BoSacks Speaks Out: The New Yorker thrives on the iPad

BoSacks Speaks Out: I find it very amusing that after all these years we are finally re-discovering that our franchise is actually built mostly on words and the thinking that those words provide, rather than on super-substrates of any type, be they paper or plastic. At the end of day, publishers are the providers of information, plain and simple. Bells and whistles are an interesting sidebar, but if the content isn't what it ought to be, the extra fluff is meaningless. If you build it (unique and valuable content) they will not only come, but will also pay for it.

By no means mistake this for an anti-technologic rant. All I'm saying is that sometimes we forget what it is that we do. We are our best when we get back to the simple basics of an informational platform that contains excellence on a constant basis. If you don't have the best words in your sector of publishing, you are living an increasingly shorter dream of sustainability.

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Thanks to simplicity, the New Yorker thrives on the iPad

BY Patricio Robles

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7848-thanks-to-simplicity-the-new-yorker-thrives-on-the-ipad#

As publishers and new media companies try to tap into the potential offered by the iPad, many have decided that offering richer, multimedia-laden experiences is the way to go.

Take Push Pop Press, for instance. Its vision for tablet publications: turn them into interactive applications. Its centerpiece, Al Gore's Our Choice interactive e-book, was heralded as "one of the most...impressive apps you've ever seen."

Yesterday, Push Pop Press was acquired by Facebook in what appears to be a talent acquisition. According to a post on the company website, "we're taking our publishing technology and everything we've learned and are setting off to help design the world's largest book, Facebook." By all appearances, there's a reason for this: Push Pop Press' vision for traditional publications, as appealing as it might be on paper, simply hasn't taken off.

At the same time, however, one traditional publication is thriving with a much simpler model. As revealed in a New York Times article, The New Yorker is doing quite well without turning its iPad version into a feast for the senses. Approximately 20,000 of the 100,000 readers who read The New Yorker iPad app paid $59.99/year for a subscription, and "several thousand more" pay $4.99/week for single issues.

As The New York Times' Jeremy W. Peters notes, "When magazine publishers began pouring their resources and hopes into the iPad, their thinking was that readers wanted something substantially more than just words on a screen. A simple PDF of a page just would not do." Such assumptions may have been wrong.

The interface of The New Yorker iPad app is closer to a PDF than it is to the type of multimedia extravaganza that other magazine apps are trying to provide. According to The New Yorker's deputy editor, Pamela Maffei McCarthy, there's a reason for this: "That was really important to us: to create an app all about reading. There are some bells and whistles, but we're very careful about that. We think about whether or not they add any value. And if they don't, out the window they go."

The key point: it's all about value. Traditional publishers thinking more about the iPad's capabilities than what their readers expect on the iPad are more likely to produce a tablet publication that produces more interest from industry folk than it does interest from actual readers. In many cases, attempts at impressing the critics leave readers dissatisfied.

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NYT: For New Yorker on iPad, Words Are the Thing

Author Khoi Vinh

http://www.subtraction.com/2011/08/01/new-yorker-on-ipad-words-are-the-thing

The New York Times reports that of all of Condé Nast's many splashy iPad magazine apps the relatively boring New Yorker is its most successful. It now boasts about 100,000 readers, 20,000 of whom bought annual subscriptions.

"...The figures are the highest of any iPad edition sold by Condé Nast, which also publishes Wired, GQ, Vanity Fair, Glamour and others on the Apple tablet... The New Yorker, a magazine that has always been heavy on text, took a different tack from its peers. Instead of loading its iPad app with interactive features, the magazine focused on presenting its articles in a clean, readable format."

This is part of the strategy that I've been advocating for in my various critiques of Condé's approach to the iPad. In short, the best way to serve a reading audience is to focus on providing a terrific reading experience and to de-emphasize the showy, buggy and difficult-to-use extras that have become synonymous with the 'iPad magazine app' format. And in fact, I'm a regular user of The New Yorker app, especially while traveling, because it gives me reasonably unfettered access to the only thing I'm seriously interested in: the text.

None of which is to say, though, that The New Yorker app is anywhere close to perfect. First, it could use a code refresh as it crashes so frequently as to be unusable; in my recent experience all it takes to induce it to unexpectedly quit is to launch it and let it alone for five to ten seconds.

Second, selling 20,000 paid subscriptions is fantastic, but according to the Times as many as 75,000 of the app's customers are, like myself, originally subscribers to the print edition. So in fact the majority of customers do not represent an expansion of the market at all. None of these numbers are to be sneezed at, of course, and even transitioning a print subscriber to the digital edition can be counted as a kind of win. But it strikes me that the whole lot of customers would be better served with an HTML5-powered app, rather than the current native app. That way, it would be significantly cheaper to service those 100,000 users and significantly easier to keep it from crashing so much.

BoSacks Speaks Out: How to Survive in Publishing

Today's Publishing Career: We Are All Vulnerable
Talent and excellence are no safeguard against the winds of change.
By Robert M. Sacks
http://www.pubexec.com

I'm a lucky man, and I know it. I have had the privilege and honor of working with some of the brightest minds and leadership, in my opinion, in our industry, and in the best of both worlds: I have worked as a self-employed magazine entrepreneur many times over, and I have worked for the best and most sophisticated publishing houses in the world.

In my rounds as industry provocateur, I have the freedom to meet with all levels of management from the very top of our industry, through middle management, to entry-level personnel and students at journalism schools.

I am mentioning this because of an interesting conversation I had this week with a major publisher at a major publishing house. My trick question to him was pretty straightforward: "Do you expect to retire from your current company?" His response was quick, but not immediate; I saw the wheels turning and his pondering, and then the honest answer was delivered: "No."

I have talked about careers in this column before, and I will most likely do so again. It was fascinating to me to know this man and understand the varied career path that took him to top of the publishing food chain, and to see that he forgot, at least for a little while, that he replaced somebody and that somebody will replace him, too. It is not an "if" question; it is a definitive "when" question. And if it is only a "when" question, then we need to ponder on whose terms will the "when" be when it actually happens. Yours or "theirs"?

My reason for asking him was to remind him of one of the most basic and obvious lessons of 21st-century publishing-we are all subject to the winds of change. From a career perspective, it is true that we are most vulnerable when we are the most comfortable.

On the same topic, I received a résumé yesterday from a man in his 50s, who is now out of work. I can tell you that he worked for his last company for at least 20 years and that he was very good at what he did. Being good at your job and having longevity at it doesn't matter at all in the world of disposable products and disposable careers. In his note to me, he said the cardinal sin of all personal careerism, "I didn't see that coming."


