In India, Magazines That Translate Well

In India, Magazines That Translate Well
By HEATHER TIMMONS NEW DELHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/14/business/media/14mag.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin

- Hairstyles to crave and hints on how to get over heartbreak. This month's must-have lip gloss and a new nine-iron that will make your golfing buddies jealous.

An explosion of Western magazines has hit newsstands in India in the past 12 months, pitching a familiar mix of consumption and gossip, relationship advice and expensive goodies.

Indian versions of Vogue, Rolling Stone, OK!, Hello, Maxim, FHM, Golf Digest, People and Marie Claire have all sprung up this year, and GQ and Fortune are soon to follow. They join familiar names like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Reader's Digest.

Despite rising inflation and a slowing economy, India remains one of the world's bright spots for magazine publishing. Magazine advertising in India is expected to grow by 20 percent to $302 million in 2008, according to the International Federation of the Periodical Press. A whole new class of nouveau riche Indians has been created in recent years as the economy and real estate prices soared and two-income families became the norm in some upper-income urban areas.

"There are one million homes earning more than $100,000 each" in India, said Alex Kuruvilla, the chief executive of Condé Nast India, the only major foreign-owned publisher that has set up a fully staffed India division to write and print a fully owned title. In October Vogue magazine will have been in India for a year, and Condé Nast is introducing the men's fashion magazine GQ in September.

Most of the new Western magazines being published in India are not really Western at all - they are written, photographed, edited and designed almost completely in India. Many are published under licensing agreements with the media company that owns the name. Even though they are all published in English, their content may be completely different from their American or British counterparts.

While the name may be familiar to an American reader, the flavor is distinctly Indian. Instead of Heloise's syndicated household hints column, for example, Good Housekeeping runs "Ask Mrs. Singh." This month, Mrs. Singh tackles how to keep your home fresh during the monsoons that sweep through India during the summer (rubber mats and fresh flowers help).

Some, like Maxim, seem to pride themselves on pushing the envelope of good taste even further than they do in their home markets. The magazine's July issue includes the feature "48 Ways to Get a Gori" (gori is Hindi for fair-skinned woman, and is used in this context to mean a foreign white one). Some ideas the article offers: keep in mind most American women are extremely angry at Indians for stealing their jobs; don't ask an Italian woman if her family is part of the mob; to approach an Israeli woman, try a suicide bomber joke.

The July issue of Vogue carries the Annie Leibovitz photo shoot of the honeymoon of the "Sex and the City" characters Carrie and Mr. Big that appeared in the June Vogue in the United States; an underwater fashion shoot off the Indian islands of Lakshadweep; a cover story on the Bollywood debutante Asin Thottumkal; and a mix of international and local ads.

"We like to talk about 100 percent Indian content, where every piece would be relevant to an Indian audience," said Mr. Kuruvilla, though that means the magazine may pick up the occasional piece from another Condé Nast publication.
Most of the women's magazines, including Vogue, also carry pages of ads for an Asian cosmetic staple, whitening cream intended to lighten the skin. Many of these advertisements are from global companies like Estée Lauder and L'Oréal.

Even with a cover price of 100 rupees, or about $2.50, and a steady demand for imported paper, the 50,000-circulation Vogue India is close to break-even in its first year, Mr. Kuruvilla said, thanks to a steady flow of luxury advertising. "That is something we hadn't even planned for," he said. "We expected it in Year 4 or 5."

People magazine made its debut this month. While there are plenty of outlets for Bollywood gossip, from newspapers to blogs, "I was searching for a magazine with a lot of soul along with good packaging," said Maheshwer Peri, the president and publisher of Outlook Group.

Unlike Vogue India, People in India does not employ a single person from Time Inc., or Time Warner, he said, and the media giant has no stake in the Indian edition of the magazine. For its first issue, People India published 150,000 copies, and sold 70 percent of that number, he estimates.

The Outlook Group also markets and distributes BusinessWeek and Newsweek in India and has signed up two more news magazines that Mr. Peri said he could not yet disclose. The advantage with global news magazine are the "brands are known and the content is almost free," Mr. Peri said.


New opportunities are coming all the time. "The biggest challenge I have is to downplay the expectations about India," Mr. Peri said. He never gives a presentation that starts with India's one billion-plus population, he said, because then people's projections about the number of readers "go haywire."


India relies on an unorthodox street-side distribution system for more than half of all of its magazine sales. In major cities, packs of young boys stand in traffic islands in the middle of highways, holding up the latest copy of a glossy, and yelling "Vogue, madam? Indian Vogue! Golf Digest?" into the windows of stopped cars.

While many of these new magazines may cost 100 rupees an issue, these boys usually earn much less than that a day; they receive a commission from their boss, usually a middleman who gets a commission from what he sells from a magazine distributor, who in turn buys the magazines from the publisher for a fraction of the cover price.

Publishers in India say the system is something they have little control over, and liken street-side magazine distribution to the American paper route, a way for children to earn a little extra money. But the children selling the magazines tell a different tale.

"If on a particular day my sales are poor, then I am abused by my employer, at times beaten as well," said Sonu Kunar, a 12-year-old boy selling a variety of local and Western titles at the intersection of two busy New Delhi roads. Sonu says he works from 9 in the morning until 8 in the evening, and earns about 1,000 rupees, or $23.15, a month. He lives with 13 other children in a small room, and sends all the money he earns back to his family in the eastern state of Bihar.

Despite India's reputation for conservative attitudes toward sex, Cosmopolitan was one of the first titles to come to India nearly 12 years ago. Mala Sekhri, now Cosmopolitan India's publishing director, was approached by Hearst, which was looking for new markets at the time.

When she first brought copies of international editions of Cosmo to India, she could not even bring herself to show them to potential advertisers. "The few people who saw it turned the covers over" so they did not have to look at the explicit copy on the front, she said. "People said 'Are you sure? This is not what India is all about,' " Ms. Sekhri said.
They struggled for the first few years to create the right balance between Cosmo's international image and what would work in India, she said. Although Cosmopolitan's publisher, Hearst, wanted to be sure the brand was intact, executives there understood there were a lot of things that were not relevant in India at the time, she said. "For example, premarital sex - we had to skirt around that issue to begin with," she said.
Now "some of the features run in India have been racier" than those in the United States, she said.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting to this article.

Second Half Magazine and Media Industry Predictions

Second Half Magazine and Media Industry Predictions
'Us will go to them. Radar will blink. OK! might not be.'Posted by Dylan Stableford
FolioMag.com
http://www.foliomag.com/2008/second-half-magazine-and-media-industry-predictions

Layoffs. Lawsuits. Shutterings. Salary freezes. Ad page declines. Budget reforecasts and slashings. Abrupt resignations. Oh, and that whole recession thing. In short, it wasn't a pretty first half for the magazine industry. Yet, judging by some of the 2008 predictions FOLIO: solicited back in December [0], it wasn't unexpected. We again asked people from all corners of the magazine (and media) world to weigh in with their second half predictions. Here they are, lightly-edited, in no particular order.

NAME: Larry Burstein
TITLE: Publisher, New York Media
[1]SECOND HALF PREDICTION: Those magazines that harness the tremendous power of the Web for their brands will thrive. But only if they build dynamic Web businesses. Many magazines believe simply having a Web presence is enough; a site for value add opportunities or subscription offers. It's not. Readers, visitors, and advertisers are demanding more.

NAME: Reed Phillips
TITLE: Managing partner, desilva + phillips
[2]SECOND HALF PREDICTION: We're not seeing a rebound in valuations yet. The demise of the credit market continues to depress the multiples buyers are willing to pay and now the U.S. economic downturn and higher costs of oil are also eroding confidence among buyers. I guess since my prediction was for year-end 2008 I might still be right, but I'm much less optimistic at this time.

NAME: Emily Gordon
TITLE: Managing editor, Print [3]; editor, Emdashes.com
[4]SECOND HALF PREDICTION: AOL repositions as AWESOMENESS OVERLOAD! All caps, exclamation point. Content from, and click-approved as awesome by, millions of 10-year-olds (there is also a portal for infants) uploads every second; as you might expect, there are plenty of baby hedgehogs. The new AOL has it all-news, shopping, sports, social networking, how-tos, tickets, casinos, messaging, radio, weather, polls, ads, apps, maps, dating, PSAs on STDs, candidate soundbites, horoscopes, music, video, ringtones, games, and e-mail. It just all goes by in one second. It's pretty painless, actually.

NAME: Bob Sacks [5]
TITLE: President/Publisher, Precision Media Group
SECOND HALF PREDICTION: As atoms get heavier and more costly to move the industry finally realizes that computerized digits do not need to be picked up by fuel burning trucks for either initial delivery or as the dreaded return and thrown into a land fill.

