We
All Hate Advertising, But We Can’t Live Without It

By Adam Thierer, Contributor

Advertising plays the same role in your media diet that vegetables play
in your regular diet; most of us would prefer to skip that course and go
straight to dessert. But, just like veggies, advertising plays an
important role in sustaining a body; in this case, a diverse body of
content.

Advertising is the great subsidizer of the press, entertainment, and
online services. “It’s
possible that no single industry – not newspapers nor search engines nor
anything else – has done as much to advance the storehouse of accessible
human knowledge in the 20th century as advertisers,” argues Washington
Post columnist Ezra Klein. As
I noted in a recent law review article on
the importance of advertising, media economists have found that
advertising has traditionally provided about 70% to 80% of support for
newspapers and magazines, and
advertising or underwriting has entirely paid for broadcast TV and radio
media. Similarly, the vast majority of online sites and social media
services we enjoy today are almost completely ad-supported. Without
advertising, we’d all be stuck picking up the tab for our media content
and online services by either paying higher prices or higher taxes
(assuming public subsidies are used to sustain media when other revenues
are unavailable). Whenever advertising comes under attack, therefore,
the proper question to ask is: If not advertising, then what else? After
all, there is no free lunch. Something must sustain content and culture
and that something is typically advertising.

The
reason this issue is ripe again this week is because, in an effort to
remain relevant in today’s vibrantly competitive video marketplace,
satellite video
operator DISH Network is
offering its customers a new “Auto Hop” capability for its Hopper
whole-home HD DVR system. It will give viewers the ability to
automatically skip over commercials for most recorded prime time
programs shown on ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC when viewed the day after airing.

“Viewers love to skip commercials,” said Vivek Khemka, vice president of
DISH Product Management. “With the Auto Hop capability of the Hopper,
watching your favorite shows commercial-free is easier than ever before.
It’s a revolutionary development that no other company offers and it’s
something that sets Hopper above the competition.”

Khemka is certainly right about consumers loving to skip commercials,
but his product isn’t that revolutionary. As
veteran technology reporter Steve Wildstrom reminds us, back in
2001, ReplayTV introduced a similar feature in its DVRs. The company was
quickly sued by content companies and went bankrupt before the case was
decided.

The sort of commercial-skipping technology ReplayTV introduced back then
and that DISH is adopting today with “Auto Hop” shouldn’t be illegal. Making
video ad-skipping a crime is like saying it should be illegal to cut the
ads out of newspapers or magazines before you read what’s inside. Of
course, a legal challenge to Auto Hop is still likely. But set
aside the legal question and get back to the real issue here: What is
going to pay the bills for content when ad-skipping becomes automated
and effortless? That question is relevant across the entire information
ecosystem today since it’s never been easier to use technology to block
ads for television or online services. Just about every DVR now allows
commercial skipping. And ignoring online ads is even easier. Adblock Plus, which lets users
blocks all advertising on most websites, has long been one of the
most-downloaded add-ons for both the Firefox and Chrome web browsers.

Such free-riding can’t go on forever, no matter how much we all enjoy
it. Content creators will either have to find alternative ways to pay
the bills or else we’ll just lose access to much of that content. And
the alternatives to traditional advertising support all have downsides.

One possibility is that advertising continues but it becomes far more
annoying and intrusive. That’s already occurring to some extent with the
increased prevalence of product placement in TV shows. If ad-skipping or
blocking during designated commercial breaks become even easier, you can
expect to see you favorite characters doing more awkward
product-pitching directly within the program. Most of us would agree
that degrades the quality of programming, but it will become
increasingly likely.

Another variant of this is model is program sponsorship and content
underwriting. We could see a lot more “Texaco Star
Theaters” in our future, with major companies essentially owning
specific shows or networks. But it will be challenging for every show or
website to find its own corporate benefactor, and it will also raise
issues about undue influence and bias.

The other alternative is higher prices across the board. When video
distributors cut deals with content creators, the contractual
negotiations can get quite heated. The “retransmission
consent” process for TV programming, which is governed by an arcane
body of federal law, is already a mess but it promises to become even
more contentious if distributors like DISH make ad-blocking even easier.
Content owners will demand a higher premium before they cut deals and
those costs will be passed along to consumers. The same phenomenon could
play out for online services if ad-blocking becomes more ubiquitous.

Of course, there’s the possibility that philanthropic support – either
from individuals or foundations – can sustain some media content, but
such support has proven quite limited in the past. And
government support for news and entertainment content will be hard to
come by and incredibly contentious politically, especially in tight
fiscal times.

So, no matter how distasteful we might find ads, like our veggies, we’d
be wise to keep them in our diet. Or else there will be a price in the
long run

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by Mark Walsh

Bottom of Form

It may seem like the digital newsstand appeared in the last two years,
but Zinio has been at it since 2001. After launching on PCs, it now
offers some 5,000 magazine titles across major tablet and smartphone
platforms like iOS, Android and BlackBerry. Users can buy single issues
and subscriptions, as well as sample free content through Zinio.

With an explosion of rival newsstand and reader apps, Zinio has to
ensure it doesn’t get bypassed by everyone from Amazon to Zite. Online
Media Daily sat down with Zinio CMO Jeanniey Mullen to talk about how
the company is responding to the new landscape.

Online Media Daily: Given Zinio’s decade-long history, what’s it like
seeing so many new competitors emerge and grab attention in this space?

Mullen: It’s frustrating to see the press talk about them as if this
concept has never existed before. We see any news about digital reading,
digital magazines, digital distribution, and publication sales as
positive for us because it helps to increase consumer awareness and
education. There are millions of consumers out there that don’t even
know they can read magazines digitally.

Online Media Daily: That said, did it take the arrival of the iPad to
ignite wider interest?

Mullen: We really see April 3, 2010 — the day the iPad came out — to
be the start of the digital magazine publishing groundswell, for two
reasons. The iPad is the perfect device built for magazines, and it
really helped customers see what could be done. But it also helped to
get the publishers to focus on development. Publishers started working
with us because they knew they needed to have a digital presence; it
wasn’t necessarily a priority for them before the iPad.

Online Media Daily: With the wave of publishers launching individual
digital editions last year, were you concerned about the impact on your
business?

