap. They can get their entertainment--with original themes, intellectual challenge, non conformist ideas, all that stuff -- from other venues. And traditional venues--once they've stopped believing that it's about expediency and gadget-worship -- will finally realize what it's REALLy about. We're just tired of your crap. |
| Bleak Spouse | Posted – 5/21/2007 11:47:23 PM | show profile It's interesting how some magazines' websites have been very successful (like ew.com) but others have bombed (like time.com). That's a mystery to me. |
| doglady | Posted – 5/22/2007 2:17:35 AM | show profile websites that feature celebrity news, fashion, or snarky gossip based on magazines that feature the same do well. web sites that are well written generally do not have corresponding magazines. magazines that are well written generally do not have great web sites--many magazines have sacrified their content to web success. By the way, I correct myself--I didn't mean to say money doesn't matter--what I meant was present money situations don't matter. Corporate is looking at the future, comparing present with the past, and is freaking out. That's why and how magazines will die. Until someone shows these greedy enuchs that a smart, funny well written magazine will do well without depending on a web sight or access from a palm-sized gadget. |
| EuroWriter | Posted – 5/22/2007 9:35:12 AM | show profile | email poster Print is dead. Long live print. For what it's worth, I think the discussion of print or the web misses the point entirely. I agree with many folks here that there will always be a market for print magazines (and, gasp, newspapers as well) and therefore a justification for publishing them. But I don't think any print publication will survive without an alter ego on the Web and a redefinition of the role of print. I began my journalism career 20 years ago at a well-known financial news agency and when the Web came along it was clear right away the there were unbeatable advantages to the online distribution of news. But what about a 3,000-5,000 word magazine feature? Who wants to read that online? But any magazine that publishes a feature in a print publication better be sure to have some form of complimentary content online: a slide-show, a narrated video with original content from the reporting of the story. The marriage of print and the Web will produce (is already doing so) really compelling content. So, then what happens with the New Yorker or Atlantic, long-form narratives? How can that work online if the online version isn't some kind of complimentary hybrid sibling of a story in print? As for profits, the ad spend on the Web is still miniscule and what would the bottom line of even successful (ie profitable) Web sites like WSJ.com look like if they included the costs of the reporting staff and management of the print edition that is generating most of their content? The Web is also changing fast. What do you think will happen to all those blogs and ezines when TV hits the Web full force? The problem that the powers that be in print journalism have is that they tend to still see the Web as something separate from their print publication. It's not either or, it's about doing both well and in a way that refinances the operation. |
| Chamsah | Posted – 5/22/2007 10:32:30 AM | show profile Doglady I love reading your posts. You are very insightful and I agree with so much of what you have to say. I'd love to meet you some day because I think we'd get along like gangbusters. But I did notice your one sentence that proves my point: You wrote: Execs see print as [b]expensive and risky[/b] and threatened, and are trying to insure against that risk by making their magazines copy the web, rely on the web, or fold print and go online altogether. So it IS about money. Whether they are losing it now or losing it later, it all comes down to the almighty dollar. They are going to reinvest their dollar in ways they think will quadruple their bottom line. In their mind, that's web and electronic platforms. You are right about the New Yorker. It will never make money. But some mags are institutions with some sort of intellectual shield protecting it. The New Yorker is one of them but those mags are few and far between. (Why do you think the Atlantic moved out of Boston? Better shield.) Fact is, you can't allow MBAs to make final calls on the life of creative projects. They'll always choose the wrong option. A point you've made a million times. |
| foodlit | Posted – 5/22/2007 11:18:32 AM | show profile I agree with Doglady, that print will always be here, and that if anything, to survive, the quality will have to be there. HBO is a great example. Interestingly, I don't see magazines being as affected by the web as newpapers. I still read all my favorite magazines and like to hold the hard copy, and relax on the sofa, take my time, flipping through, and really enjoying the articles. However, I rarely buy a newspaper anymore. I go to Boston.com everyday and read the Boston Globe online in the morning and throughout the day. I also have a handful of industry blogs that I read daily, all work related, on recruiting/hr stuff and the markets I recruit in. The only magazine online I ever go to is Wired.com, but it's usually after I've read the magazine and want to send a link of an article I've read about. For instance, I just learned about Twitter, last night, and signed up for an account today. I think it's going to be another huge web 2.0 tool, by the founder of Blogger...it lets you instant message groups of people at once, just mini-messages. Kind of silly, but fun too. :) Pam |