What? You didn't see that coming? We all have it coming sooner or later. That is why we must all do two things at the same time: We all must be the very best at what we do today in our current job and always have the next job lined up, or at least in our sights and in our heads. This is a case where I promise you that holding two completely separate ideas in your head at the same time will not make your head explode nor your career implode.

With all this drama about our careers and the changing landscape of the publishing world, I also believe that this is a great time to rethink the unthinkable. I have in my notes an expression that someone said. I didn't write from where it came, and it could even have been my own scrawling, but it is worth thinking about and perhaps agreeing with. The expression is this: "This is a unique and historic period where the unthinkable has never been more possible. We live in one of the greatest periods of experimentation, innovation and entrepreneurism that the world has ever seen." I believe that it can and should be a very exciting time to be in this business, if you can keep your wits about you and pay attention to the many swirling forces of change.

To the publisher with whom I was talking or the circulator with whom I was corresponding, I ask the same thing: Where are you going to from here, because you can't stay where you are. You can't ever say, "I didn't see it coming," because it always is. You can't rest on your laurels, because they are never strong enough to support you for very long.

In a market that is reinventing itself on a minute-by-minute basis, are you doing the same thing?

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He also is co-founder of research company mediaIDEAS (MediaIdeas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily, international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web.

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Color OK from Hell

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Color OK from Hell
By Bob Sacks
I've been in the publishing business a long time. I have seen amazing technologic changes in our industry that have brought an exactitude to the printing process that was always wished for but hardly achievable when I got started in publishing. Registration problems were not only expected, but in a strange way almost accepted as an unavoidable part of the four color printing process.

In my time in the business I have been not on dozens, but on hundreds of color OK's. I have been with excellent and very creative art directors who know less than nothing of the printing process. I always considered traveling with the "creatives" to a press side experience both fun and challenging. The challenge was explaining the printing process and getting them to sign off when I told them in no uncertain terms that that this is really a terrific match to your proof and the best that printing science and the press can deliver.

There was an eight year period when I was at High Times that I would go to Quad Graphics, usually without an art director, and did the Color OKs solo. In those days I had the unheard of liberty not to have to match the proofs, but rather to do on press anything I wanted to, to get the best printed results possible in the shortest amount of time. In the old days I felt that I could achieve an OK faster than any man or woman alive. Now that I think about it, it would have been a fun challenge between Production Directors - the Super Bowl of press side Oks.

Anyway the following video is pretty damn funny even if you haven't been on a color ok.

My Favorite quote that I can recall about the printing process comes from my college roommate Ed Cobb. I am no doubt only paraphrasing him but it went something like this:
"A proof proves nothing"
I couldn't agree more.

My compliments to Sappi Fine Papers, for understanding the drama and the on-press dilemmas of the pressman, and the Production persons as they deal with the lovable creatives. Let's be realistic here and remember that without the creatives there would be nothing to print.

The New, Simple, Easy, Fool-proof Method for Any Magazine's Success

The New, Simple, Easy, Fool-proof Method for Any Magazine's Success
By Bob Sacks

For some reason, the latest mantra in the print world is that we have finally been saved and we have proof that we are forceful and relevant as demonstrated by the success of one title. I actually love the magazine and look forward to getting it each month. But I am so sick of hearing about the salvation of the magazine industry based on the success of The Food Network Magazine that I am today, here and now, drawing a line in the sand.

Here, my friends, is a simple, absolutely fool-proof formula for starting any successful magazine:

Step 1: Have a successful TV show for 20 years.

Step 2: Make sure that this successful TV show has plenty of variety in both topics and stars

Sub Step 2a: The show must have plenty of celebrities. (Creating the long-term celebrity status on the show is more than permissible; it is preferable.)

Step 3: Wait 20 years for proof of concept and a mass audience.

Step 4: (This is the easy step.) Produce a wildly successful magazine based on the wildly successful TV show.

Step 5: Claim that this new, simple and easy approach to printed products is the foundation of the success of the magazine industry.

Step 6: Repeat as often as necessary. Just create another wildly successful TV show and go back to Step 1

If you follow these ultra-simple Bo-Steps to magazine success, you will be considered a veritable media genius.

BoSacks Speaks Out: What is a magazine?

BoSacks Speaks Out: As most of you know I have been debating my friend Samir Husni across the country for almost a decade. He is an admitted tree hugger and I lean mightily towards a digital future for our industry. Our debates are great fun not only for the audience but for the two of us as well. We enjoy taking opposite sides of important magazine issues.

As you might expect when I saw the headline of his recent posting "So, What is a Magazine, Really?" I started reading with great interest. That is when I read the following lines by Samir "Without the ink, the paper, the touch, the smell, the look, the taste, it will not be called a magazine." ... And, if it is not ink on paper, please try to find another name to define that new medium, because in my book if it is not printed it is not a magazine."

From my perspective these words and thoughts couldn't be more wrong. I firmly believe that ink is not one of the major components necessary for a magazine.
In working with my partners at mediaIdeas five years ago we developed a set of criteria for the definition of a magazine. We believe that a magazine must be paginated, edited, designed, date stamped, permanent, and periodic. But it does not have to use either ink or paper to be an 'official' magazine. Ink and paper are an unnecessary restriction in the 21st century. Of course, a magazine can be printed with ink on paper, but to demand that it be so is unrealistic and would doom an otherwise vibrant industry to the monasteries of time long past.

The best-selling book of all times was originally written on a scroll. Then eventually printed on paper by our friend Guttenberg. The Bible is now available digitally. Does the digital delivery mean it's not a book? I think rather that the words and thinking that are important and not the substrate.
Of course, it may not be fair but I can't help pointing out that Samir delivered his article "So What is a Magazine Really?" in a digital blog and not in a printed magazine.
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So, What is a Magazine, Really? Read on…June 11, 2010
Being in the content business and being in the magazine business are two completely different worlds. While the magazine business deals with content, content is only but a fraction of what makes a magazine. The myth that is now sweeping our industry that we are content providers and it does not matter how our customers get their information may be the Trojan horse that will aid some publishers continue on their print suicide path.

Content is good and content will continue to be king and queen of our profession, but magazines are not going to live and survive by content alone. It never stops to amaze me how the majority of people jumped on the bandwagon of equating magazines to music and wanted to sell magazines like the iTune store sells music. I said that before and I will say again, the only similarity between magazines and music is the letter m. Everything else is different. As a child I listened to music on the little transistor radio. Later I listened to records, tapes and even listened to music on television. I listened to my favorite songs over and over. I used earphones, loud speakers, any and all the things created to help me listen to the music. The goal was always to listen to my favorite song over and over again. I did not care how the song was broadcasted or delivered. I was not holding to that radio or television set, because the medium did not matter in that case. It was the message that mattered. It was so easy to separate the message from the medium, and it did not matter what medium delivered that message to me, because my addiction was to the message that I kept listening to, time after time. It was not a message meant for a one-time use. The physical medium was just the vehicle to deliver the message and it was never part of the message.