Mullen: Early on, we realized the majority of people subscribing to
digital editions are brand-new people to the title. We saw that amplify
itself almost 100-fold when the iPad came out and magazines started
doing their own apps. If you go to Zinio to get your Rolling Stone,
you’ll be able to explore other articles and titles in that category. We
see up to 85% of digital subscriptions through Zinio are people that
have never had a print subscription with that company. We don’t see it
as competitive.

Online Media Daily: What about Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple all
launching competing newsstands last year?

Mullen: The key thing publishers are starting to focus on now is on
renewal rates. You can get a mass number of people to sign up for a free
30-day or 90-day subscriptions, but as the market is rolling into a full
first year for a lot of these different devices, we’re starting to see
renewal rates. And that’s where a lot of the truth is going to come out
– not only which devices are best for consuming content, but which
devices and which [newsstands] offerings are really gathering consumers’
interest on an ongoing basis.

Online Media Daily: What differences in usage are you seeing across the
three screens: PCs, tablets and smartphones?

Mullen: The iPad subscribers tend to be older — in the 40s-50s
demographic, men more than women — but a lot of householding of the
purchases. It might be the father’s credit card, but the wife and
children are using it. For Android, since it’s more smartphones than
tablets in the marketplace, it skews a little more women, a bit younger.
For PCs, it’s close to 50/50. People who come in through Facebook or
other social channels are definitely younger, so it’s completely
differentiated, based on who you are and where you’re coming from.

Online Media Daily: How has Zinio gone about getting distribution
besides the various app stores?

Mullen: Two years ago we made the decision strategically to do a lot of
pre-install deals with Android devices. Zinio is pre-installed on 25
Android tablets and 37 Android smartphones type around the world. We
also have deals directly with Motorola, Samsung, LG, and Pan Digital and
Kobo. At the same time we have distribution deals with AT&T and T-Mobile
and other mobile networks as well. So the app is on millions of Android
devices.

Online Media Daily: Do you have any plans to promote Zinio more as a
brand itself?

Mullen: We have a series of pretty big enhancements and product releases
coming out over the summer, so we have been holding off on doing a big
Zinio push until some of those are live. We’re changing the entire
structure of our site to build as a foundation for some other very large
changes that we’re working on this summer relating to HTML5 and some
business model changes. As those hit the market toward end of
summer/early fall, you’ll see a whole lot about that.
___________

Hearst
hails the age of the tablet, says readers are willing to pay more for
tablet editions

BY DOUG DRINKWATER

London, England – The World e-Reading Congress drew a number of
influential speakers in London today, including Duncan Edwards, CEO of
Hearst Magazines International, who highlighted the striking rise of
tablet publishing.

Hearst is of the largest magazine publishers in the world and has pushed
magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle, Esquire and Marie Claire, onto the
iPad and Android tablets of late, moves which would seem to illustrate
just how seriously Hearst is taking tablet publishing.

“At Hearst, we see the arrival of the tablet, and the scale of the
tablet market, as a significant media opportunity. There is a huge
opportunity through a new distribution market”, said Edwards, when
speaking in London.

Hearst sells 600,000 tablet magazines a month

Edwards went on to assert that Hearst is looking to reach one million
paid digital sales on tablets a month for the US by the end of the year,
but said that monthly tablet magazine sales currently stand at around
600,000.

Despite the disparity in sales between digital and print (Hearst sells
22 million print magazines each month), it is clear that Hearst has
spent some time configuring its tablet editions. The firm first
established the Hearst App Lab – a laboratory for testing different
tablets and software, after the launch of the first iPad, and has
clearly spent some time figuring out how to bring its world-renowned
print magazines onto the tablet.

Edwards explained that the tablet versions of Cosmopolitan, Country
Living and Good Housekeeping are identical to the printed versions, but
said that the publisher completely redesigned the likes of Elle, Esquire
and O, The Oprah Magazine for the iPad. Despite some clamour for new
tablet versions in the industry, Edwards stressed that most readers
actually prefer their tablet editions to be ripped straight from print,
and admitted that this was an easier process than having to redesign the
entire magazine.

“People thought we’d reimagine the magazines to take advantage of the
technology behind the device, but consumers prefer this replica version,
and in reality we’re much better at doing this.”

Hearst’s tablet magazine sales are evenly split between Apple’s
Newsstand and Barnes & Noble’s Nook

Far from being reliant on Apple’s Newsstand, Edwards’ presentation
indicated a pretty even split for Hearst’s tablet magazine sales between
Apple (35%) and Barnes & Noble’s Nook (30%), with Zinio (20%) and Amazon
(15%) not too far behind.

“You have to admire Apple for a brilliant conceived strategy, and when
we first saw the iPad, it was clear it was going to be a success”, said
the Hearst Magazine International CEO.

“But in the US at least, it’s by no means the only player. Barnes and
Noble’s Nook has made a significant entrance to the market, and Amazon
is also making significant investments with the Kindle and Kindle Fire.
Google is going to make an impact, and Microsoft is testing the market
with the $300 million investment in Nook.”

“I think readers are prepared to pay more for tablet editions”

“There is a question of tablet versus the print edition, in terms of
pricing. There’s quite a lot of evidence that people are prepared to pay
as much, or even more, for a digital copy. We’re charging $19.99 for
some of our [digital] magazines and as you can see our sales are pretty
good.”

Edwards was less euphoric on Apple throttling the ability to set
different tablet magazine prices across the globe. “Apple doesn’t make
it easy to make geographical pricing. Apple needs to change that because
it doesn’t charge the same for its product overseas

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Dear Time Magazine:
Seriously?

By Joe Berger at newsstandpros.com

Dear Time Magazine:

If you’re wondering why I don’t pick on Newsweek, here’s the reason.
It’s hard to take them seriously anymore (Especially after the Princess
Di cover).

You, on the other hand, have a long and distinguished record. You have a
remarkable publishing pedigree and are still considered the number one
domestic newsweekly of record.