Us will go to them. Radar will blink, and OK! might not be.

B-to-B will move to make digital editions the default choice for subscribers. Production managers will change their job descriptions to Coordinators of Data Distribution, sometimes called the living D.E.A.D. ("Distributors of Edit & Ads Department") ending centuries of the need to understand putting ink on paper. More publishing dinosaur management who don't already have their own Facebook page, nor the knowledge of how to build one, will be asked to either jump from the executive terrace or take what's left of the money and run.

NAME: Henry J. Boye
TITLE: Publisher, Harvard Business Review
SECOND HALF PREDICTION: The economy will soften further (at least in the US) causing a continued drag on all of us that serve consumers. The staffs and budgets supporting advertising and marketing efforts will be pinched even further, greatly increasing the focus on effectiveness of spend. This will increase demand for integrated offerings that drive value in the practical and proven (versus simply intuitive) sense.

NAME: Mark A. Newman
TITLE: Editor-in-chief, Southern Breeze
[6]SECOND HALF PREDICTION: Sadly, I think it's going to get worse before it gets better. When salary and hiring freezes are the "good" news of the day, I feel that there's going to be a lot more closings, layoffs, buyouts, etc. And with Starbucks shuttering 600 U.S. stores, where are all of the out-of-work magazine staffers going to hang out and be bitter or work? Editorial types will have to update their skill sets and become well versed on the electronic aspects of publishing more and more by becoming the in-house web editors, web reporters, and bloggers. And I wouldn't be surprised if surviving staffers-especially at smaller pubs-are going to have to really expand their skill sets and become pros at everything from buying and pricing paper to IT. Those with secure jobs (as secure as they can be, that is) are likely going to stay put longer before climbing that corporate ladder or venturing to another company where you can find yourself out of a job in 6 months due to cutbacks. I also think that before the end of the year, a long-time big name consumer book publisher is going to undergo major overhauls that will send the industry reeling to the point that top editors will start considering the priesthood as a more viable option than publishing! And when it DOES start getting better, it will just mean no more layoffs or shutdowns; there will be new pubs launched hither and yon but not at the same levels as before.
NAME: Patrick Gavin
TITLE: Editor, mediabistro's FishbowlDC
[7]SECOND HALF PREDICTION: I predict that a white male will be selected to replace Tim Russert.

NAME: Bob Eckstein
TITLE: Cartoonist [8], New York Times, Time Out New York
SECOND-HALF PREDICTION: As magazines have officially become leisure items for seniors (eg. most healthy magazines have been AARP, Reader's Digest, Modern Maturity, Playboy, etc.), TV will follow suit and expect to see more shows for seniors this upcoming season:

NAME: Kyle du Ford
TITLE: Freelance writer
SECOND HALF PREDICTION: 10 Guaranteed 100% Accurate Predictions or Your Money Back! 1. Jann Wenner will fire somebody.2. Men's Health will put an actor on the cover with great abs.3. Jack Johnson will make another superfluous cover. Sans shoes. 4. Due to travel constraints, staff writers will change their titles to researchers, if only in spirit.5. Outside Go will replace Best Life on stylish men's coffee tables.6. Paper costs will increase.7. iPhone will make another superfluous cover. Sans shoes.8. Maxim will feature more breasts in 2008 than 2007.9. Readymade will make you feel stupid by introducing a product you could never build if you had 1,000 men and $500,000.10. FOLIO: will not even make mention of 1-9. Can you believe these guys?

'Buy Safe' Campaign Organizers Rebuke Criticism

'Buy Safe' Campaign Organizers Rebuke Criticism
By Bill Mickey
http://circman.com
Publishers weigh in; BPA, ABC Defend Initiative.
Buy Safe Media, the BPA and ABC-backed campaign warning marketers against buying ads in non-audited b-to-b publications, has faced unusually harsh criticism since its launch last week.

Industry pundits, including consultant and noted columnist Bob Sacks, were among the first to weigh in on the program, calling the initiative "an attack at the heart of the entrepreneurial publishing business." Sacks wrote: "The new pathology actually disgusts me."

Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni lamented "how low some folks in our industry are willing to sink in order to make their business flourish."

And it wasn't just pundits who were disturbed. At Access Intelligence, where several prominent titles remain un-audited, including CableFax and MIN, Sylvia Sierra, SVP, corporate audience development, downplays the need for an audit. "Some of our strongest brands are not audited and take advertising. It is hard to argue the $1,000-per year subscription value that readers place on the information and advertisers place on reach."

A 'Legitimate Beef'

Yet, Ted Bahr, president of BZ Media, and an official supporter of the Buy Safe campaign is more concerned about the publishers that fly under the radar and push inflated or inaccurate metrics.

"I am spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to acquire and maintain the circulation I am claiming, then I spend the money maintaining it in BPA required formats, then I pay BPA between $10,000-$15,000 to audit my books," he says. "That's the ethical standard for publishing in this industry. My competitors are therefore able to spend way less than I do, and compete with me by cheating and lying to our mutual customers. My only recourse is to try and educate the advertisers that they need to pressure these outlaws into auditing."

BPA CEO Glenn Hansen adds, "Publishers that have made that investment have a legitimate beef with those that cannot demonstrate from an independent verification that they have made that same investment."

Ditto for the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which also backs the Buy Safe program as a partner. "The campaign site specifically notes that auditing is not a necessity for all publications," says Neal Lulofs, ABC's SVP, communications and strategic planning. "I can't fathom why the promotion of media auditing would 'disgust' someone. We are an auditing firm and we are promoting the benefits of auditing-for publishers and buyers alike. We are not 'forcing' anyone to become audited. But in competitive environments, buyers usually insist on it. For instance, there isn't a single paid-circ newspaper above 25,000 in the U.S. that isn't audited. That's not because we force them to do that, but because audited newspapers attract more ad dollars."

A Question of Demand

Yet smaller ad buyers-as BPA confirmed when it was surveying client-side media buyers prior to launching the campaign-may not care or even know about audits. At Hanley Wood, which has several un-audited titles in its stable of more than 30 magazines, auditing is more of a case-by-case consideration. "It depends on the advertiser market," says Nick Cavnar, VP circulation and database development. "Advertiser markets dominated by small advertisers that don't work through agencies aren't that familiar with the statement format. They don't understand it so there's not a great demand for it."

This is precisely why BPA launched the Buy Safe Media campaign, but Cavnar focuses on the practicalities of auditing. "If we don't have advertisers asking for one, then we may not audit the magazine. We work according to what advertisers are looking for. We run the circulation the same way whether it's audited or not. It's a question of whether it's something that helps in the advertising sales."

Audit Landscape Getting Complicated

Sacks and Husni took the Buy Safe program to task because they say it's magazines attacking magazines, and that energy could be better applied to arguing the print medium's viability against other media-TV, radio, and online.

Yet Hansen circles back to accountability and the advertiser's demand for it. "In a perfect market, where all magazines are audited, I think Bob and Samir are justified in saying, 'Don't fight among yourselves, fight against other media. But in a market where we're not all yet at the same level playing field, I think that's an unfair expectation on their behalf. It's not the fact that it's BPA or ABC-it's the fact that they've made the investment in developing quality audience and they can prove that and that gives the advertiser accountability."

But, according to Access Intelligence's Sierra, there is a bigger picture to be focusing on-the mash-up of media platforms. "We are now media companies whose portfolios include print magazines and many other assets," she says. "Most of the other assets (Web sites, e-letters, trade shows, Webinars, paid information) are not audited, and yet, revenue is shifting from print magazine advertising to the other assets. Advertisers want to know 'Who are these people?' and the audit bureaus are not showing reach, only numbers. I can't think of a single reason to pay for the current audit offerings given their shortcomings."

The Real Viability of Digital Editions

The Real Viability of Digital Editions
By Bob Sacks
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=exjwyocab.0.5fadzocab.cuf4zubab.1&ts=S0350&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pubexec.com%2Fstory%2Fstory.bsp%3Fsid%3D110150%26var%3Dstory

Resistance to digital magazines is futile. Here's why.
I've been inundated lately with e-mail requests about the viability of digital magazine editions. The letter that put me over the top was from an old and dear acquaintance, who is a senior production director, that said, "Digital editions of magazines will never get traction with the magazine-reading public." This is a ridiculous attitude. And if it is yours, too, bury it now with other ridiculous ideas like the world is flat and man will never fly.

Perhaps Jeff Gomez, author of the book "Print Is Dead," put it best when he wrote: "To expect future generations to be satisfied with printed books is like expecting the BlackBerry users of today to start communicating by writing letters, stuffing envelopes and licking stamps."