That brings me back to the printed magazine. Like music, each and every magazine can be used as a medium to deliver a message, but if that was all what magazines do, than we would have been out of business long time ago and we would have one format, maybe an iMagazine that delivers all the content you need to select and choose from for your daily needs, wants and desires.

Magazines are much more than content. Magazines are much more than information, words, pictures and colors all combined in a platform that serves nothing but as a delivery vehicle. Magazines, each and every one and each and every issue of every one, are a total experience that engages the customers five senses. Nothing is left to chance. It is a total package. Without the ink, the paper, the touch, the smell, the look, the taste, it will not be called a magazine. Every issue is a complete new experience with a sense of ownership, showmanship and membership and is renewed with the arrival of the next issue. The total experience of flipping through the pages of a magazine, looking at the different dimensions, shapes, and other physical properties (including the colors we use on every issue whether it is the famous TIME red border or National Geographic yellow border) create a unique relationship with the customer issue after issue.

So before we close the book on this great technology we call ink on paper and start moving with the tide of this new digital world, stop and think for a moment on what makes a magazine a magazine and why in this digital age millions of magazines worldwide are still thriving in ink on paper creating daily experiences, one issue at a time. Magazines are much more than content and they are even much more than ink on paper. The total physical aspect of each “storehouse” to use the original meaning of what a magazine is include all of its properties, from the size of the store to the content of the store, seen and felt together.

Take time and think about it. The digital age is helping us create new platforms and new media, but do not fool yourself and think you can recreate a similar experience to that we have in ink on paper magazines. It is one of a kind and I if we only devote five percent of our time, money and energy in this digital age focusing on how to enhance this existing ink on paper technology and what it is delivering, our business will be in a much better shape. Magazines are not just content providers, they are experience makers, one printed issue at a time. And, if it is not ink on paper, please try to find another name to define that new medium, because in my book if it is not printed it is not a magazine. I am living the digital age (you name the gadget I have it, including the iPad) but I am not living in a dream world. I have yet to see anything comes close to what an ink on paper magazine can deliver and do for its customers at such a great feel, not to mention a great price too. Go grab a magazine, any magazine and then let’s start talking about experience making!

Enjoy.

The Future of Print: BoSacks Speaks at Summer Publishing Institute

The Future of Print: BoSacks Speaks at Summer Publishing Institute
BoSacks gives the keynote speech Summer Publishing Institute
By Ryan Willard
http://nyupubposts.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/the-future-of-print-bo-sacks-speaks-at-spi/

In his animated and lively presentation, Bo Sacks, owner of The Precision Media Group, told the students attending NYU's 2010 Summer Publishing Institute that while print is not dead, it will not be the primary way to read in the future. His State of the Union address directed toward SPI's aspiring media professionals offered a glimpse into the blurring lines between print and digital media.

Sacks highlighted some of the problems the publishing industry faces when trying to interpret how readers absorb knowledge from mass media and contemporary culture. He explained that today, consumers know how to find a fact by researching their needs online, rather than knowing a fact. Moreover, magazines have a beginning, middle and end whereas digital platforms offer endless possibilities.

No matter what the medium, says Sacks-whether it is through newer and better versions of tablets that will contain Qualcomm's mirasol product debuting sometime in 2011, or some other light-reflective electronic paper currently on the market-superior content is the necessary tool for the survival of the publishing industry. Those left on the island will be swift, nimble, and niche scavengers. They will know how to monetize content and to use cutting edge technologies. And they will be adept at utilizing citizen journalism, social media and location-centric sites like Foursquare and Gowalla, not to mention understanding the importance of globalization. Sacks insisted that there must be accurate systems of accountability for all print products for a more sustainable environment.

Stressing the importance of a recurrence of ideas, Sacks invoked the popular TV-series Battlestar Galactica and declared: "All of this has happened before, and it will happen again." He urged publishers to build on ideas of the past, in order to succeed in the future. He noted that we are living a world where the growth of magazine newsstand sales came to a standstill in 1990 and Ashton Kutcher has more fans on Twitter than the entire population of Norway, Ireland and Panama combined.

The world, he explained, is rapidly progressing toward a digital future. In 25 years, Sacks predicts, only 15% of current print magazines will still exist. Ultimately, a question remains within the minds of publishers and SPI students alike: how do we get everyone on the same page during this moment of change? Will there ever be one source for all digital-print media that readers are able to access? Will the transformation from print to digital lose sight of the strong writing and voice of authority that makes up so much of what is currently published? Maybe, but as Sacks suggested, adaptation will inevitably push readers, writers and publishers into an exciting and rich new world of print and digital platforms.
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The students that are enrolled in The Summer Publishing Institute, is one of three programs run by The Center for Publishing at NYU-SCPS. http://scps.nyu.edu/areas-of-study/publishing

There will be a number of posts about The Summer Publishing Institute on the NYUSCPS blog this summer at http://NYUPubPosts.wordpress.com

MPA Officially Responds to BoSacks on PIB

MPA Officially Responds to BoSacks on PIB
BoSacks Speaks Out: I am thankful to the MPA for responding to my vent of last week. It has always been my intended policy to start meaningful discussions. I do this in an attempt to have dialog about the consequential issues of the day and for the inevitable success of our industry. In that pursuit I attempt to present as many intelligent perspectives as I can. Without the ability to have cross-pollination we will not grow, prosper nor succeed in our endeavors.

MPA official response to PIB story
Your newsletter item from March 10 calls into question the veracity of PIB reporting. Let's be very clear. PIB is absolutely upfront that it is reporting rate card revenue. We state this in our quarterly press releases and on our website. The reason PIB reports rate card revenue is to offer a consistent and objective year-over-year comparison that can be verified. In fact, thanks to PIB, magazines are the only medium that provides fully verified reports for both units and revenue.

The primary use of the rate card revenue numbers is for publishers and agencies to track ad activity, and the way in which the numbers are presented makes it easy for them to do that by client. Since it is clear that the spending is based on rate card dollars, agencies and publishers can easily benchmark against them. Publishers and ad agencies fully understand what we report and they value PIB for its clarity. Anyone who has questions about our numbers or our process for generating the quarterly reports is free to contact me. My door is always open.