Because this is primarily a blog about single copy sales, let me first
congratulate you on what will most likely be a successful strategy with
your cover image this week. No doubt, your unit sales will show a
significant increase. I bet you’ll sell out at most airports. Your
bookstore sales will be through the roof. And for the first time in a
long time, whatever remaining checkout pockets you have in supermarkets
or drugstores will pay for themselves. The cover image was trenchant,
obvious, controversial, linked to an article that didn’t need to be
controversial, but will be but not because of it’s content, but because
of the cover image.

Congratulations! You sold out and stirred the pot! On Mother’s Day Weekend.

It’s just too bad that you decided to try and reignite the “Mommy Wars”
during an election year?

I mean, #Comeonson! Really? A four year old boy standing on a chair
breast feeding? A cover line “Are you Mom Enough?” Released on Mother’s
Day weekend? Props to your marketing department! I bet what’s left of
your single copy sales department will be tired come the end of the week.

But was it necessary? Was it newsworthy?

Feminists often talk about a persons “agency.” I understand this to mean
that a person has the ability to make their own choices and accept the
responsibility for them. Women, in particular, should have agency when
it comes to the home, work, child rearing. How they carry children,
choose to birth to them, nourish them in their earliest years, should
primarily be their decisions. After all, in all of those cases, the
child will be a part of mother’s body and it is her body. It should be
her choice. Who are we to judge? In the long history of this world, can
we really point to one time in history and say “These people did it right?

After all, I think it was the Mayans who used wooden planks to shape
their children’s heads. They approved of that.

The Romans, who our Founding Fathers revered, “exposed” unwanted
children (Something now guaranteed to get you on the 11:00 news).

There was really nothing in that article that screamed “cover story” as
I read it. There is nothing in the article that suggests a full out
revolution of “attachment” parenting. While the article is interesting,
it is not revolutionary.

Apparently the retailers who carry the magazine have yawned, said, “No
big deal” and moved on. While this is an improvement over what has
happened in past years, it makes me wonder: Is it because the image
wasn’t considered “controversial”? Or was it because we’ve finally
managed to make the retail marketing of magazines that much more marginal?

So good luck with your increased sales. Will people remember the story
of Dr. Sears a week from now? Nope, but they may remember the mom
breastfeeding a four year old. They may remember sudden flare up on
blogs covering the “Mommy Wars.”

In other words, they will have missed the point.
__________

TIME’s Boob JobThe weeklies are riding a wave of edgier covers.BY BILL
MICKEY http://www.foliomag.com/2012/times-boob-job

If
TIME’s latest cover sets the newsstand a-buzz as much as it has the
social web it should have a hit on its hands. The May 21st U.S. edition
touts a cover story about “attachment parenting” by featuring a young
mother nursing her 3-year-old son who’s standing on a chair and attached
to her left, mostly exposed, breast. Both stare straight into the camera
with practiced ennui.

With the main cover lines shouting “Are You Mom Enough?” the cover is
casually confrontational while subtly daring you to judge the concept
itself.

Media writer Jack Shafer

quipped
on Twitter that TIME has “Businessweek cover envy,” alluding to a
steady stream ofprovocative covers from Bloomberg Businessweek. That
magazine’s recent cover story on private equity was illustrated by an
“American Psycho”-inspired, chainsaw
wielding financier and was called out for misrepresenting the
pro-private equity piece. Similarly
provoking, but really more funny, a February Bloomberg Businessweek
cover features fornicating jetliners. Hey, sex sells. But a
Continental-United business merger? Not so much.

The Economist is another weekly title that has used its covers to make
its readers think, and sometimes chuckle, rather than bashing them over
the head with the obvious.

Envy
or not, the newsstand is becoming a grim place to do business. The
temptation to be eye-catching by tickling a funny bone or challenging a
single-copy buyer’s social or moral boundaries is high. But it’s a fine
line between nudge-nudge-wink-wink and this. One step over that line
and you’ve abandoned wit for poor taste. Done right, however, and with
some consistency, you can serve up a level of anticipation among readers
and an added layer of personality to the brand-especially those with a
weekly frequency.

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The
Atlantic’s Digital Transformation

by Josh Sternberg

The Atlantic Media Company is hardly new to publishing. Its history
stretches to
1857, but for an old guy it’s proven to have some serious digital moves.
Its outlets – The Atlantic, The National Journal and Government
Executive – have aggressively transformed it into a digital company.
Now, the company is trying to prove that it can build a global brand
from scratch.

Four years ago, its traditional-to-digital-audience metrics were at a
one-to-one basis, meaning for every traditional reader there was a
digital one, according to Justin Smith, president of the Atlantic Media
Company. Now, he says, on average, its digital audience is 25 times
higher than the print audience. According to ComScore, The Atlantic got
3.6 million uniques in April 2012. On the advertising side, more than 50
percent of its revenue will come from digital.

“Our history is in traditional print media,” said Smith. “What we set
out to do was to disrupt ourselves in a sense. We decided that we wanted
to be a digital media company participating in the high-growth markets
and digital media. We went about the process of thinking through the
questions, how do we disrupt our own company if we were challenging
digital brands attacking us?”

The Atlantic Wire might be
the best example of this. Launched in 2009, it has become a mainstay of
the blog set, delivering a fast-paced news experience. It also has Atlantic Cities, which
started in 2011, that looks at the cross-section of trends around the
urbanization across the globe.

Quartz is its boldest move yet. Helmed by
ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Kevin Delaney and slated to officially
launch later this year, Quartz is looking to succeed where Portfolio
most recently failed. It plans to take a global perspective – sprinkling
correspondents around the globe – and offer a mix of magazine-like
analytical content and the short bursts and infographic fare that’s more
au courrant on the Web but aimed at global business leaders.

Quartz is also taking an interesting distribution by focusing more on
mobile and tablets. Its content won’t be created for Web reading, then
ported over to tablet and mobile, Delaney said. Instead, features will
be native to those environments. One trend Quartz is not joining:
paywalls. All its content will be free on desktop, mobile and tablet.

“I think there’s room for a new outlet that’s digital, that’s focused on
mobile and tablet with themes on the global economy, and not constrained
by having a paywall around the reporting,” Delaney said.

Smith says 2012 has been good to the company. It’s on course to having
its best financial performance in its history – both on revenue and
profit. Smith points to two key reasons: disrupting itself and then
anticipating the next curve.