Do we expect magazine readers to become any less sophisticated as time and technology roll by? Things change, platforms evolve, business models adjust, and people's habits change, too. History is loaded with once-successful personal methodologies that are now nothing but antiquated dust.

This is not a discussion of whether or not print will survive. That is moot. What is important is how people will read in the future. Gomez's comment is spot on. How people read today gives us the smallest inkling of how people will read in the future. I'd be curious to know the number of words read on a computer screen (including PDAs, cell phones, e-readers, etc.) versus those read in print.

Digital editions will play a central role in the magazine business's future success. They are growing in popularity, and eventually will become ubiquitous. The only thing holding the format back presently is a perfect substrate. Computer screens are good for the task, but not perfect in their portability, flexibility and readability in various lighting conditions. What the industry is waiting for is a substrate that can match the robust nature and inherent abilities in digital editions.

The new technology is not far-off science fiction. The future is here now; it is just not widely distributed. Amazon's Kindle, Sony's Reader and several others are e-paper devices, and they are available now. These devices will not go away; they will only get better and more advanced at what they do-distribute content. In 2011, there will be full-color versions of e-paper products released. By 2025, e-paper devices will be the predominant way in which people read. And they will most likely be reading some formulation of digital-edition technology.

Perhaps we need to look at it this way: When will the digital page be more user-friendly than the printed page? Is it so impossible to foresee a future of comfort and ease holding a full-color, flexible screen that has the ability to project any book or any magazine with greater richness and depth of coverage than its printed predecessor?

Gomez hypothesized that, "It's not about the page versus the screen in a technological grudge match. It's about the screen doing a dozen things the page can't do." Digitized words should count for more. "What's going to be transformed isn't just the reading of one book, but the ability to read a passage from practically any book that exists, at any time that you want to, as well as the ability to click on hyperlinks, experience multimedia, and add notes and share passages with others," Gomez noted.

The same logic holds true for magazines. This is not a Hamlet-type argument, "to read or not to read." It is a question of what format/platform we will be most comfortable reading in the future. Nowhere in history do you find society willingly going backward. As Jerry Garcia is reported to have once said, "You are either on the bus or off the bus."

Bob Sacks (aka BoSacks) is a printing/publishing industry consultant and president of The Precision Media Group (BoSacks.com). He is also the co-founder of the research company Media-Ideas (Media-Ideas.net), and publisher and editor of a daily international e-newsletter, Heard on the Web. Sacks has held posts as director of manufacturing and distribution, senior sales manager (paper), chief of operations, pressman, circulator and almost every other job this industry has to offer.

BoSacks Speaks Out: BPA-ABC's Unwise Attack on Magazines

BoSacks Speaks Out: BPA-ABC's Unwise Attack on Magazines

The new pathology detailed below actually disgusts me. There are over 18,000 magazines printed today and of that number 7,000 are newsstand titles. There are approximately 1,000 new titles started each year. This report and the campaign against legitimate magazines listed below is an attack at the heart of the entrepreneurial publishing business. ABC, ABM, BPA, and the Association of National Advertisers have a very minor fraction of the titles published in their bullpen, yet they wish to crush all who stand in their way or choose not join their exclusive clubs. I am not alone with these feelings. Samir Husni wrote to me in an email last night that:

. . . it is about time for magazines to start looking at customers who count and not just counting customers . . . those folks who publish great magazines like Good and Flaunt do not need an auditor to tell them how many people are receiving their magazine. Their customers, both the advertisers and the readers know the relationship that they enjoy between the reader and the magazine . . . It is a pure case of jealousy and greed to launch such a campaign. When are we going to learn not to attack each other and focus on other media. Advertisers who want to reach that unique upscale audience of V magazine are not interested to see either the ABC audit or the BPA audit . . . When are we going to learn . . . I have no earthly idea . . .

It is unconscionable to attempt to crush the rest of the industry. It is attacks and stupidity like this that will tear down the very industry that they are attempting to prop up with self-serving dogma. Like chastity, auditing is/and should be a choice. A pox on all your houses; but I cannot wish harm on my industry by wishing that ye reap what ye sow.
BoSacks
-30-

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970), Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

BPA and Friends Turn up Heat on Un-Audited Magazines
By Bill Mickey
http://www.circman.com/viewmedia.asp?prmMID=4025&prmID=1

An educational campaign targets client-side, b-to-b buyers. BPA, along with about 10 other association and auditing bodies, including ABC, has ramped up a campaign to combat ad buying in un-audited titles. Called Buy Safe Media, the program targets client-side buyers in b-to-b markets that spend $250,000 or less on advertising. The program, initiated two years ago by BPA at the request of member publishers, has emerged from a testing and research phase and the 11 associations and auditing bodies have begun to reach out to their constituencies in earnest.

"About two years ago, our publisher members on the b-to-b side were telling us that more and more of the buying decisions were being made at the client level, not through an agency," says Peter Black, BPA's SVP, business development. "They were concerned that the person at the client company did not have an appreciation for audits or quality circulation data." BPA conducted a Web-based survey of about 500 b-to-b client companies across a variety of markets in spring 2007. The results turned in very low numbers for audit awareness.

The survey inquired about certain criteria upon which buyers based their purchase decisions-placement of editorial, price, audit, and so on.

"There was a choice for 'other,'" recalls Glenn Hansen, BPA's CEO. "We had over 300 written-in responses to the 'other.' When we analyzed that, about two-thirds were actual attributes that an audit would provide, but the respondent didn't associate with an audit. They wrote in things like distribution, quality circulation and proven audience." A personalized direct mail campaign was then launched last fall targeting CEOs, CFOs and, finally, media buyers at 1250 companies identified as having purchased ads in un-audited magazines across five b-to-b markets.

The mailing cited the number of pages that company had purchased over the year along with the dollar value of those pages. The letter also pushed the recipient to the Buy Safe Media program's Web site, which features a video and information on the pitfalls of buying un-audited media. "Insist on audited media, and be safe," urges the site. "Based on our tracking, we got a ten percent response rate to the direct mail [from the CEOs]," says Hansen. "Then we broadened it to CFOs and we got a six percent response from them." The third effort, however, targeted to the actual media buyer, squeaked out a .5 percent response.

"Maybe they just didn't want to be faced with the reality that they bought un-audited media and there were a lot of dollars at risk," says Black. Supporters backing the initiative include ABC, ABM, BPA, the Association of National Advertisers, and seven others. "Everybody is handling communications with their respective memberships," says Black. BPA, for example, has announced a Webinar on the subject to recruit more publisher partners.

Following that, another direct mail campaign targeting 3300 CEOs and 800 CFOs from companies that buy six or more pages annually in un-audited titles will be launched next week. "We will cite the number of pages they're running, the likely dollar value of those pages, and the message will be to drive them to the Web site to give them more information to better safeguard their investment," says Black.

Print Ads Come out Top of the Charts

Print ads come out top of the charts with UK consumers
http://www.creativematch.co.uk/viewNews/?96125
Print advertising generates the most positive reaction with UK consumers and is seen as having the most relevance, according to a study.
Dynamic Logic's latest AdReaction study gauges consumer's opinions of advertising. Newspaper ads top the chart with 53% of consumers considering them as "very" or "somewhat" positive.
Christina Goodman, Director of Global Marketing & Business Development, Dynamic Logic, said: "When asked about their overall attitudes towards general advertising formats, consumers feel very differently about the various media platforms.
Certainly, if asked, most people will never say they would like to have more advertising in their lives. However, the results show that there are certain types of advertising that people may be more receptive towards.
"More interruptive or intrusive formats, such as telemarketing and SPAM (Non-opt-in email) are towards the bottom of the list in terms of consumer appeal. Print advertising (Newspapers and Magazine) as well as TV and Outdoor advertising rate most positively.
"What is surprising is the breadth of feelings about different advertising formats. This research shows there is a significant difference between how consumers feel about Mobile ads (70% negative) versus Newspaper ads (9% negative)."
Mobile phones
Mobile phones are considered extremely personal to the consumer and the perception may be that ads on mobile phones will be intrusive and interruptive - like SPAM, even more so than telemarketing and non-opt-in emails, according to this ranking.
Therefore, there is an opportunity for advertisers and brands to change this perception by connecting with their audience when the message is relevant. It is also likely that many of the people have not yet seen mobile ads, so this perception may vary with exposure.
Online ads
Online search ads fall among the middle of the list, perhaps because search remains a relatively new ad format compared to Newspaper and TV (where people are trained to expect advertising).
Search ads - designed to be informative within an information-seeking environment - tend to strive for relevancy, thus one might expect for that reason alone to see search higher on the list of consumer preference.
http://www.dynamiclogic.com/na/

Think Ad Revenue Is All Going Online? Think Again.