Wayne Eadie
SVP, Research
Magazine Publishers of America
President
Publishers Information Bureau

BoSacks Speaks Out: PIB and Big Ad Discounts In '09

BoSacks Speaks Out: I have often ranted about the value of useless data. As we, as an industry continue to grapple with our future and the absolute need for true accountability, so too should we deal with the value of PIB reporting. It does have its place in ancient history and it does try to track some actual aspects of the publishing industry. The actual number of printed pages is hard to fabricate, and I willingly accept that those number are "close" to reality. But the value of posted revenue has become increasingly ridiculous and totally unreliable and unbelievable. Who are they kidding? I challenge any one from PIB to come on stage with me in an open public forum and defend those reported revenue numbers. Has that ever been done? If not, it should be. Exactly who is responsible for this?

The veracity of that kind of reporting is partly why our industry is in such dire straits. I postulate the following: What if we were actually accountable? What if agencies could actually rely on our reported results as gospel? What would happen if we actually told the truth instead of our continued subterfuge?

Pass-along readership numbers are an industry joke and totally unverifiable. PIB revenue based on posted rate card information is disingenuous at the very best.

It is time in the 21st century for the magazine industry to stand tall and declare the facts. We are a noble and honorable business. We don't need to lie to get the business we deserve, but rather we should deserve the business we get. The more the PIB data looses touch with reality, the more we will loose credence with the advertising industry. The future of our business is about undeniable truth and authenticity. Today or tomorrow, we will have no choice. Wouldn't it be better if we accepted the needs of the industry to expose the facts of who we are and what we can do, rather than just fade away as unreliable and irrelevant. Who will answer my call? Do you disagree? Let me know. Let the PIB know. If not now, When?
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Big Ad Discounts In '09: Mags Lower Rates 27%-57%
by Erik Sass
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=123982

Bona fide advertising revenue figures for magazines are notoriously hard to come by, as it is common practice for publishers to give advertisers discounts off official rate cards, meaning that real revenues are often much lower than those reported by the Publishers Information Bureau.

However, you can get some idea of the average discount rate, and with it the general health of the industry, by comparing overall PIB figures with independent revenue estimates.

The official rate card figures compiled by PIB for 2009 put total consumer magazine ad revenues (including newspaper-distributed monthly and weekly magazines) at $21.1 billion, down 17.5% from $25.6 billion in 2008.

This figure is already a bit suspect, however -- considering that total ad pages fell 25.6% over the same time period, from 233,558 to 173,375. While it's not impossible, it seems unlikely that during one of the worst economic downturns in decades, magazine publishers actually raised the average price per page 11% from $109,801 in 2008 to $121,712 in 2009.

Independent analysts seem to agree that the medium's advertising revenues were quite a bit lower than the PIB figures. A recent overview from Outsell has total magazine ad revenues at about $9.2 billion in 2009, while Magna's Brian Wieser pegged them at about $15.4 billion in his January overview of 2009 and forecast for 2010.

Comparing these numbers with PIB estimates, it would appear the magazine industry as a whole is giving advertisers discounts ranging from 27% to 57% off the official rate cards.

It should be remembered that these figures are general, however, as some magazine publishers (like Conde Nast) have a reputation for offering few if any ad page discounts. By contrast, other publishers have reportedly offered discounts of over 70%.

BoSacks Speaks Out: On the Power of Print Campaign

Once again into the valley rode the Fortune 500. Once again, into the breach they ride feeling the need to defend the pious honor and value of print. Once again, they completely miss the damn target, this time by a mile, a 90 million dollar mile. I am not saying that as an industry there aren't things that we should be doing to put a finger in the leaking dike. But the dike still has integrity and is still holding back a vast sum of print revenue and print advertising. I am saying that what we do needs to be smart and well targeted. This campaign isn't.

I guess my complaint is their marksmanship. There isn't any. The people who put this campaign together to protect print don't have a clue what they are doing and who to aim at. It is also clear that the instigators of this campaign don't use the Internet or any digital component therein. I say print has much integrity and life left in it, but you wouldn't know it by this desperate ad campaign.

The campaign claims to target advertisers, shareholders and industry influencers. Well listen up my friends, you just insulted them all. The media buyers live in a digital world. When you bellow in one of the ads that, "The Internet is fleeting. Magazines are immersive," every media buyer knows that is pure bunk. It is the Internet that is immersive, and the kids that buy the ads and spend the advertising money know it. They live on Facebook, twitter and hundreds of other social network sites and programs. You display an utter lack of contemporary culture and knowledge. You show your dotage at every opportunity. Don't attack your customers where they live. Media buyers live on the web and only visit magazines. And in my book, visiting is OK and can still be very profitable, but not if you try to tell them that they live in a fleeting, soon- to-be-evaporated world. That is a lie.

Oh, and the other tag line from yesterday's report – "We surf the Internet. We swim in magazines." Oh Really? Perhaps you missed the report that the web is now the 2nd most trusted place for news – second only to TV. Perhaps you missed the news that 57% of the webs social media users are over the age of 35. Perhaps you didn't know that Facebook has more than 400 million active users, and of those active users, 61 percent of Facebook's users are middle-aged or older.

All I am saying is that the campaign is a total waste. Exactly to whom is it directed and exactly what are your expectations on an ROI? Is this the campaign that will save the nation of print?

Look, I love print and have been deeply involved in it for over 40 years. It is a beautiful technology. It still has great merit and worth. We will survive by being what we are – useful, informative, reasonably priced and unbreakably transportable. We have the best editors and writers on the planet and have the ability to band together thousands and sometimes, hundreds of thousands, of like-minded readers to our brands on a regular basis.

More or less that is who we are. You may think I have over-reacted, and perhaps that is so. But I firmly believe that attacking the web and the future of information distribution is, at best, terribly misguided.
The Internet is not going to go away, get smaller, nor become irrelevant.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Why Print Will Survive

BoSacks Speaks Out: Why Print Will Survive

As we close the year out, I wanted to take the time to wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year. I have specifically used the term prosperous because I think it is still a very achievable goal for many of us, if not all. I haven't held my punches in this newsletter in the past nor will I now. We are in a period of tremendous change and upheaval in an industry that was once king of its particular hill.

I have compete faith in the lucrative future of the printing industry and the paginated products we produce, which I continue to tell my many friends and associates, some of whom actually own the printing plants where you print the magazines that you work on. I continue to advise them that there is time to adjust to the new paradigms as we shift from what once was to what will be.

I think there are billions of dollars being made and yet to be made in print publishing. And those sums will be around for quite some time for the nimble, the quick and the niche .

There are and will be continuous forks in the road to all our future developments. Do I believe print will continue? Yes. Do I believe that the predominant readership and the predominant advertising dollars will be going digital? Yes, I do. But I predict no deaths, only multiple and various new avenues of content distribution. Some more profitable than others. The print industry has lost at least 10 billion dollars and there's a good chance we might lose more. Yet, I think we can still keep a reasonable amount of what is left for a considerable amount of time.