“The main reason we’ve succeeded is that we’ve been radical and
aggressive about implementing a digital-first strategy,” said Smith.
“What you see in traditional media, companies pay lip service to digital
transformation or consider digital transformation as an incremental or
partial exercise – change around the edges or reorganize, but not a
complete, radical, aggressive uprooting of the culture and talent base.
And that’s what we’ve done.”

Smith is no stranger to the global marketplace, having spent many years
at The Economist working in London, Hong Kong and Paris. He believes the
company is in a good position to go on the offensive. As the company and
its culture has rallied around the digital-first mantra, it has created
the opportunity to be in what Smith calls “adjacent marketplaces.” Cue
Quartz.

“Our feeling is there’s an opportunity to innovate that others haven’t
exploited,” said Delaney. “It’s an opportunity we have because we’re
starting from scratch. Mobile is a pretty logical step to view as the
primary platform.”

Headquartered in New York City, the outlet plans on having at least one
correspondent in Asia, one in Europe, and it will work with freelancers
and stringers in important areas of the world for its launch. The
company already snagged a few top industry people; Chris Batty, from
Gawker, will serve as publisher; former WSJer Zach Seward will be its
senior editor; and former New York Times product engineer, Michael
Donohoe will be Quartz’s product engineering director.

“The people we’re hiring in New York are international people,” Delaney
said. “We’re looking for people who speak different languages, who can
write about the world in a sophisticated fashion.”

The publication will also take a different path down the content
creation road. There will be data visualization, short- and long-form
articles, and blog-like aggregation.

“Core to us is the fact that editorial innovation and a desire to be
creative about the form of what will be excellent journalism underpins
what we’ll do,” said Delaney.

Quartz will have its own dedicated sales team but will also lean on the
Atlantic Media Company’s sales force. It will target big global brands.
Like other publishers nowadays, Quartz is turning its back on standard
display ads. Instead, according to Smith, Quartz will be “innovating and
experimenting quite widely in the area of branded content.”

“Many of the advertisers we have relationships with care about global
business and want to target influential customers,” Smith said. “The
high-quality content required to engage this global business audience is
something we believe we can create and produce given our heritage and
history of the company – of producing high-end intelligent content.”

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Testing, Testing, Testing…
Magazine Covers for Every Taste, Gender, Color . . .

Samir Husni

No two magazines are alike and no two covers are the same. The magazine
industry seems to have discovered the art of split covers en-mass. It
is rare to see a magazine with one cover anymore. Through my travels
across the country, and overseas, I was able to collect a variety of
magazines that shared the same date, same issue, but different covers.
The covers differed in the treatment of the nameplate, images, cover
lines, colors, etc… Below is a gallery of images with a brief
explanation of what some magazines are testing or just trying to grab
readers’ attention in one way or the other (no pun intended here…)

Here are some of the magazines in random order:

People Style Watch: A different nameplate…

April 2012

There are two different covers for this magazine. The differences easily
detected are the name, stretched across the top on one, and broken apart
and stacked on the other cover. A $1 off coupon is attached on one and
also has the tantalizing offer of “Exclusive Discounts for You!” where
the other magazine has neither. The feature story is presented in a
different placement as well, on one it is centered, midway the page, and
the other cover has it aligned left, yet far enough from the edge to
allow for the same sidebar story on Spring’s Hottest Shoes, while it
still holds the midway spot.

Weight Watchers: Different images, different colors…

March/April 2012

This issue of Weight Watchers has two covers. One has Charles Barkley,
with the color orange (possibly due to the basketball in Barkley’s
hands) used to highlight certain words on the page, and the other cover
is a slim, attractive young woman wearing a green sweater, with a
coordinating sequined top beneath. Green is the chosen color on this
cover, with the highlighted words inviting us to do as the main story
suggests: Go green, get lean. Inside the cover, on the table of
contents, Weight Watchers calls the reader’s attention to the fact that
there are two covers and invites consumers to respond with an e-mail as
to which one they prefer.

Men’s Fitness: The female touch…

May 2012

Two covers this issue, one for the subscriber, the other for the
newsstands. Both have the very enigmatic Beto Perez, the founder of
Zumba, on the cover, but the newsstand issue also has a very
provocative, left-corner shot of Scarlett Johansson from The Avengers,
while the subscriber’s get only their address label located there. The
cover lines are also arranged differently on each magazine, and on the
newsstand issue, there is a promo shot of Jason Kidd, and the command to
“Get Lean” with him. The story “Bigger Arms in Less Time” is more
predominantly featured on the newsstand issue, and there is an
identifying arrow pointing toward Perez that is missing from the
subscriber’s, as well.

Men’s Fitness: The cover lines: Sex vs. Ripped…

June 2012

Two covers for June, subscriber and newsstand. Newsstand gets the
promise of “Your Hotter Sex Issue,” while the subscriber gets “Ripped in
Six Weeks.” The cover story about Stacy Keibler is the same, except for
color and font size (her name is bigger and in red on the newsstand
issue and the title is done in white, versus black on the subscriber’s
copy).

Entertainment Weekly: A sexier image for the subscribers?

April 6, 2012

Two covers for this issue. The newsstand offering has a big, splashy
photo of Jennifer Lawrence, in her Hunger Games regalia, living on the
cover. And the subscriber’s edition has a much calmer, albeit,
provocative, image of a nude, female back, arms crossed in front, and
one hand clutching the New York Times Bestseller, “Fifty Shades of
Grey.” The newsstand issue devotes the entire front cover to The Hunger
Games, with a small mention of James Cameron’s Titanic 3-D (complete
with a small photo of a partially-sinking ship), and the Fifty Shades of
Grey “Exclusive,” as it is written here, while on the subscriber’s cover
it is designated as Fifty Shades of Grey “Exposed,” and Cameron’s
Titanic 3-D has no image. So, the cover lines are very different on the
two magazines.

Women’s Health: No sex for subscribers…

May 2012

Two Covers for the May issue, newsstand and subscriber. If you buy it
from the newsstand, you can have the “Hottest Sex Ever,” and also have
your attention drawn to a story on how to “Look Great Naked,” by having
checkmarks beside each of the criteria, but with the subscriber’s issue,
no such bonuses. There are minute differences in the other cover lines,
such as line placement of words, but no major changes anywhere else.