Think Ad Revenue Is All Going Online? Think Again.
By Melissa Campanelli and Noelle Skodzinski
Publishing Executive Magazine
http://www.pubexec.com/story/story.bsp?sid=107635&var=story

The results of a new study about how the industry sees its future may surprise you. Plus: Industry revenue trends in print, webinars, events . . . and more!

While there is no denying the digital revolution, a new study by Publishing Executive, called the "2008 Publishing Advertising Trends Study," shows that online revenue is not exceeding print revenue for most publishers . . . and the majority of publishers don't expect it to-that's right, ever.

For the study, Publishing Executive worked with independent research company Readex Research to survey Publishing Executives from a variety of industry segments including business-to-business (b-to-b), consumer, association and professional publishing. More than 250 publishers participated.

What did the study's findings reveal? For starters, 89 percent of respondents said their organization's current online revenue does not exceed its print revenue. (In this case, online revenue included Web sites, e-newsletters and webinars/webcasts.) Nine percent of respondents said that their current online revenue already exceeds their print revenue.

While that may not come as a big shock (though the 9 percent whose online revenue already exceeds print may be higher than some of us would expect), this next finding might: More than two-thirds (68 percent) of respondents reported that they do not anticipate their organizations' online revenue will exceed their print revenue in the future. Twenty-eight percent said they anticipate their online revenue will surpass their print revenue.

However, as for the 28 percent of respondents who anticipate that their online revenue will exceed print, they seem to expect the change will occur fairly quickly-74 percent said they expect their organizations' online revenue to exceed their print revenue within the next five years.

The number of respondents who don't think their online revenue will exceed their print revenue may come as a surprise, especially since-at least among b-to-b publishers-magazine revenues were expected to post a 4-percent drop in 2007, while digital content revenue was slated to increase 20 percent, according to statistics from industry association American Business Media (ABM) that appeared in a February 2008 article in Publishing Executive, titled "Special Report: Your Guide to the 2008 Media 'Brandscape.' " ABM CEO Gordon Hughes also stated in that article that digital's growth rate puts it on a pace to surpass print magazines by 2011 at the latest.

Because ABM represents the interests of the business media only, and many larger publishing houses, Publishing Executive designed its "2008 Publishing Advertising Trends Study" to provide an expanded view of the industry. Publishing Executive wanted to find out: Do b-to-b, consumer, association and professional publishers share a common perspective on the future of their products in print and online? And, is the size of your organization a factor in whether you expect your online revenue to surpass your print revenue?

A Closer Look
Breaking the numbers down by type of publication, 93 percent of both b-to-b and consumer magazine publishers said their organizations' current online adverting revenues do not exceed their print revenue. Ninety-two percent of association publishers answered the same way.

What about their expectations for the future? B-to-b publishers' perspective of the future skewed slightly more heavily toward online revenues than the other industry segments. Thirty-six percent of b-to-b publishers said they anticipate that their online revenue will exceed print in the future. Twenty-four percent of consumer publishers and 27 percent of association publishers also expect their online revenue to exceed print.

Company size made a slight difference in respondents' replies, but perhaps not as you would expect. Mid-size companies (defined here as those with revenues between $1 million and $4.9 million) had the highest response rate to the question: In the future, do you anticipate your organization's online revenue will exceed its print revenue? Seventy-six percent said no. At larger companies (those with revenues of $5 million or more), 61 percent said they don't expect online to exceed print revenue. And of the smaller companies (with revenues less than $1 million), 67 percent said print will remain the larger revenue generator.

Tracking Revenue Streams
The study also asked respondents to reveal their sources of advertising revenue in 2007, including Web sites, e-newsletters, webinars or webcasts, print, event and event sponsorships, and reprint/e-print/rights sales.

According to the respondents, print advertising holds the biggest piece of the revenue pie for all types of publishers, bringing in an average of $2.78 million in revenue.

Events, touted by many companies in the industry as a significant growth area, contributed an average of $1 million.

The Web accounted for an average of $550,000 in revenue; e-newsletters, $350,000; webinars and webcasts $330,000; and reprint/e-print/rights sales, $290,000.

Keeping in mind those figures are averages across all survey respondents, the picture changes slightly when you focus in on specific magazine segments. For example, b-to-b magazine publishing respondents, when segmented out from the larger group, reported print advertising generating an average of $4.8 million in revenue in 2007, well above the total group's average. Association publishers followed with $1.8 million, and consumer magazines attributed an average of $1.7 million to print advertising revenue-both falling below the overall average of $2.78 million.

In all categories of publishing, events and event sponsorships followed print as the second-largest revenue source, making the biggest splash in b-to-b, with an average of $2.1 million in revenue being drawn from events and sponsorships-again above the overall group's average of $1 million. Consumer magazines generated an average of $180,000; and association publishers, an average of $560,000.

B-to-b publishers also outweighed other categories in terms of revenue from Web advertising. For b-to-b publishers, the Web accounted for an average of $1.24 million in advertising revenue in 2007-way above the overall group's $550,000 average-while it accounted for an average of only $180,000 in revenue for consumer magazines and $130,000 for association publishers.

E-newsletters were also significant revenue generators for b-to-b publishers, accounting for an average of $1 million in advertising revenue in 2007. Consumer publishers reported no revenue from e-newsletters, while association publishers reported an average of $30,000.

As for webinars/webcasts, b-to-b publishers again reported the highest figures in advertising revenue from this medium in 2007-an average of $900,000-while consumer publishers reported no revenue from webcasts, and association publishers reported an average of $30,000.

Great Expectations? Revenue Growth Predictions
The survey also asked respondents whether they expected their organizations' revenues for certain types of advertising to increase, remain the same, or decrease in 2008 compared to 2007.

Print: A Mixed Bag, but Almost Half Predict Growth. While print naysayers abound in the industry, it seems at least among respondents to this survey, many publishers anticipate print-revenue growth this year-44 percent of respondents said their print ad revenue would increase, while 30 percent said it would remain the same, and 18 percent said it would decrease. Seven percent of respondents said they don't know what to expect.

Looking at print expectations by segment: Almost half of b-to-b publishers (48 percent) said they expect their print revenue to increase, while 28 percent expect it to remain the same, and 23 percent expect it to decrease. For consumer publishers, 47 percent expect it to increase; 22 percent expect it to remain the same; and 15 percent expect print advertising revenues to decrease. For association publishers, 31 percent expect their print revenue to increase, 49 percent expect it to remain the same; and 16 percent expect it to decrease.

Web: Majority Sees Increasing Revenue. According to the study, however, more are optimistic about Web growth. Sixty percent of respondents expect advertising revenue for the Web to increase in 2008; 26 percent expect it to remain the same. No respondents said they expect Web advertising revenue to decrease, but 12 percent said they didn't know, and 2 percent gave no response.

B-to-b publishers, in general (74 percent), expect Web revenue to increase. Consumer and association publishers are slightly less optimistic, with 54 percent of consumer publishers and 49 percent of association publishers expecting an increase in Web advertising revenue this year.

E-newsletters: Predictions Say Growth or Flat, but No Decline. According to the study, more than a third (37 percent) of respondents expect their organization's revenue from e-newsletters to increase in 2008. A slightly greater number (39 percent), however, expects it to remain the same. No respondents expect advertising revenue in this area to decrease.

B-to-b publishers, in particular, expect to see growth here-60 percent of b-to-b publishers expect e-newsletters to bring in more revenue this year. Twenty-five percent of consumer publishers and 24 percent of association publishers expect an increase in e-newsletter revenue.

Events: Some Growth, a Bit of Decline, but Many Foresee a Flat Year. Twenty-seven percent of respondents indicated that they expect revenue from event/event sponsorships to increase in 2008 compared to 2007, while 41 percent expect no change, and 3 percent expect a decrease.

Broken out by category, 33 percent of respondents from b-to-b publishers said they expect advertising revenue from events to increase in 2008, while 25 percent of those from consumer magazines expect event revenue to increase, and 24 percent of association publishers expect growth in this area.

Webinars/webcasts: Not a Pot of Gold for Everyone. Perhaps surprising to some, most respondents do not expect to see increases in advertising revenue this year in webinars/webcasts (both terms were used to avoid exclusion of those who perceive a difference between the two). Just 16 percent of respondents expect to see webinar/webcast revenue grow, while nearly half (47 percent) expect a flat year. Only one respondent reported anticipated decline, but 27 percent said they didn't know what to expect from this revenue source this year, and 11 percent didn't answer the question.