Just like newspapers and radio who were once king of the hill, they are still here and making billions. TV is still here and making billions, too. So will print be around and viable? Not only viable, but profitable. We can do this if we get back to the basics. The very basic position is that it is our editorial above all else that is of interest to the reader. Ads are nice for both the publisher and the reader, but it is our edit and our unique words that make for longevity and profitability. If we have something worth knowing, then it is worth paying for on any substrate. That is the formula we forget from time to time. The only thing we really have going for us is the knowledge we have that others, especially our readers, do not. All else is smoke and mirrors.

Digital reading and digital platforms are growing faster than anyone can keep track of. Digital will soon be totally ubiquitous and provide data that is perhaps more useful than print because of its ability probe deep into the depths of any conversation. But print is a buffer from the world around us, and that has a certain charm all its own. Many have postulated that it is that very lack of ability to "connect" that is the charisma of the printed product. But I wouldn't want to back a business plan on that concept as we move forward. Our children do not require nor covet a disconnection.

I believe that niche printed titles will continue to provide a strong platform. That those select readers will be the readers who are willing to pay for the product in their hands . I also believe that advertisers will still want to reach the niched "unknown" readers because they represent a very special and devoted "clique" of potential buyers of the advertisers' products.

So, as we proceed into the next decade, I wish you tremendous prosperity and happiness. No matter what happens, the written word will prevail and publishers will conjure a way to profit from the transaction and delivery of thought and creative thinking. It has ever been so.

I'll see you in the next decade. My best to you and yours.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Google Offers Digitized Magazines

BoSacks Speaks Out: I have long held the theory and prophesized in this newsletter and elsewhere, that digital magazines will save our industry. Aggregated data and web sites are not the solution to our woes; paginated performance and delivery is. If there is a future for magazine publishers and you have a part in it, it is that simple.

There are many companies that provide digital magazines today and there might be many more on the horizon. Some will make the test of time and prosper and others will not. But those that survive will be part of our new infrastructure for a long time to come. In magazine geologic time, we are finally minutes away from the right-reading, easy-to-use digital substrate. When that happens, the brilliance of the digital magazine format will become clear to dullest of luddites. The magazine industry needs to be working on competent easy-to-read digital editions now that are built for the substrate that they live in.
There are good digital editions and there are terrible digital editions out there right now. The publishers that have retooled their content and designed their product for ease of use and ease of the reading experience are doing quite well.

One of the best examples that I know of is VIV magazine. They are pioneering the non-zoom-in digital edition. If you haven't seen it, please check it out. Look at the ads, look at the edit and look at the amazingly pleasant reading experience. Any topic can be covered this way. This just happens to be woman's fashion. Popular Science has done the same thing with their Popular Science Genius edition.

In the article below you see that Google is getting onto the digital magazine space. We had best as publishers prepare our own editions of paginated media before someone else takes that space away from us. If we don't do our best to absolutely own that turf, someone else will.
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Reaganhttp://www.observer.com/2009/media/google-books-whacky-magazine-archives
Google Books has just launched a digitized magazine stand. In their never-ending quest to archive all media, from Web sites to books, Google is taking on the publishing world and scanning entire issues of magazines, ads and all. Most issues are usually two or three years old--or even a few decades old. It's kind of like heading into your parents' attic and checking out all the yellowingLIFE issues--only online.

Jeffrey Pang, a software engineer at Google Books, built the new feature. He kept getting requests from friends and family to allow them to browse all the magazines available on Google Books. Before, they had to search for them individually. "Someone even created a Facebook group called Get Google Magazine Search to provide a list of indexed titles," he wrote on the Google Book's official blog yesterday. "The group has 45 members and growing, so before it reached millions of members and there were protests in front of my house, I decided that I better act fast."

Users can browse magazine covers or look at an alphabetical list of titles. There's also links on some issues' tables of contents, so users can go directly to specific articles.

Google announced last September that they would add more magazine archives and current magazines online. As they wrote on their blog, if someone searched for "hank aaron pursuing babe ruth's record" on Google Books, they'd find a link to a 1973 Ebony article about Hank Aaron, written as he closed in on Babe Ruth's original record for career home runs. You can read the article in full color and in its original context, just as you would in the printed magazine. "Explore other publications, like Popular Science, New York Magazine, or (for you physics enthusiasts) the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, to rediscover historical interviews, do-it-yourself articles, and even a piece on canine eyewear. In many cases, these magazines aren't just history as history, but history as perspective - a way of understanding today."

There's plenty to click through, but here are a few titles and issues we suggest you check out:
Mother Jones' January/February 2000 issue - Read Ian Frazier's tribute to pay phones and how they "recall a commonality in our culture." Or Richard Dreyfuss on how Agent Orange continued to affect the Vietnamese 25 years after the U.S. originally dumped the chemical weapon on their land.

New York Magazine's Dec. 22, 1997 issue - Oh, David Denby onTitanic! MOMA's expansion, Daniel Boulud's Daniel restaurant, Ted Turner's Media Magazine are all there. And, Janeane Garofalo, Leigh Feldman, Jerry Speyer, Stephen Stondheim are featured as New Yorkers of the Year. Ah, the good ol' days.

Best Life Magazine's November 2008 issue - Mark Zimmerman's big profile of Anderson Cooper.
The Rotarian Magazine's December 2008 issue - Judith Dimentuncovers the "British Schindler." How Sir Nicholas Winton saved nearly 700 Czech children from the Nazis.

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Future of Publishing Explaine

BoSacks Speaks Out: The Future of Publishing Explained

In just the last few months, I have delivered many lectures to many groups involved with the publishing industry. I have been to Santa Fe to speak to the International Regional Magazine Assoc. and to San Diego to speak to RISI, representing the global forest products industry. I have been to Washington, DC to speak to ASBPE (American Society of Business Publication Editors). I have been to New York for the BPA and to Boulder for the MPA. And today I will be speaking at The Digital Publishing and Advertising Conference (DPAC 4) in New York City.

No matter where I go or who I talk to the essence of what everybody wants to know is the same thing - what is the future of publishing, and what is going to be my place in that future? Without all the details, my message is and has been that we are headed into the next golden age of publishing.

That being said, I wanted you to know that one of my other companies,mediaIDEAS, announced the launch of a new comprehensive report analyzing and quantifying the opportunities for e-paper e-readers over the next decade. This might sound like a plug on my part, but it isn't. What I want to do is share some of the broader insights of the report and key in on what I see are some of the opportunities of our industry.