Seventeen: A collector’s edition…

May 2012

Two newsstand covers, one has Justin Bieber, the other Chloe Grace
Moretz. The Bieber cover is designated as a “Special Collector’s Cover.”
Moretz’s issue has her story, and a chance to win tickets to see her in
Dark Shadows, and Bieber’s issue has his story on the making of his new
album, but both offer a free poster of JB inside the magazines. The
Moretz issue also has a small photo of Bieber next to the poster offer.
The other cover lines are arranged a bit differently on each magazine,
as well.

Real Simple: Different cover lines…

May 2012

Two newsstand covers. One, you can have a cleaner house every day, the
other you can be smarter, happier, and healthier. The smarter, happier,
and healthier issue also has the cover line, “A Cleaner House Every
Day,” but favor wasn’t returned on the other cover. Other than that,
everything is the same.

Southern Living: Cover line placements: Right or left…

April 2012

Two newsstand covers, both with the same luscious-looking strawberry
meringue cake. The main differences are one is left-sided cover lines,
the other is right-sided. Other than that, they are alike.

The Economist: Europe vs. USA

March 24 – 30, 2012

Two newsstand covers. One is the US edition, which has a cover story
about Cuba; the other is the UK version and has a story about Britain’s
budget for global business. The British edition includes the Cuba story
in one of its cover lines, as does the American version with the British
budget story. Other than a piece on Mario Monti in the UK edition, all
the other cover lines are the same.

Elle US: Cover lines, images and design treatment…

May 2012

There are three different covers for the May 2012 issue. While all three
feature the singer and actress, Rihanna, and the two newsstand issues
are very similar, except for the placement and angles of the cover
lines; the subscriber’s copy is a totally different entity. The
photograph of the singer is far-removed from the mega-entertainer look
that she has on the newsstand copies, and the text on the cover is much
less spread out and more compact. There are two cover titles missing
from the subscriber’s issue also.

Elle US: More cloth for sensitive eyes and regions of the country…

April 2012

There are three covers for this issue, two newsstand editions and a
subscriber’s. The newsstand issue offers a very pregnant Jessica
Simpson, one nude, but strategically covered. The background colors are
different, but the cover lines are the same. The subscriber’s issue
features Heidi Klum, and while the Jessica Simpson story is listed, Klum
owns the cover. It’s also missing one cover line story the newsstand
issues have.

Elle UK: Sister sister…

April 2012

There are two newsstand covers for the UK editions, one with Mary-Kate
Olsen, the other with Ashley. The cover lines are the same, but the
background colors are different, and the Olsen’s first names are listed
according to the cover: Ashley’s first on hers, and Mary-Kate’s first on
her page.

Winq. Netherlands: Same magazine, different language, different name

March/April 2012

Mate.:

Spring 2012

The global man’s magazine has two different names, two different
versions, but both have MaDonna as their cover girl. The cover lines are
designed the same, but the content is different, but other than that,
the entire look of both magazines is exact.

GQ: Three images, same magazine…

April 2012

Three different covers for this issue, all of them designated as
“Special Issues.” Cover lines, color scheme, and design are all exactly
alike; the only difference is the models: one is rapper, Drake, and the
other two are actors Dave Franco and John Slattery.

Lucky: Only at Target…

May 2012

Two different newsstand covers. Salma Hayek graces both covers, but one
issue offers a tag the consumer can scan at Target to win a $5000
shopping spree. The other offers one different cover line. Everything
else is the same.

Glamour: Cover line treatment…

May 2012

Two different newsstand covers, same model (Lauren Conrad) and same
overall look, but very different cover lines. While some of the stories
are the same, the words used to describe those articles are very
different on each magazine. The only difference for Glamour: the cover
lines.

Juxtapoz: Creating a collector’s item…

May 2012

Four different newsstand covers, with the cover line (line-as in only
one) the same, just four different photos and artistic images on each
cover.

Harper’s Bazaar: Subscribers deserve less…

May 2012

Two different covers, both with Penélope Cruz on the cover. One, the
subscribers’, has just a faded image of her face, that showcases her
eyes, no cover lines, except for “Eye On The Season,” the other, the
newsstand’s cover, is filled with all the stories inside both magazines.
It’s an amazing contrast.

Entrepreneur: Red sells more on the stands?

April 2012

There are two different covers for this issue: one is red for the
newsstand and the other white for the subscribers. The cover lines are
somewhat rearranged, but nothing too drastic. Overall, other than the
actual magazine color, the other differences are minimal.

Hope you’ve enjoyed the journey…

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Should You Believe All the Apocalyptic Predictions About Today's Hot
Tech Companies? Yeah, Maybe"

By:
Simon Dumenco

The tech-startup sky is falling!

The tech-incumbent sky is falling!

The entire tech sky is falling!

No, seriously, I’m pretty sure they’re all falling. So when you’re done
tweeting or updating or pinning things or checking in, or whatever it is
you’re doing, run for your lives!

.

And don’t blame me. I’m only repeating what I’ve heard and read.
Consider, for example, just from the past couple of months:

“The
Beginning of The End of Google+” by TechRepublic’s Adam Metz, on
April 4, riffing on the fact that Google+ users spend an average of just
three minutes per month on it (vs. 405 minutes for Facebook). “Google is
a fish out of water — they’re a great search and advertising company
that is simply not good at making social-media products used by
consumers,” Metz wrote, echoing what plenty of people (including Ad
Age’s own Ken Wheaton) have been saying about Google and Google+. (Ken,
to his credit, was an early adopter of hating on Google+, trashing it
less than a month after its June 28, 2011, beta launch.)

Also, Dan Lyons of Newsweek/The Daily Beast on April 27: “Antitrust
Suit Could Bring Down Google”

So that leaves Facebook, right? Not so fast! On April 30, Forbes
contributor Eric Jackson published a column titled “Here’s
Why Google and Facebook Might Completely Disappear in the Next 5
Years.” His thesis: The internet has run through the Web 1.0 era,
companies founded from
1994-2001, and the Web 2.0 era, aka the social era, and is now in the
mobile era. Google and Facebook, Jackson wrote, “may have all the money
in the world to try and adapt to the shift to mobile but history
suggests they won’t be able to successfully do it.”