While 28 percent of b-to-b publishers expect revenue in this area to increase, only 12 percent of association publishers and 3 percent of consumer magazine publishers shared this perspective.

The Acquisition Market
The study also examined publishers' immediate plans to expand by acquisition. One-third of respondents said they plan to acquire properties in either print, digital or events in 2008. Almost two-thirds (61 percent) do not have such acquisition plans.

Thirty-nine percent of b-to-b publishers plan to acquire at least one media property in 2008, while 27 percent of consumer and 14 percent of association publishers plan to do the same.

Melissa Campanelli is editor-in-chief of eMarketing + Commerce (eM+C), a Target Marketing Group publication, and a former deputy editor at DM News. She also is author of the books "Entrepreneur Magazine's Open an Online Business in 10 Days" and "Start Your Own e-Business."

Time Warner Tries Metering Internet Use

BoSacks Speaks Out: I think there is much more in this story than meets the eye for every publisher. If we accept the fact that at least part of the future of publishing is digitally related, then this is a very important story. As we move our franchise into a digital broadband environment, then the process our readers use to get our material and the cost for them to do so becomes paramount. And especially so, if we are including our own videos or connections to other broadband services.

Do any of you remember paying for AOL by the minute? Is this a return to those heady days of yore? Ouch!

"I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies,"
Sam Houston (American General, Lawyer and Politician, 1st president of Texas, (1836-38, 1841-44), 1793-1863)



Time Warner Tries Metering Internet Use
By Peter Svensson, AP Technology Writer
Time Warner Cable starts customer trial with metered Internet access in Texas
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080602/tec_time_warner_cable_internet.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- You're used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers -- and, later, others -- may have to, if the company's test of metered Internet access is successful.

On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.

Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable's subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's executive vice president of advanced technology.

Just 5 percent of the company's subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.

"We think it's the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure," Leddy said.

Metered usage is common overseas, and other U.S. cable providers are looking at ways to rein in heavy users. Most have download caps, but some keep the caps secret so as not to alarm the majority of users, who come nowhere close to the limits. Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over.

Phone companies are less concerned about congestion and are unlikely to impose metered usage on DSL customers, because their networks are structured differently.

Time Warner Cable had said in January that it was planning to conduct the trial in Beaumont, but did not give any details. On Monday, Leddy said its tiers will range from $29.95 a month for relatively slow service at 768 kilobits per second and a 5-gigabyte monthly cap to $54.90 per month for fast downloads at 15 megabits per second and a 40-gigabyte cap. Those prices cover the Internet portion of subscription bundles that include video or phone services. Both downloads and uploads will count toward the monthly cap.

A possible stumbling block for Time Warner Cable is that customers have had little reason so far to pay attention to how much they download from the Internet, or know much traffic makes up a gigabyte. That uncertainty could scare off new subscribers.

Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.

Time Warner Cable subscribers will be able to check out their data consumption on a "gas gauge" on the company's Web page.

The company won't apply the gigabyte surcharges for the first two months. It has 90,000 customers in the trial area, but only new subscribers will be part of the trial.

Billing by the hour was common for dial-up service in the U.S. until AOL introduced an unlimited-usage plan in 1996. Flat-rate, unlimited-usage plans have been credited with encouraging consumer Internet use by making billing easy to understand.

"The metered Internet has been tried and tested and rejected by the consumers overwhelmingly since the days of AOL," information-technology consultant George Ou told the Federal Communications Commission at a hearing on ISP practices in April.

Metered billing could also put a crimp in the plans of services like Apple Inc.'s iTunes that use the Internet to deliver video. DVD-by-mail pioneer Netflix Inc. just launched a TV set-top box that receives an unlimited stream of Internet video for as little as $8.99 per month.

Comcast Corp., the country's largest cable company, has suggested that it may cap usage at 250 gigabytes per month. Bend Cable Communications in Bend, Ore., used to have multitier bandwidth allowances, like the ones Time Warner Cable will test, but it abandoned them in favor of an across-the-board 100-gigabyte cap. Bend charges $1.50 per extra gigabyte consumed in a month.

It's not all grim news in magazine land

It's not all grim news in magazine land
Some titles are showing strong gains in ad pagesBy Diego Vasquez http://www.medialifemagazine.com/

It surely seems the worst of times for consumer magazines, suffering as they are from the ad recession and increasing competition from other media. Indeed, over the first quarter of 2008, consumer titles experienced their worst tumble in years, with ad pages down more than 6 percent. Still, a number of magazines are showing strong gains, in some cases double-digit increases in ad pages over the prior-year period.

They include The Economist, OK!, Every Day with Rachael Ray, Women's Health, Wondertime, Men's Journal, Guideposts and Parents, among others. One might write off some of those gains to good fortune, a title being in a category of magazines that's somewhat insulated from the spending cuts that have swept through media and magazines in particular. But that's only a small part of it, if at all. In fact in many cases the gaining titles are in some of the worst-hit categories. By far the bigger factor is what the magazines are doing for themselves. They're investing dollars, they're repositioning, they're creating new voices that reach readers in new ways, they're building staff, they're adding features to their web sites, they're selling aggressively, they're taking chances.

They're heeding an age-old maxim of magazine publishing: Invest during downturns, as others cut back, and you'll win market share. In some ways, the Economist best exemplifies this aggressiveness. The title competes in two of the roughest ad categories, newsweeklies and business titles, which were each down nearly 14 percent over the quarter, yet its ad pages were up more than 5 percent. For that, North American publisher Paul Rossi credits the magazine's ongoing push to build circulation in the U.S. market, which rose 13 percent in second-half 2007, to 720,882, over the year-earlier period, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. "Circulation helps push up our rate base, which is good, but what it really does is grow the readership numbers," he says.
That in turn had made the magazine more attractive to more advertisers. "It allows us to go into other categories. Historically we would get luxury import cars, but now we have more Detroit cars. We can now go deeper into personal finance." "People want to know why we're up in pages," says Rossi. "At the end of the day we have a product that's never been more relevant, and more and more people are finding it."

*** In the case of Women's Health, whose ad pages were up 51 percent over the first quarter, its growth comes from a different way of talking to its readers. If the old mantra of women's titles was to prey on their insecurities, the new mantra, exemplified by the Rodale title, is that it's just fine to be who you are, and we're here to help you be even more. "We're all about it's good to be you. We encourage women and give them all the information we can," says publisher Mary Murcko. "We empower them to challenge themselves a little bit and have the confidence to do what they want and not to be afraid." It seems to be the language women relate to. A sister publication to Men's Health, the title launched in October 2005 with a rate base of 400,000, and that was quickly bumped to 850,000 and then in January to 1.1 million. "We've found our voice and our perspective pretty early in the plot," says editor Tina Johnson. "We've been speaking in the same voice women use to speak to themselves."

***At Every Day with Rachael Ray, where ad pages were up 38 percent in the first quarter, there were several factors at work. Certainly one is that Ray is all over television, and yet viewers never seem to tire of her bouncy good humor. But also the title launched in late 2005 with a very practical approach to cooking: putting interesting meals together in little time, and that set it apart from the traditional culinary titles, where growth had slowed for the most part. But publisher Anne Balaban says it goes beyond that. "Rachael brought a different point of view to the marketplace. She's about 'have fun and if there's something you want to do, it doesn't have to be perfect, just go ahead and do it.'" Thus the magazine's tagline, "Take a Bite Out of Life" "In this economic environment, marketers want to align their brands with something that puts a smile on customers' faces, and that's what we do," Balaban says.

*** At Guideposts, ad pages were up nearly 37 percent in the first three months of the year. Publisher Amy Molinero says sales have slowed for second quarter but are still ahead of a year ago, and that's for several reasons. The magazine has pushed deeper into food, with editorial support, and it's added to its sales staff. "Also, we've done well in the travel category, which is also new," says Molinero. Though the magazine has published for more than 60 years, it only began taking advertising in 2001. It has a rate base of 2.345 million. Says Molinero: "People had never heard of us, and they couldn't believe how long we've been publishing. While everyone else was coming down we were going up. We only had up to go."

*** In the crowded celebrity category, conventional wisdom had OK!, the British import, failing without much ado. The feeling was that it had come too late to the market. Nearly three years later, OK! is still here, and it's showing strong growth, with ad pages up 38 percent in first quarter at a time when the category grew just 2.7 percent in pages. Publisher Tom Morrissy credits that growth to the staff-building that went on in 2007. "We hired 20 sales and marketing people, and we were building programs and planting the seeds. And now they're just starting to sprout. So a lot of the work you're seeing now was accomplished a year ago." He says newsstand sales are up 22 percent so far this year, and the title has now been measured by MRI for the first time. The title has also been adding special issues. That's created a momentum for the sales team. Says Morrissy: "Presenting growth is fun for both the seller and the buyer. It really resonates with buyers who are looking for rays of light in the market."