My partner and the report's author, Nick Hampshire, stated that "E-paper e-readers will be one of the major disruptive technologies of the early 21st century." He said, "It will change the nature of publishing and related print industries forever, ushering in a host of innovative ways to present, market, and distribute content."

The report shows that since the first e-paper e-reader came onto the market in 2004, these devices, with their "green" credentials of reducing paper consumption, have already proved very popular with consumers, and the market for them is booming. By 2006, there were 3 types of devices available, by 2007, there were 5, and currently there are over 40. This number will more than double in the next twelve months. Unit sales are also booming. In 2008, 1.1 million e-paper display-based e-readers were sold. In 2010 that number will rise to about 6 million. And by 2020 global annual e-reader sales will reach 446 million units with a value of over $25 billion.

Therefore, if we can all agree that the digital universe that we now find ourselves embedded into is not going to go away, then I think we have to seriously consider what the primary reading substrate is going to be. If Nick is right in his research and there will be 6 million e-paper display-based e-readers sold in 2010, the publishing community has to stand up and take notice. We have to know and recognize that people will be reading on those platforms and they will be reading our words, thoughts, and ideas.

The questions that will obviously come to mind next are, how will we make money and what is the correct business platform? I will admit that like everybody else I am still working on the answers. I have proposed the Cable TV model of consortium publishing for a decade, and I have read that Time Inc. management is now focusing on that idea. We have all heard that Rupert Murdoch and all the newspapers are trying to develop a pay-for-copy model. I am not too certain of the success of that approach, but I am sure that people will write and people will read and that it will be a lucrative business to put the reader and the writer together.

So the platform will clearly be digital e-paper and any business model may have to follow the cart. But to think that there will be no successful business model for digital publishing is ludicrous. There are hundreds of billions of dollars for grabs in the information distribution business. I do not guarantee you a piece of the action, but I know damn well that plenty of people will do very well in the new digital age of publishing. Think fast, think courageous, and think digital.

BoSacks Speaks Out: Are More Shutdowns Expected?

BoSacks Speaks Out: Are any of you actually shocked by this news of venerable magazine closings. Is this a repeat of the bible story of Joseph and the seven years of plenty and seven years of lean? Well, we have had our years of plenty in decades of successful profitability for the magazine industry leading to what appears to be an excess saturation and duplication of our product. I think that after some introspection we as an industry will arise healthy and perhaps a bit leaner as in the biblicalallegory, but also better able to move onward and forward. These cycles are, sad to say, normal. I think when we get a chance to look back at this point in time with the perspective of history it might even be perceived as good for the industry. That is no doubt incredibly hard to take right now if you have just been laid off and your magazine has closed. But five years from now when you will be doing something else, you will look back at your career and you will have the perspective of history to help you see that all this was inevitable and, in an odd sort of way, perhaps necessary.

"A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory - and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life - a life like the scriptures- figurative" John Keats (English Romantic Poet. 1795-1821)
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Conde Nast's closure of Gourmet shakes up magazine industry

By Walter Hamilton and Russ ParsonsReporting from Los Angeles and New York

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-conde-nast6-2009oct06,0,7266456.story

The end of the venerable publication and three others underscores the swift and brutal fall of the once highflying business amid a steep drop in ad revenue. Two years ago, Conde Nast's Vogue published its biggest issue, an advertising-packed behemoth that symbolized the prosperity of New York's glittering magazine industry as it rode the twin booms in the economy and luxury spending to dramatic heights. Generous expense accounts were de rigueur at glossy fashion and lifestyle magazines. Some top editors and publishers enjoyed clothing allowances and mortgage assistance. Even lowly assistants flitted about in chauffeur-driven town cars. But that culture has been turned on its head as the magazine business reels from the battered economy, the drop in advertising revenue and restraints on expenses. Conde Nast's unexpected closure Monday of venerable Gourmet and three other magazines underscored the swift and brutal fall of what had been one of the city's most elite and free-spending industries.

The folding of Gourmet, in particular, shook up the insular magazine world. The 69-year-old arbiter of culinary taste was edited by Ruth Reichl, a bestselling author and former restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The closure caught Reichl herself flat-footed. "Like everyone else, I found out this morning," she said. "I can't talk about it now, it's too raw. I've got to pack up my office."

Reichl elaborated in a Twitter message to readers: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."

For Conde Nast, surviving the recession and a steep drop in ad revenue was paramount in the decision to close Gourmet, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie magazines. "These changes, combined with cost and workforce reductions now underway throughout the company, will speed the recovery of our current businesses and enable us to pursue new ventures," Chief Executive Charles H. Townsend said. Among those new initiatives, to be detailed in the coming weeks, he said, are digital versions of the company's brands using "new devices and distribution channels."

The moves mark a new cover story: Cost cutting is suddenly in style. Publishers have closed numerous magazines this year, reduced the circulation and frequency of some publications and tossed dozens of journalists out of work. The result is a downsizing of the industry's larger-than-life character. "I don't think we'll ever see the heyday again," said Roberta Garfinkle, director for print strategy at TargetCast tcm, which buys advertising for large companies. "The business will come back as the economy starts to rebound, but certainly not to the levels it was once." The carnage at Conde Nast -- the queen bee of New York glossies with such marquee titles as Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker -- shouldn't have been a surprise given that Conde had two food magazines and three bridal titles.

There had been rumors that Gourmet might be in the cross hairs because Conde Nast also owns its chief competitor, Bon Appetit, based in Los Angeles. Bon Appetit has more readers than Gourmet, 1.3 million to 950,000, Conde Nast said. Gourmet also had a reputation for being expensive to publish, with long features by well-known writers. Bon Appetit was focused on recipe-driven content.

The industry contraction is being driven by the plunge in ad pages -- the lifeblood of the industry. Ad pages have slumped 22% industrywide this year, and some publications have suffered far worse, according to Media Industry Newsletter. Vogue is off 33%, Architectural Digest is down 49%, and Esquire has fallen 27%. At Conde Nast's two food publications, Gourmet saw a 46.9% drop in ad revenue and a 50% decline in ad pages in the second quarter from last year's April-June period, while Bon Appetit's revenue fell 36% and ad pages declined 40%, according to Publishers Information Bureau.

It's unclear whether the drop in advertising has hit bottom, but throughout the industry employees and experts are bracing for more job cuts. "There is fear everywhere," said Samir Husni, who heads the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. "Fear of losing jobs, fear of losing entire magazines." The culture and spending at BusinessWeek are far more subdued than at Conde Nast's glamour magazines, but employees' fear for their jobs is palpable. Owner McGraw-Hill Cos. put the well-regarded but money-losing magazine on the block over the summer, and its writers, well-versed in chronicling corporate America's downsizing, expect deep cuts regardless of who buys the magazine. "There's a sense of the inevitable," said one employee who did not want to be identified for fear of antagonizing bosses. "However this shakes out, a lot of people are going to be out of work."