But wait! Google has its Android mobile platform, and that’s huge,
right? Uh, see Business Insider’s post from last week: “Android
Developers Can’t Get Paid And It’s Killing The Platform.”

So
maybe simple, mobile-friendly social sites like Tumblr own the future?
Well. Um. First off, there’s plenty of dark chatter about the fact that
Tumblr Founder/CEO David Karp is suddenly pro-advertising — witness his
star-turn at Ad Age’s Digital conference last month, where he talked up
Tumblr’s “Radar” ad unit — which may turn the stomachs of fickle
Tumblr users who haven’t had to endure pesky interruptions from
sponsors. (Just two years ago, Karp told the Los Angeles Times, “We’re
pretty opposed to advertising. It really turns our stomachs.”)

Even worse, the very premise of Tumblr as a free-for-all haven for
people who get off (so to speak) on sharing images that were just
“found” somewhere on the web
(with nary a cent going to copyright holders) is being challenged right
now.

As
Jeff John Roberts of paidContent reported last week, “In a case with
big implications for the booming market in photo-sharing, a publisher is
suing popular blogging site Tumblr for copyright infringement.”

That company is porn purveyor Perfect 10, which told Roberts that while
other companies readily respond to its DMCA take-down requests, Tumblr
just totally ignores them. Roberts
also linked to a CBS MoneyWatch report that not only claims that
Tumblr is an advertiser-unfriendly porn haven but suggests that its
non-porny precincts face an uphill monetization battle. “If Tumblr and
its bloggers begin earning revenue by running ads next to
copyright-infringing images, lawyers will descend on Tumblr and its
users like lions on an injured antelope,” wrote CBS MoneyWatch’s Jim
Edwards.

That’s delightfully gruesome imagery, but the reality is that if — or
should I say when? — Tumblr goes down (along with, sooner or later,
Google and Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and everything else that
seems so robust right now), it won’t involve sudden carnage. It’s just
that users will move on. The world will move on. And advertisers (those
that showed up) will move on.

And perhaps more to the point, venture capitalists and average investors
will move on, too.

Speaking of which, see the April 20 Silicon Alley Insider Chart of the
Day titled “Groupon
Has Completely Collapsed” — a scary EKG showing what’s happened to
Groupon’s stock price since the company went public. Or better yet,
check out Groupon’s Chicago-area offer from (eerily) that very same day:
“95%
Off Online Stock-Trading Courses.” Specifically, five online
stock-trading courses from an outfit called the Lex van Dam Trading
Academy. A $630 value for just … drumroll, please … $29!
(“Professional trader seen on “Million Dollar Traders’ teaches novices
to turn profits & design balanced portfolios in five steps.”)

Coming from Groupon — whose stock is, as of this writing, 67% off its
all-time high of $31.14 — well, that’s gotta be the most
unintentionally hilarious Groupon offer yet. (Unless I missed, like, an
83%-off anal-bleaching-for-cats deal or something.) Yeah, Groupon, the
white-hot startup that not so long ago Forbes crowned “THE
FASTEST-GROWING COMPANY … EVER.”

My point is that the lesson of the “Attention Economy” is that we all
get sick and tired of everything — so much so that the epic tech
upstart-vs.-incumbent narratives of yore now seem not so much like
business-school case studies, but universal memento mori. Remember when
AOL beat CompuServe? And Yahoo beat, what was it, Lycos? And MySpace
beat Friendster? (And VHS beat Betamax, for that matter?)

To understand tech-company life cycles, you can skip the Harvard
Business Review. Instead, study “Citizen Kane.” And “Death of a
Salesman.” And “The Anatomy of Melancholy.” And the Old Testament.

And while you’re at it — if, on the eve of Facebook’s $100 billion IPO,
you really want to grasp tech investing — “120 Days of Sodom.”

Although, given how fast investors turned on Groupon after its IPO last
November,
120 days might be a bit generous.

Simon Dumenco is the “Media Guy” media columnist for Advertising Age.
You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco.

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BY
Talya Minsberg - a journalist and community moderator at The New York
Times.

A new Israeli law prohibits fashion media and advertising from using
Photoshop or models who fall below the World Health Organization's
standard for malnutrition.

On Monday, March 19, the Israeli parliament passed legislation
ubiquitously known in the country as the Photoshop laws. The new
regulations on the fashion and advertising industry ban underweight
models as determined by Body Mass Index and regulate Photoshop usage in
media and advertising. Abroad, the laws have opened new discussion on a
government's right to intervene in these two industries.

The legislation focuses on two elements of the fashion industry that
have long drawn criticism for their effects on women and, especially,
girls: ultra thin models and the use of Photoshop to make women appear
impossibly thin in advertisements. The measure has been controversial
within Israel for raising the question of where free speech bumps up
against the fashion industry's responsibility -- and its possible harm
-- to its customers' psychological wellbeing. It has also raised the
question of whether other countries might consider similar measures to
address what many activists consider a root cause of an epidemic of
anorexia and other eating disorders.

Rachel Adato, an Israeli parliament member with a background in
medicine, as well as prominent photographer and fashion model agent Adi
Barkan, championed the law.

Barkan has been working to help girls with eating disorders since he
discovered the epidemic firsthand in 1997, when a 15-year-old girl named
Caty asked to meet with him to understand what a "model should look
like." She arrived at the meeting five-foot seven-inches, weighing 79
pounds. "It was obvious she required hospitalization," Barkan told me
over email. Caty was hospitalized for 5 months, during which time Barkan
says he visited daily.

A few months after Caty was released, Barkan appeared as a guest on an
Israeli lifestyle TV show to discuss his work. "During the interview the
hostess told me she had a surprise for me," he recalled, "a girl who
claims I saved her life, and then Caty came in and told her story."

" I'm sure we'll change the attitude all over the world."

"The following morning there were 174 messages on my answering machine
from anorexics and bulimics asking for help. I met all of them."

An icon in the fashion world, Barkan tried to deal with the issue from
the inside: appealing for change within his beloved industry, to an
overwhelmingly negative response of doubts, jabs, and apathy.

