BoSacks Readers Speak Out: On Postal Reform, Maghound, Time Inc, Hearst

BoSacks Readers Speak Out: On Postal Reform, Maghound, Time Inc, Hearst
www.bosacks.com

Re: Postal Reform: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
There is much to digest in this piece about mailing rates and how the new structure is likely to affect magazines. That will take time. There was however, one bit of indigestible gristle to be spit out post haste: "post-master general Jack Potter has said, 'I don't want to hear from self-serving printers.'"

Imagine the nerve of printers, acting in a self-serving manner and thinking of their businesses! Just because they produce the products that provide work to USPS employees, do they think they have something useful to say about how the system works? Imagine! Just because their businesses provide work for tens of thousands of Americans, and add to the general prosperity do they think their selfish desire for profits should mean something to such an elevated personage as the (cue the music)...Postmaster General, Jack Potter? The USPS doesn't know the meaning of the word profit and they are proud to say so. Do these printers think that the taxes paid by them, by their stockholders, and by the people whose livelihood their printing businesses provide gives them some kind of voice just because those taxes subsidize the USPS? Why, the unmitigated gall!

If we let these self serving printers have a say in how the USPS functions, if that's the word, who knows where it will end? First, customers will think they should have a say about how real businesses work. Then voters will expect the government to respond to their wishes, and we all know where that could lead!

I say thank goodness we have self sacrificing, superior, public servants like (cue the music again)...Post Master General, Jack Potter "running" the USPS with its well known and universally admired standard of world class efficiency telling us who gets to have an opinion. I'm sure those printers who have managed to survive and prosper in the challenging market of recent times could learn a few things from him and his stellar operation, if only they didn't place so much self serving value on their continued survival. The nerve of some people.
(Submitted by a Printer)


RE: Time Inc. Maghound: a Netflix for Magazines?
The main problem I see with this is that, in the name of serving readers, you can actually undermine them in the long run. To not just barely succeed, but thrive, you have to give customers not only what they want, but what they didn't know they wanted. In the middle of letting them choose this and that, why not the occasional short blurb saying, "Given what we've seen of what interests you, we think this is an article you'd find interesting. We know it's not what you might normally pick, but here are the reasons we think you might find it really interesting. Because we value you as a customer, we're making this particular piece freely available to you. Hope you like it, and let us know with the check-off buttons at the end whether we were right or wrong." This would be like high end restaurants offering free tastes or little treats available to regular customers. The technology exists to do this, the content exists to do this, so why not just do it? Build a relation and show how you can help direct people to what they'll find important. It would get around the potential Balkanization of news and eventually strengthen the relationship between publisher and reader.
(Submitted by a Writer)


Re: Wal-Mart to sell books, magazines at U.S. list prices
How generous of WMT to sell books and cards at U.S. prices now that the Canadian$ is at about parity with US$. Maybe they will instruct their domestic cashiers to no longer toss Canadian nickels back to customers.
(Submitted by a Publisher)

Re: Do We Spend Much Time Reading Publications?
anybody who wastes forty minutes a day reading the Mulwaukee Journal cannot read very fast.
(Submitted by a Paper Person)

Re: Going Postal: Arguing for Media Diversity, Debate & Democracy
The business side of me says the USPS is doing the right thing by making
postage more closely match actual costs. Just think if the rest of government functioned even half this efficient!

However the ideology of this argument is compelling. Of course the USPS has
come along way since the only way to get political news was via post and is
worthy of thoughtful discussion.
(Submitted by a Printer)

RE: B-to-b magazine revenue, ad pages down through July
Hi, I'm Rose Glasses from the MPA
Ad pages in business publications fell by almost 3% through July, according to ABM.
But the great news is that MPA research shows that magazine readers are big users of the Internet! They also use pencils and pens and telephones! And most of them still have a pulse.
(Submitted by a Printer)


RE: BoSacks Speaks Out: The Seybold Report
Bo: Great interview.....your message, as always, is right on the mark.
(Submitted by a Director of Mfg and Distribution)

RE: BoSacks Speaks Out: The Seybold Report
Bob, best damn interview I have read in years. Now I am really sorry that I missed your public conversation with Samir in Florida. This was a fascinating take on our future as an industry.
(Submitted by a Publisher)


RE: BoSacks Speaks Out: This is Very Important
Bob, You are absolutely right, It's all about the content.
We need to figure out how to deliver the content in any manner the customer wants it.
As a production person who is in the middle of self re-invention, I can tell you it's a tough world out there.
What I don't want is for you to sugar coat it. I need the truth straight up so I can make good sound decisions on what direction I pursue.
(Submitted by a Production Director)

RE: BoSacks Speaks Out: This is Very Important
Want alleviate some of the pessimisim? Stop referring to magzines "dead trees". It's the Bambi Syndrome I can only imagine the heartbreak of those little orphan trees growing up and branching out on thier own.
(Submitted by a Printer)

Re: Magazine Publishers go Mobile for Readers
Oh, great! Now I have to worry about being rear ended by the Soccer Mom in the Escalade SUV not because she is getting a call from her kids, but surfing the InStyle web site on her cell phone. This is nuts!
(Submitted by a Senior Director of Mfg and Dst)

Re: Magazine Publishers go Mobile for Readers
I seem to be on a tear today. Call me a skeptic, but how do the media companies *know* that customers really want to read magazine articles on their cell phones? Have they actually talked to large enough numbers of customers to get a statistically projected conclusion? Or are they simply relying on the reports and claims of consultants and vendors of products and services who all make money in various ways when media firms spend on mobile content delivery?
(Submitted by a Writer)

RE: View from the Top: Cathie Black, president, Hearst Magazines
Every time I see something from some media bigwig, I'm surprised at the attitude. It's almost always about "what and how are we going to do," and almost never about what customers need. You can't have success ignoring the needs and desires of your customers - whether readers or advertisers. Why is there so little interest, other than as a curious milk cow, in the very people the business exists to satisfy? Could it be that such a view makes the movers and shakers less important?
(Submitted by a Photographer)