The cutbacks carry a particular sting at Conde Nast because of the company's famous spending habits and the imperious manners of some top editors. The main character in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" was a thinly veiled knockoff of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. And prized editors and publishers are as recognizable for their appearances at the trendiest restaurants and fanciest parties as for the stewardship of their publications. Conde Nast had hired management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to review its operations, and McKinsey recommended roughly 25% budget cuts at some magazines.

More temperate spending has been showing up in ways large and small. At last month's Fashion Week in New York, a must-be-seen event for the glitterati of New York glamour magazines, some Vogue editors hailed cabs rather than hopping into waiting town cars as in years past, according to one observer. That's a far cry from the 1999 launch party for Talk magazine -- a flashy but short-lived publication headed by celebrity editor Tina Brown and bankrolled by a joint venture of Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Magazines. It was an extravagant affair for 800 guests at the Statue of Liberty. "It was one hell of a party," Garfinkle recalled. "You don't see that anymore."

Are any of you actually shocked by this news of venerable magazine closings. Is this a repeat of the bible story of Joseph and the seven years of plenty and seven years of lean? Well, we have had our years of plenty in decades of successful profitability for the magazine industry leading to what appears to be an excess saturation and duplication of our product. I think that after some introspection we as an industry will arise healthy and perhaps a bit leaner as in the biblicalallegory, but also better able to move onward and forward. These cycles are, sad to say, normal.

I think when we get a chance to look back at this point in time with the perspective of history it might even be perceived as good for the industry. That is no doubt incredibly hard to take right now if you have just been laid off and your magazine has closed. But five years from now when you will be doing something else, you will look back at your career and you will have the perspective of history to help you see that all this was inevitable and, in an odd sort of way, perhaps necessary.

"A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory - and very few eyes can see the mystery of his life - a life like the scriptures- figurative" John Keats (English Romantic Poet. 1795-1821)
Conde Nast's closure of Gourmet shakes up magazine industryBy Walter Hamilton and Russ ParsonsReporting from Los Angeles and New Yorkhttp://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-conde-nast6-2009oct06,0,7266456.story The end of the venerable publication and three others underscores the swift and brutal fall of the once highflying business amid a steep drop in ad revenue. Two years ago, Conde Nast's Vogue published its biggest issue, an advertising-packed behemoth that symbolized the prosperity of New York's glittering magazine industry as it rode the twin booms in the economy and luxury spending to dramatic heights. Generous expense accounts were de rigueur at glossy fashion and lifestyle magazines. Some top editors and publishers enjoyed clothing allowances and mortgage assistance. Even lowly assistants flitted about in chauffeur-driven town cars. But that culture has been turned on its head as the magazine business reels from the battered economy, the drop in advertising revenue and restraints on expenses.

Conde Nast's unexpected closure Monday of venerable Gourmet and three other magazines underscored the swift and brutal fall of what had been one of the city's most elite and free-spending industries. The folding of Gourmet, in particular, shook up the insular magazine world. The 69-year-old arbiter of culinary taste was edited by Ruth Reichl, a bestselling author and former restaurant critic for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. The closure caught Reichl herself flat-footed. "Like everyone else, I found out this morning," she said. "I can't talk about it now, it's too raw. I've got to pack up my office." Reichl elaborated in a Twitter message to readers: "Thank you all SO much for this outpouring of support. It means a lot. Sorry not to be posting now, but I'm packing. We're all stunned, sad."

For Conde Nast, surviving the recession and a steep drop in ad revenue was paramount in the decision to close Gourmet, Modern Bride, Elegant Bride and Cookie magazines. "These changes, combined with cost and workforce reductions now underway throughout the company, will speed the recovery of our current businesses and enable us to pursue new ventures," Chief Executive Charles H. Townsend said. Among those new initiatives, to be detailed in the coming weeks, he said, are digital versions of the company's brands using "new devices and distribution channels."

The moves mark a new cover story: Cost cutting is suddenly in style. Publishers have closed numerous magazines this year, reduced the circulation and frequency of some publications and tossed dozens of journalists out of work. The result is a downsizing of the industry's larger-than-life character. "I don't think we'll ever see the heyday again," said Roberta Garfinkle, director for print strategy at TargetCast tcm, which buys advertising for large companies. "The business will come back as the economy starts to rebound, but certainly not to the levels it was once." The carnage at Conde Nast -- the queen bee of New York glossies with such marquee titles as Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker -- shouldn't have been a surprise given that Conde had two food magazines and three bridal titles. There had been rumors that Gourmet might be in the cross hairs because Conde Nast also owns its chief competitor, Bon Appetit, based in Los Angeles. Bon Appetit has more readers than Gourmet, 1.3 million to 950,000, Conde Nast said. Gourmet also had a reputation for being expensive to publish, with long features by well-known writers. Bon Appetit was focused on recipe-driven content. The industry contraction is being driven by the plunge in ad pages -- the lifeblood of the industry. Ad pages have slumped 22% industrywide this year, and some publications have suffered far worse, according to Media Industry Newsletter.

Vogue is off 33%, Architectural Digest is down 49%, and Esquire has fallen 27%. At Conde Nast's two food publications, Gourmet saw a 46.9% drop in ad revenue and a 50% decline in ad pages in the second quarter from last year's April-June period, while Bon Appetit's revenue fell 36% and ad pages declined 40%, according to Publishers Information Bureau. It's unclear whether the drop in advertising has hit bottom, but throughout the industry employees and experts are bracing for more job cuts. "There is fear everywhere," said Samir Husni, who heads the Magazine Innovation Center at the University of Mississippi. "Fear of losing jobs, fear of losing entire magazines." The culture and spending at BusinessWeek are far more subdued than at Conde Nast's glamour magazines, but employees' fear for their jobs is palpable. Owner McGraw-Hill Cos. put the well-regarded but money-losing magazine on the block over the summer, and its writers, well-versed in chronicling corporate America's downsizing, expect deep cuts regardless of who buys the magazine. "There's a sense of the inevitable," said one employee who did not want to be identified for fear of antagonizing bosses. "However this shakes out, a lot of people are going to be out of work."

The cutbacks carry a particular sting at Conde Nast because of the company's famous spending habits and the imperious manners of some top editors. The main character in the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" was a thinly veiled knockoff of Vogue editor Anna Wintour. And prized editors and publishers are as recognizable for their appearances at the trendiest restaurants and fanciest parties as for the stewardship of their publications. Conde Nast had hired management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. to review its operations, and McKinsey recommended roughly 25% budget cuts at some magazines. More temperate spending has been showing up in ways large and small.