*** At Men's Journal, which was up 21 percent in pages in the first quarter, publisher Will Schenck credits several factors: "We made a decision last year to try to capitalize on all aspects of the lifestyle of the reader. We've done a good job of developing some new categories, financial services and pharmaceuticals in particular. We've also done well in Detroit." But also helping, says Schenck, is a new corporate department at Wenner Media. "We now have the power of Rolling Stone and the power of Us Weekly to benefit us." It's given the magazine momentum with marketers, he says. "Our magazine is for a guy who's confident, and that breeds sales. Marketers seem to appreciate that. You go into meetings and you talk about it from the perspective of momentum. At the end of the day they don't give a hoot if you're up in ad pages. You're defined by the company you keep."

*** For Diane Newman, publisher at Parents, which is up 19 percent for the quarter, it's all about staying current and in touch with the new moms as they come along. "If the brand doesn't stay current, people can go other places. So we really acknowledge the new mom. We literally target Gen-Y moms. She's very different from the Gen X moms who preceded her," says Newman. "We walked away from what might be traditional sentimental editorial and photography and made it much more relevant for this generation," she says. "Keep it fresh for readers and advertisers, and they totally get it."

Mass-Media Extinction Prediction 'On Target'

Michael Crichton, Vindicated
His 1993 prediction of mass-media extinction now looks on target.
By Jack Shafer
http://www.slate.com/id/2192382/
In 1993, novelist Michael Crichton riled the news business with a Wired magazine essay titled "Mediasaurus," in which he prophesied the death of the mass media-specifically the New York Times and the commercial networks. "Vanished, without a trace," he wrote.
The mediasaurs had about a decade to live, he wrote, before technological advances-"artificial intelligence agents roaming the databases, downloading stuff I am interested in, and assembling for me a front page"-swept them under. Shedding no tears, Crichton wrote that the shoddy mass media deserved its deadly fate.
"[T]he American media produce a product of very poor quality," he lectured. "Its information is not reliable, it has too much chrome and glitz, its doors rattle, it breaks down almost immediately, and it's sold without warranty. It's flashy but it's basically junk."
Had Crichton's prediction been on track, by 2002 the New York Times should have been half-fossilized. But the newspaper's vital signs were so positive that its parent company commissioned a 1,046-foot Modernist tower, which now stands in Midtown Manhattan. Other trends predicted by Crichton in 1993 hadn't materialized in 2002, either. Customized news turned out to be harder to create than hypothesize; news consumers weren't switching to unfiltered sources such as C-SPAN; and the mainstream media weren't on anyone's endangered species list.
When I interviewed Crichton in 2002 about his failed predictions for Slate, he was anything but defensive.
"I assume that nobody can predict the future well. But in this particular case, I doubt I'm wrong; it's just too early," Crichton said via e-mail.
As we pass his prediction's 15-year anniversary, I've got to declare advantage Crichton. Rot afflicts the newspaper industry, which is shedding staff, circulation, and revenues. It's gotten so bad in newspaperville that some people want Google to buy the Times and run it as a charity! Evening news viewership continues to evaporate, and while the mass media aren't going extinct tomorrow, Crichton's original observations about the media future now ring more true than false. Ask any journalist.
So with white flag in hand, I approached Crichton to chat him up once more. Magnanimous in victory, he said he had often thought about our 2002 discussion and was happy to revisit it. (Read the uncut e-mail interview in this sidebar.)
Although Crichton still subscribes to the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, he dropped the Los Angeles Times a year ago-"with no discernable loss." He skims those two dailies but spends 95 percent of his "information-gathering time" on the Web.
He concedes with a shrug that the personalized infotopia he crystal-balled in 1993 has yet to arrive. When we talked in 2002, Crichton scoffed at the Web. Too slow. Its page metaphor, too limiting. Design, awful. Excessive hypertexting, too distracting. Noise-to-signal ratio, too high.
Today he's more positive about the medium. He notes with satisfaction that the Web has made it far easier for the inquisitive to find unmediated information, such as congressional hearings. It's much faster than it used to be, and more of its pages are professionally assembled. His general bitch is advertisements in the middle of stories, and he's irritated by animation and sounds in ads. "That, at least, can often be blocked by your browser," he says.
In 1993, Crichton predicted that future consumers would crave high-quality information instead of the junk they were being fed and that they'd be willing to pay for it. He's perplexed about that part of his prediction not panning out, but he has a few theories about why it hasn't.
"Senior scientists running labs don't read journals; they say the younger people will tell them about anything important that gets published-if they haven't heard about it beforehand anyway," he says. "So there may be other networks to transmit information, and it may be that 'media' was never as important as we who work in it imagine it was. That's an argument that says maybe nobody really needs a high-end service."
It will take a media visionary, he believes-somebody like Ted Turner-to create the high-quality information service he foresaw in his 1993 essay. In addition to building the service, the visionary will also have to convince news consumers that they need it.
Sounding like a press critic, Crichton criticizes much of the news fed to consumers as "repetitive, simplistic, and insulting" and produced on the cheap. Cable TV news is mostly "talking heads and food fights" and newspaper reporting mostly "rewritten press releases," he says.
Crichton suggests that readers and viewers could more objectively measure the quality of the news they consume by pulling themselves "out of the narcotizing flow of what passes for daily news." Look at a newspaper from last month or a news broadcast.
"Look at how many stories are unsourced or have unnamed sources. Look at how many stories are about what 'may' or 'might' or 'could' happen," he says. "Might and could means the story is speculation. Framing as I described means the story is opinion. And opinion is not factual content."
"The biggest change is that contemporary media has shifted from fact to opinion and speculation. You can watch cable news all day and never hear anything except questions like, 'How much will the Rev. Wright hurt Obama's chances?' 'Is Hillary now looking toward 2012?' 'How will McCain overcome the age argument?' These are questions for which there are endless answers. Contentious hosts on cable shows keep the arguments rolling," he says.
Crichton believes that we live in an age of conformity much more confining than the 1950s in which he grew up. Instead of showing news consumers how to approach controversy coolly and intelligently, the media partake of the zealotry and intolerance of many of the advocates they cover. He attributes the public's interest in Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to its hunger for a wider range of viewpoints than the mass media provide.
He tosses out a basket of questions he'd like to see the press tackle, some of which I've seen covered. "What happened at Bear Stearns?" got major play this week, after Crichton answered my questions, in a Wall Street Journal series. And I know I've seen "How much of the current price of gas can be attributed to the weak dollar?" answered a couple of times but can't remember where. (Answer: a lot.) But such Crichton questions as "Why have hedge funds evaded government regulation?" and what specific lifestyle changes will every American have to make "to reduce CO2 emissions by 60 percent?" would be great assignments for news desks.
"I want a news service that tells me what no one knows but is true nonetheless," he says.

New study on digital magazine and newspaper editions: growth, trends, and best practices

New study on digital magazine and newspaper editions: growth, trends, and best practices
CAMBRIDGE MA, US: The Gilbane Group announced the general release of Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Growth, Trends, and Best Practices, a pioneering and comprehensive study of the growing market for digital editions of periodical publications, earlier this week.

The study features statistics that, in an industry first, unify audited data from two sources (BPA and ABC) with data from unaudited publications. Highlights from the statistics include:
The number of business-to-business (B2B) publications offering digital editions has increased over 300% from 2005 to 2007, with total subscriptions also increasing over 300%.

The number of consumer publications offering digital editions has increased over 200% from 2005 to 2007, with total subscriptions also increasing over 200%.

Digital vs. print penetration of B2B subscribers is up from 13.3 to 15.0%, while digital penetration of consumer publication subscribers is down from 2.2 to 1.4%.

The 130-page report includes 22 case studies of publishers, representing several dozen digital edition titles, which showcase a number of industry best practices identified by the study's authors. These span a wide range including big-name consumer magazines (Hearst, Playboy), leading B2B publishers (Reed Business Information, American Legal Media), daily newspapers (Toronto Sun, The Guardian), and catalog and directory publishers (Welco, Canadian Donors Guide).

Insights
The report also includes insights from five publishing technology visionaries on the state of digital editions and ideas for how to make them work for publishers. Visionaries include Gloria Adams of PennWell, Brent Lewis of Harlequin Enterprises, Mike Edelhart of Infovell, Peter Meirs of Time Inc., and Marta Wohrle, formerly of Hachette Filipacchi.