"I became immersed in this world very quickly. I gave up the agency and
photography and delved into the dark world of anorexics and bulimics,"
he said. "I realized that only legislation can change the situation.
There was no time to educate so many people, and the change had be
forced on the industry. There was no time to waste, so many girls were
dieting to death."

Working with members of the Israeli parliament, he met Adato. The pair
spent two and a half years working on the legislation: presenting
scientific articles to the Israeli parliament and demonstrating the
connection between media portrayals of peoples' bodies and eating
disorders. The law forbids underweight models from working on
advertisements. A doctor must certify that a model can be employed by
measuring him or her and determining that the model's Body Mass Index
(BMI) is at or above 18.5, which the World Health Organization defines
as indicative of malnutrition. A five-foot, seven-inch individual, for
example, must weigh at least 118 pounds to work as a model in Israel. On
March 19, the bill was easily passed by the majority of the parliament.

Adato explained the legislation and its easy passage simply: eating
disorders are an epidemic in this small country, and the government had
the responsibility to take action to protect the vulnerable.

"In Israel, there are 1,500 new cases of eating disorders every year,
and 10 percent of teenagers suffer from eating disorders," she told me.
Israel's population is only 7.5 million, making the high rate especially
alarming. "We also know that the first cause of death in the age group
of 15-24 is anorexia, so when you hear those numbers, they're frightening."

There's a big difference between health and weight, as Adato was quick
to note, and the BMI value, though imperfect, is the best way to define
a an underweight individual across international standards. "It's easy
for me to adopt the international value that was adopted by the WHO as a
physician and as parliament number. I don't talk about health; I'm
talking about underweight."

Unsurprisingly, there's been backlash from some modeling agencies in
Israel. "Agencies say 'all of our models are eating perfect they're just
skinny' but it's not true and we know it's not true," Adato insisted.
"Only 5 percent of girls that are under
18.5 BMI are girls that are eating well in Israel."

The new law also stipulates that any ad which uses airbrushing, computer
editing, or any other form of Photoshop editing to create a slimmer
model must clearly state that fact. Advertising campaigns created
outside of Israel must comply with the legislation's standards in order
to appear here.

The first legislation of its kind, this law and its architects have
gained an extraordinary amount of international media attention. Within
six days of the bill's passage, Adato says she received 456 media
inquires from all over the world. "According to interest, I'm sure this
will make some change," she told me. "I'm sure we'll change the attitude
all over the world, that this is a disease and people are dying from
anorexia and people need to keep this in mind and in public view."

Daniel Le Grange, professor of psychiatry and director of the eating
disorder program at the University of Chicago, believes that Israel's
legislation on Photoshop could have an even greater impact than its BMI
regulations. "No one is that perfect, no one has Photoshop on their
faces all day long," he said, frustration clear in his voice. "It's very
discouraging for our patients who for one reason or another desire that
perfection, and they page through every magazine and see every face
that's perfect. It's easy to get scooped up that, 'I should look perfect
because they all look perfect.'"

Unrealistic portrayals of beauty in fashion spreads may not be the
ultimate cause of the eating disorder epidemic -- but they are a
contributing factor.

"Developing an eating disorder is a complex process in terms of specific
constellation of personality traits that one's born with," La Grange
explained. "Genetic, environmental, societal things have to come
together in a vulnerable individual, so it's not just one piece that
makes it possible."

"What this [legislation] can achieve is that this vulnerable individual
is protected from environmental things — she may not develop [an]
eating disorder, but since they are so complex it will be difficult to
say,” Le Grange explained.

The media buzz surrounding the new legislation may be one of its biggest
benefits, argued David Herzog, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard
Medical School and director of the Harris Center for education and
advocacy in eating disorders at the Massachusetts general hospital. “I
think the more attention to this area the more likely we are to the
change.”

Still, turning that talk into action — especially government action —
can be tricky and controversial. What is the state’s role in regulating
images that reinforce socially harmful perceptions? At what point does
an image become too dangerous to publish? Where is the line between the
public interest and the free speech rights of media and advertisers?

“I’m supportive of government intervening to provide better health for
public but I also want to be careful about what we’re asking the federal
government to legislate,” Herzog said. “So how do you try to limit the
negative forces? I want to keep the dialogue going, they’re onto
something that’s important, we want to do things that support the
healthy development of our nation.”

Donald Downs, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and an expert
on the First Amendment, says that it would be very tough to pass
something like Israel’s law in the U.S. Congress. “In the U.S., it would
be hard to justify this type of law on either legal or normative policy
grounds,” he said. “The Israeli law is paternalistic in that it
prohibits something because of the effect it might have on others in the
longer term.”

The complexity of eating disorders can make it difficult to justify
complete legislation. “In addition to the legal aspect of the case, such
a law would be in tension with American cultural support for free speech
in cases in which the harm is not direct or clear,” Downs went on. “We
are much more wary of giving the state the power to prohibit expression
in such contexts because the harm is not usually direct.”

The more accepted approach for activism in the United States has been to
put public pressure on the fashion industry to change, without
government intervention. Some have answered the call for change, such as
Dove, which launched the Campaign for Real Beauty in 2004 and a viral
video entitled “Evolution” in 2006, which shows the unbelievable
transformation of an “ordinary” woman into a Photoshopped super-woman.
Its model of positive advertising has brought the brand attention, but
it doesn’t appear to have caught on in the wider advertising or media
industries, which are still Photoshopping away.

In 2007, an industry-wide fashion trade association called the Council
for Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) formed a health initiative that,
according to its website, “is about awareness and education, not
policing. Therefore, the committee does not recommend that models get a
doctor’s physical examination to assess their health or body-mass index
to be permitted to work. Eating disorders are emotional disorders that
have psychological, behavioral, social, and physical manifestations, of
which body weight is only one.”

The CFDA, spokespeople for which did not return requests for comment,
epitomizes the failure of the fashion industry to protect their
employees from within, which is what Barkan rallied for — and also
failed to achieve — in Israel before pushing legislative action. Why
educate models and designers about the existence of these diseases and
then explicitly not recommend a visit to the doctor?