At last month's Fashion Week in New York, a must-be-seen event for the glitterati of New York glamour magazines, some Vogue editors hailed cabs rather than hopping into waiting town cars as in years past, according to one observer. That's a far cry from the 1999 launch party for Talk magazine -- a flashy but short-lived publication headed by celebrity editor Tina Brown and bankrolled by a joint venture of Walt Disney Co. and Hearst Magazines. It was an extravagant affair for 800 guests at the Statue of Liberty. "It was one hell of a party," Garfinkle recalled. "You don't see that anymore."

BoSacks Speaks Out: New 'Pay As You Go' Online Magazine Sub Service

BoSacks Speaks Out: New 'Pay As You Go' Online Magazine Sub Service

Sometimes I just sit in total wonder about our industry, and ponder how, if ever, are we ever going to get to the promised land? Here is an interesting idea by Contrix. If I understand this "new" service correctly, the intention in this digital age is to slow down the digital process, ignore the successful Amazon model and have new subscribers, pay two months in advance to wait like our grandparents did for about six to eight weeks to get their new printed magazines. Yes, I think that makes sense, don't you?

I also find it interesting that Contrix explains that they got the idea from Netflix. I'm OK with that, but perhaps they never actually joined Netflix. In most cases you get the damn movie the next day, not in six to eight weeks.

Both Maghound and MAGpass have the magic publishing formula only half right. The monthly format in the cable TV model for payments is spot on. The delivery system offered is not only counterproductive to success, it is an ancient formula that completely misses the expectation levels of today's consumers.

To add to that Contrix is offering no chance to experiment with multiple titles and is locking in clients to a full year subscription. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. This is a 20th century analog execution in a 21st digital world. I wish them the very best of luck, as I believe they will need it.

This is the third time; I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.... There is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616), "The Merry Wives of Windsor", Act 5 scene 1

Contrix Inc. to Launch ‘Pay As You Go’ Online Magazine Sub Service
MAGpass will allow users to subscribe to hundreds of consumer magazines and pay a monthly fee.
By Chandra Johnson-Greene
http://www.audiencedevelopment.com/2009/contrix+inc+launch+%E2%80%98pay+you+go%E2%80%99+online+magazine+sub+service


Interactive marketing agency Contrix Inc., which operates magazine subscription Web site Magazine-Agent.com, recently announced that it will launch a new online magazine subscription service within the next few weeks called MAGpass, which will allow users to subscribe to hundreds of consumer magazines on a “pay as you go” basis.

Like Time Inc.’s Maghound service, which launched last year, MAGpass will allow registered users to browse and order multiple magazine titles from different publishers and pay one monthly fee. That is, however, where the similarity ends.

While Maghound’s titles are sold on tiered pricing levels and users are encouraged to swap titles whenever they like, MAGpass users will be locked into a one-year subscription rate (authorized by the publisher) that will be divided into 12 monthly payments. Customers can cancel their subscription at any time. At the time of renewal, the customer will lock in the next year at the current rate of the magazine listed on the Web site.

MAGpass sales will be classified with ABC as “individual net paid” subscriptions, while Maghound’s sales are classified as “single copy sales.” MAGpass and its partner publishers will retain co-ownership of subscriber names and addresses.

According to president/CEO Reha Kocatas, the idea for the MAGpass service came up in 2003, when the company was trying to find a way to get continuous service subscriptions to work online. “In the online space, price jacking is a problem,” he told AD. “A customer would order a subscription through a credit card program and then go online and find that the same subscription was being sold for less. Explaining how subscriptions are priced was futile. It was causing too many customer service issues.”

Inspired by the growing popularity of online movie rental service Netflix, Kocatas said he wanted to come up with a service that would bring magazine subscriptions more in line with other “pay as you go” services such as cable and cell phone. “The average Magazine-Agent.com customer buys 2.3 magazines a year,” he said. “If their yearly bill for those subscriptions is $46 and then a year from now they get a bill for $100, there’s an incentive for them to cancel. But by spreading those payments over a course of a year, the price is so negligible, that they won’t want to cancel.”

And unlike Maghound, which processes orders through its own fulfillment system, subscriptions sold through MAGpass will be processed through each individual publisher’s fulfillment center, therefore, users will not be given an actual date of when their first issue will arrive. Because of that, according to Kocatas, the company decided to have users pay for the first two months of the subscription up front. “It wouldn’t be good if we billed them today and then again 30 days from now and they haven’t received they first issue yet,” he says. “We want them to be in the fulfillment flow by the time they’re hit with the second charge.”

Kocatas declined to say how many publishers have signed up so far to have their titles sold on MAGpass.com, but he says that the goal is have 200+ magazines available by launch time, which should be “within the next two weeks.”

He added that there are no plans to shut down Magazine-Agent.com, but that MAGpass will serve as a compliment to the site and there will be cross-marketing between the two. “We expect that MAGpass users will skew much younger than Magazine-Agent.com,” he said.

Ad Spending Confidence Rebounds, Improves For Most Major Media

Ad Spending Confidence Rebounds, Improves For Most Major Media
by Joe Mandese
http://www.mediapost.com/
Economic pessimism among marketers and agency media buyers appears to have bottomed out last spring and their ad spending plans are trending upward for most major media, according to the most recent data from an every-other-monthly tracking report surveying the "advertising confidence" of key media decision-makers.

The latest Advertiser Optimism Report, being released this week by Advertiser Perceptions Inc., shows plans are improving for every medium except for local newspapers, and that digital media such as online and mobile advertising are indexing well on the optimistic side of advertising spending plans. Cable TV and outdoor media also are improving and now have more media decision makers planning to boost their budgets than to decrease them over the next six months, and while broadcast TV, radio, magazines and national newspapers all are still negative on balance, they are also all improving from low confidence points earlier this year.

"Leading the way are marketers, who are more optimistic than their agencies," says Ken Pearl, a partner in API, which began tracking ad spending confidence levels bi-monthly this year following news of the U.S. economic recession last fall. API historically conducts big semi-annual surveys tracking the perceptions of advertisers and agency media buyers about the major media, including their confidence levels, but opted to conduct the confidence tracking more frequently this year to monitor an inflection point in the advertising economy.

That appeared to be the case in API's last optimism survey, conducted last spring, which showed little or no erosion from a survey conducted in February. At that point, Pearl surmised that advertising "pessimism" had "bottomed out," but said further tracking would be necessary before concluding that advertising economy was staging a turnaround. The most recent survey, which is based on the responses of more than 200 media decision makers over the past several weeks, indicates that their plans for most major media are once again ascending, especially among marketers who seem slightly more optimistic than their agency counterparts.