Digital Magazine and Newspaper Editions: Growth, Trends, and Best Practices presents data from leading digital publishing companies. Contributors include Nstein, Nxtbook Media, Olive Software, and Texterity (Platinum Sponsors); Advanced Publishing, YUDU Media, and Zinio (Gold Sponsors); and Audit Bureau of Circulations and BPA Worldwide (Data Sponsors).

Authors of the report are Steve Paxhia, director of publishing strategy and technology practice at Gilbane, and Bill Rosenblatt, senior analyst. Both are said to be recognised authorities on publishing business and technology strategy and have worked with many different publishing businesses and technology vendors.

Impressive growth
Said Paxhia, "Our study shows that growth to date of the number of digital publications and the number of digital subscriptions has been impressive. While this paradigm shift is still in its early stages, there are plenty of examples where publishers using today's best practices have generated impressive results. This is the most exciting time to be in publishing since Gutenberg invented the printing press."

Frank Gilbane, CEO of the Gilbane Group, said, "This new report on digital publications illustrates our continued thought leadership in the publishing market, which is embracing many of the content technologies that we have been following since 1993. At the same time, it's only one of several first-of-a-kind market studies that Gilbane Group is releasing this year."

The study is available for immediate download at http://gilbane.com/Research-Reports.html.

IPods, Printing and the Inquisition

IPods, Printing and the Inquisition
Posted by Rupert Goodwins
An enduring question: what happened to Islamic science and philosophy? In early and mid medieval times, it was the best on the planet: any system of knowledge that encompasses algorithms, Algol and alembics gets my vote. But as the West clicked into overdrive, the Islamic traditions calcified and reversed; by the end of the 19th century, the Ottoman empire had gone rotten and collapsed under the pressure of expansionist Europeans and internal reformists. (Final outcome: to be decided.)

One of the more compelling arguments for this sea change is differing attitudes to the moveable type printing press. Although the technology certainly had its problems in the West - publishers still get burned these days through bad decisions, but not quite as literally as before - it became one of the major tools of reformation, gradually unhooking the fingers of church and state from the throat of those with other ideas. It was the primary tool of the Enlightenment.

Over in the Arabic-speaking world, the story was different. The printing press turned up, but failed to make much of an impact: as a result, documents of all kinds remained rare, expensive and tightly controlled. (It's probably wrong to say, as some have, that there was thus no reformation in Islam; Islam is, at least theoretically, non-hierarchical and eschews the sort of church structure that characterises Roman Catholicism. But that really is another story). From my reading, I thought that this rejection was due to a combination of suspicion at what might happen and a much better piece of good old-fashioned guild-style market control by the existing scribes than the Europeans managed.

Not so, says a (beautifully illustrated) article in Saudi Aramco World. The piece argues that the real reason was calligraphy: written Arabic, although composed from 28 basic letters much as is Latin script, is always joined up - with each letter having four ways to join to its neighbour, and each two-letter combination having its own unique shape. Moreover, the choice of which option to take was dictated by ineffable rules of beauty known only to the calligrapher, who choreographed his (oh yes, definitely his) words like so many dancers.

The mathematics of trying to combine all this with moveable type simply defeated the early printers, says the magazine, and the results were so clumsy and crude that the technology was rejected - quite rightly - as unsuitable to the task.

Now, it's true that early European printers managed to get their style together very early on, certainly comparable with hand-written script: did this help acceptance? Hard to argue that it didn't: the Gutenberg Bible went to great lengths to replicate the look of existing manuscripts. But as soon as the press got out into mass production, the quality went through the floor. Take a look at 16h and 17th century pamphlets, and you'll see all the horrors that DTP visited upon us in the 1980s. Nobody seemed to mind much.

But then, it's also true that there are cultural aspects of Arabic that just don't exist for European languages: it could well be that reading badly set Arabic is far more like having your eyeballs sandpapered than the effects of anything you could torture out of Ventura Publisher. And while it's certainly more agreeable to blame cultural lacunae on untransgressable beauty instead of reactionary conservatism, there's no doubt that Arabic is far more complex to set than the latinates.

Let's stay in the 1980s, and the arrival of another new world-changing technology: the microprocessor. It deals in the lingua franca of mathematics, of data represented as 1 and 0. If any rising tide should float all cultural boats, this was it: but apparently not. According to a pseudonymous post by "GT" on their Gatunka blog, the Japanese did remarkably badly from the early days of 8-bit microprocessors. (GT says they are a technical translator working in Japan: certainly seems to know their onions). While the West was busy enjoying the first wave of cheap word processors and general-use computing, the intricacies of entering and displaying Japanese ideograms were simply beyond what that technology could do. You could build a games console, where the few bits of Japanese you needed were represented as bitmaps alongside the rest of the game's graphics, but for text editing on a computer? Forget it. By the time cheap computer technology was up to the job - around 2000 - the West had had general purpose computers at home for long enough for them to have evolved into the central hub for an entire economy. The iPod makes no sense without a home PC: thus, argues GT, the Japanese could not have invented it. That's why Sony got stuck at the Walkman.

Obviously, the social, political and economic implications of being a bit behind with your iPods are substantially different to thoseof abandoning the printing press and the Enlightenment. But both stories illustrate how sensitive technology is to the culture in which it arrives - and how hard it is to avoid naïve assumptions about the interactions between the two (you listening, Negroponte?).

It's particularly important to bear these things in mind if you're an English-speaking jourmalist, finding oneself gifted with the most generally applicable language and (no coincidence) the most advanced technology on the planet. What else am I missing?

What CEOs Need to Know About the Social Web

What CEOs Need to Know About the Social Web
Posted by Tom Weber
http://blogs.wsj.com/buzzwatch/2008/05/05/wisdom-on-crowds-what-ceos-need-to-know-about-the-social-web/?mod=WSJBlog

From blogs and Wikipedia to Facebook and Twitter, each new wave of digital communications generates more upheaval for businesses. In his recent book, "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations," Clay Shirky explores the ramifications of a world in which people can find each other and collaborate with increasing ease. Mr. Shirky is a writer, consultant and faculty member at New York University (we recently highlighted his comments on the payoff from converting TV-watching time into more productive endeavors).

Buzzwatch recently caught up with Mr. Shirky to discuss how these technologies are changing the equation for companies, managers and CEOs. Read on for Mr. Shirky's thoughts-and don't miss his unusual approach for handling information overload at the end of the interview.

Buzzwatch: Sum up the basic changes you're talking about.

Mr. Shirky: My five word summary of the book is: Group action just got easier. The thesis is that humans are natively good at doing things in groups. We know how to share, collaborate, converse. So whenever you get a new tool or technology that makes it easier for people to share or collaborate, you're going to see a lot more of that going on. The Internet-and increasingly, mobile phones-have provided us with a platform of huge new tools and services to do exactly that. So we're seeing now the first phase of experimentation and people saying, "What can we build on top of these tools?"

Buzzwatch: What does a CEO need to understand about the ways collaboration is changing?

Mr. Shirky: There are two different big things. The first is: Inside your hierarchy is a network. This isn't about networks replacing hierarchies-we're still going to have managers and promotions. But particularly for large companies, there's a lot of value that can be unlocked by letting employees work with one another. There were two research groups at IBM separated by the Atlantic Ocean-one in Armonk and one in the U.K. They were working on the same problem, but of course they didn't know that. They employed a tool IBM built called Dogear, a tagging tool. These two groups discovered-without any managerial oversight-that they were working on the same problem. They said, "Why don't we get together and collaborate?" That's the kind of enterprise value that can't be driven by the manager. In any complicated field, the people you're managing know more about the problem than you do. This is a way of getting at that value.

The outside message is: Your customers, who have previously been relatively separated from one another, with their principal connection to you, may start becoming your competitors or your collaborators. CEOs need to be in the position of understanding what might happen and then try to work out strategies for the threats and for the opportunities.

Buzzwatch: If you could suggest one collaboration tool for businesspeople to get familiar and comfortable with, what would it be?

Mr. Shirky: There's no one tool that does everything. So that's the first thing to understand. That said, one tool I would pick is Flickr. The value of understanding Flickr is in seeing how completely simple participation can be. You take a photo, you upload a photo. Flickr has me-first value. The principal value is to the user. But then you start to see what happens when you add even a little bit of participation to the mix, letting people label photos and comment on photos. You will see how quickly the social component can form around these artifacts.

There's also something that CIOs rather than CEOs need to understand. It's almost universally the case with social software that the software that launches with the fewest features is the stuff that takes off. The shift is from thinking about the computer as a box to thinking of the computer as a door, and nobody wants a door with 37 handles. Twitter has six features, and it launched with only one. A brutally simple mental model of the software that's shared by all users turns out to be a better predictor of adoption and value than a completely crazy collection of features that ends up being slightly different for every user.

Buzzwatch: Apart from the broader business implications, do you see lessons for professional managers? What can a manager learn from self-organizing groups?

Mr. Shirky: What a manger can learn is that self-organizing groups don't stay self-organized very long. This is one of the great myths of this stuff, the hive mind. Go look at the talk pages of any moderately frequently edited Wikipedia entry. When you look at open-source projects, these are not non-hierarchical paradises. These are strongly hierarchically managed projects.

The lesson for managers is that the kind of social issues that create the need for management don't go away. They're going to surface in any large project involving humans. But the skills needed now are different from the ones we're used to. We have a world in which the two classic poles are the micromanager and the grand strategic visionary.

But when people are self-organizing, it requires a management skill that is much closer to facilitation. When you see the really good ones-a Linus Torvalds on the Linux project, or a Teresa Nielsen Hayden managing the comments on Boing Boing-you see people who aren't operating with an ironclad set of rules but are responding situation by situation. To the degree you start opening up to insights of people who don't work for you or you can't control in the same way, that facilitating function becomes a core management skill.

Buzzwatch: Crowds can be wise, but they can also be shallow. What are the downsides in this new environment? What can be done to minimize them?

Mr. Shirky: The downside is that if society does not have the ability to affect which groups do and don't form, it creates negative as well as positive repercussions. I have an example in the book, these pro-anorexia groups. In the past they could not have taken out an ad in the newspaper or met in a church group. The people who control the bottlenecks wouldn't have let them. Now there are no more bottlenecks. It's similar to the way the First Amendment says to society, we can no longer prevent bad speech, so we put society in the position of reacting to bad speech. We can't prevent these things, we just have to react to them. It just takes more attention and more work.

Buzzwatch: How do you personally cope with information overload?

Mr. Shirky: Here I think the lesson is, there is no such thing as information overload. Or rather, we've been in information overload since 1500. Which is roughly the year there was more written material to be read than a human being could read in a lifetime.

What we're dealing with now is filter failure. Imagine going into a bookstore that had no organization, with books being dumped into the street and the store saying, "Wade in and find the management book you want." The bookstore would be as broken as our sense of email is today.

So the single most important change is attitude. We are all having to abandon, a bit at a time, the idea of getting through our email queue. We have to instead say, I'm going to start at the top of my day with the most important stuff and work my way down. And I'm going to accept at the end of the day that I'm not going to be done. For people for whom a sense of completeness is vital, that's a painful shift.

Publishers on Redefining the Role of Print

Publishers on Redefining the Role of Print
Outgoing ABM Chairman: If we don't change, we're 'in trouble.'
By Matt Kinsman
www.folio.com

LA QUINTA, California-The tagline for American Business Media's Spring Meeting is "New Paths To Success." And while much of the conversation revolves around expected topics of video and social media, the changing role of the print product is accounting for much of the conversation as well."There's a lot of talk about Web 2.0 but there is very little talk about Magazines 2.0," says Hanley Wood CEO and outgoing ABM chairman Frank Anton. "If the magazines published two or three years from now aren't different, we're in trouble. "The current magazine model won't take us into the next five years, let alone the next 100 years."

Magazines need to be rethought from top-to-bottom-editorial approach to circulation to folio size, Anton says. "We need to let readers decide the content-instead of one version for 100,000 readers but a lot of custom versions," he added.

"Circulation needs to be reviewed. It's bloated-in some cases by 60 percent or more. Maybe we need to move away from controlled circulation and have people pay for products."Nielsen chairman and CEO David Calhoun said magazines have to be approached in terms of how they complement other media. "I don't believe publications are going away but if they don't understand their role in relation to other media, they will lose," he said. "I hate reading about one form of media losing out to another, and print is always thought about in terms of competing with other media.

In the evolution of the magazine, print will have to assume a role in the bigger scheme. What are its interactions with other media? Each reinforces the other." Limiting Magazine Size and SponsorshipsThick magazines may indicate publication health but they may not be serving time-pressed readers, according to Anton, who says publishers should start thinking about limiting folio size."Our biggest magazines going forward will be 96 pages," says Anton. "Publishers should consider exclusive sponsorship to one advertiser rather than selling many window advertisers."

Brands are interested in becoming part of the conversation both online and in print, according to IBM vice president of marketing Edward Adams-who stressed that doesn't mean violating editorial autonomy but didn't offer an example. "Magazines are important from that independent, authoritative perspective," said Adams. "How do I get embedded in a way that's less an advertising approach? I'm not talking about crossing the church-state line but how do we participate?"

Why The Week is gaining on Time and Newsweek

JON FRIEDMAN'S MEDIA WEB
Why The Week is gaining on Time and Newsweek
By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/why-week-threatening-time-newsweek/story.aspx?guid=%7BDA1F8268%2D151E%2D4520%2DA71E%2DACBAF1712522%7D

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Watch your back, Time and Newsweek.
The Week is here to stay.

This upstart magazine publishes a compilation of the week's biggest news events, culled from media outlets all over the world. Like many mainstream media people, I wasn't bowled over when it was launched in April 2001. It looked busier than a Bloomberg TV screen and seemed to be filled with mostly quick-hitting headlines.

But gradually, The Week grew on me, as it has caught on with the public. Its circulation is now a robust 500,000. Business travelers, a conspicuous segment of the busy and affluent readers targeted by The Week, appreciate the compact way that it presents the news. Watch related video.

These days, The Week, headed by its chairman, Felix Dennis, is also looking strong partly because of troubles at the headquarters of its primary rivals.

When I perused Time's latest issue, I wondered whether the 56-page edition was the smallest one in its modern history. (Time also had the chutzpah to carry a cover blurb for Joe Klein's column proclaiming: "The Incredible Shrinking Democrats.")

Speaking of Newsweek, its employees' hot parlor game is asking one another, "Did you take the buyout?" Enough said on the state of morale at the Washington Post Co.'s

The Week is gaining on its established rivals by subscribing to the most basic tenet in business: Give people what they want.

"The Week is written by a method," said General Manager Steven Kotok. "In 2001, we sat down and asked ourselves, 'What does a busy person want to read?'"

That planning is paying off. The magazine has built a strong readership "during a time when the category showed a net circulation decline," said Kotok. On the ad front, "The Week has grown and is barely down [in the first quarter], while nearly all competitors are down double-digits or worse."

What's the tipping point?
"It's about utility, not achieving an apotheosis of beautiful journalism," he said. "If you write for the reader, you'll always have a job."

That faint sound you hear right now is a thousand establishment journalists reaching for their Maalox. What Kotok brags about is exactly what unnerves many pundits about The Week. They see it as something journalistically unholy because, they conclude, it dumbs down the news to fit a business model.

If this seems familiar to you, merely substitute the words "USA Today" for "The Week." Since its founding in 1982, Gannett Co.'s USA Today has been criticized for making news more palatable to a mass audience who wants the publication to do its thinking for it.
Plus, the naysayers fret, The Week utterly disdains traditional tenets of the craft such as . . . original reporting.

The Week's Kotok, an affable fellow who seems to have a keen appreciation for great writing, makes no apologies. When he and I talked over lunch, he mentioned my recent series on the Economist. Read the column.

"I would cry if the Economist closed," Kotok said. "But The Week performs a different function. The Economist hears everything and gives you one perspective. The Week gives you all perspectives."

Kotok subsequently sent me an email that further points to The Week's DNA:
"My feeling is that The Week starts with what a busy, sophisticated person needs to be well-informed -- which we believe is multiple perspectives on today's current events. And we keep it to just that, and no more, because people today are busy. And because of our reader focus, our readers read every issue. The Economist and New Yorker put in all the content they think is important; in other words, they don't start with the reader's needs."

Easy entry
"We're a populist magazine," he explained. "We really are about the reader. The New Yorker is great to read and rightfully proud of great journalism -- but for its own sake."
The Week has a populist bent throughout its structure, too. "When I was 20, I had 50 people working for me," Kotok, 37, said of his entrepreneurial roots. In St. Paul, Minn., he started by managing a falafel shop and built it up to be a Midwest regional wholesale food business.

"After that, nothing seems hard," he said. "If I get a resume from a college dropout who has an achievement record, he or she definitely will get an interview. I want to hire someone who is hungry, has raw talent and business sense."

To understand where Time and Newsweek appear to have gone wrong with their audiences, you can find an answer in the April 25 issue of The Week itself.

On page 21, it quotes esteemed journalist Herbert Bayard Swope, writing in the Naples (Fla.) Daily News: "I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure -- which is: 'Try to please everybody.'"