“I believe this small movement that began in Israel is like a stone
thrown into the lake. The waves can reach very far,” Barkan said. “I
went against my industry, this is clear. And no matter how high the cost
I personally paid, it was worth everything. No commercial success for my
agency can be compared to saving lives. I’m not talking about a drastic
change, only a small difference between thin and too thin, between life
and death.”

According to a 1999 study published in Pediatrics, about two thirds of
American girls in the fifth to 12th grades say that magazine pictures
influence their image of an ideal body; about half of girls in those
grades said the magazine images made them want to lose weight. A 2009
American Journal of Psychiatry study determined that the mortality rates
for anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are about four percent, the
highest rates for any mental disorder. When a 14-year-old girl delivered
a 25,000-signature petition this week to Seventeen asking them to curb
their use of Photoshop, the magazine issued a press statement that
congratulated the girl on her ambition but was conspicuously silent on
changing their editorial practices. Maybe Israel’s BMI-indexing,
Photoshop-regulating law isn’t right for the U.S., with our established
speech protections and anti-regulation sensitivities. But, if not that,
then what?

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Are
publishers waking up from their dream about apps?

By Mathew Ingram

When
Apple’s iPad arrived on the scene in 2010, many magazine and newspaper
publishers saw it as a gift from the gods: a chance to turn back the
clock and convince consumers to pay for their content in a new form.
But for many, that dream has given way to the cruel reality that apps
are at best a stop-gap measure, not a dramatic new business model. As
MIT Technology Review editor and publisher Jason Pontin points out – in
a post about why his magazine has decided to kill its app – the benefits
don’t outweigh the negatives for both readers and publishers. It’s a
lesson that some other content producers might want to consider.

The iPad – and the content economy that Apple created along with it,
thanks to iTunes and more recent additions like the Newsstand – was
alluring for many publishers because they believed it could overcome
what they saw as the “original
sin” of not charging for their digital content in the first place.
It seemed like the perfect solution: a device that would replicate the
magazine or newspaper experience in digital form, with Apple handling
all of the annoying back-end details around payment. As Pontin describes
it:

Publishers believed that because they were once again delivering a
unique, discrete product, analogous to a newspaper or magazine, they
could charge readers for single-copy sales and even subscriptions,
reëducating audiences that publications were goods for which they must pay.

This idea soon collided with reality in a number of ways. For
one thing, Apple enforced its usual 30-percent commission on any
subscription sales, and changed the rules to make it more difficult for
publishers to get around that barrier. For a lot of content
companies this was a significant disincentive, since Apple’s cut in some
cases removed any upside to selling content through the device at all.
And then there were the technological
limitations involved in reproducing content on the iPad –
particularly image-heavy magazine issues – which added to the costs, and
made apps less appealing for some users.

Apps don’t fit with the way content works online

But I think Pontin is right when he says that many of these technical or
structural issues weren’t even the biggest problem for content apps. The
biggest problem is that apps are walled gardens by design – most
allow you to share articles through social media, but they don’t contain
links and in most cases they don’t have comments either. And that just
doesn’t fit with the way many people consumer content now, especially
the assumption that users will download a single app or subscribe to a
single provider instead of using aggregators or apps like Flipboard
and Zite. Says Pontin:

When people read news and features on electronic media, they expect
stories to possess the linky-ness of the Web, but stories in apps didn’t
really link. The apps were, in the jargon of information technology,
“walled gardens,” and although sometimes beautiful, they were small,
stifling gardens… I hated every moment of our experiment with apps,
because it tried to impose something closed, old, and printlike on
something open, new, and digital.

That’s not to say some publishers haven’t produced excellent-looking
apps, and there have been some interesting experiments with the app form
- including Richard
Branson’s magazine Project or
the gamified magazine that Gourmet came out with, which “unlocked” new
content after users had consumed a certain number of articles. But
Pontin notes that even successes like Condé Nast, which saw its digital
sales increase by 268 percent last year, arestill
relatively small potatoes in the overall scheme of things: Wired
magazine has just over 7,00 digital single-copy sales, according to
figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which is less than one
percent of paid circulation.

The
Economist is doing better than many others with its digital edition:
according to a recent report from the company, the magazine had about
50,000 subscribers to the iPad version in March. But AdWeek notes
that this still only amounts to about 6 percent of total circulation –
and that is among the highest levels in the industry. As
Pontin points out, a recent Nielsen study found that although 33 percent
of tablet and smartphone users had downloaded news-reading apps,
only 19 percent of the users surveyed had actually paid for them. Says
the MIT Tech Review editor:

The paid, expensively developed publishers’ app, with its extravagantly
produced digital replica, is dead.

Is
Pontin right? Is the dedicated magazine or newspaper app dead? Some
publishers disagree, and
others are increasing their bets on the iPad ecosystem – such as Next
Issue Media, a kind of one-stop newsstand approach. But at the same
time, there seems to be increasing interest in the model adopted by
the Financial Times, which uses HTML5 to duplicate the look and feel of
an app. It’s an approach that is not only cheaper in many cases, but
also allows the publisher to do an end-run around Apple’s
30-percent commission – and in the long run, that could make it a
much more realistic dream for content producers than the one that Apple
has been selling.

Post and
thumbnail images courtesy of Flickr users Jennifer
Moo and Rego Korosi

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An
iTunes Playlist for Magazine Articles? Zinio Thinks Outside the Brand

by Susan Currie Sivek

How many ways can you sell magazine content?

In
the rapidly changing world of digital magazines, we’ve seen all kinds of
variations: multimedia apps, digital replicas, individual stories,
single issues, subscriptions, and even theall-you-can-read buffet
model. But these variations have usually happened within the
boundary of a single magazine brand, rarely blending content from
different publications.

Zinio, which pull together articles
from different magazines on a similar topic for readers’ convenience.
While the collections aren’t yet available for readers to buy as package
deals, Zinio is working on taking the concept in directions that
challenge our ideas about magazines all over again.

DISCOVERING CONTENT IN UNEXPECTED PLACES

Zinio has found that its customers frequently buy digital magazines that
are completely new to them. About 85 percent of readers who buy a single
issue or a subscription through Zinio have never read that magazine in
print before, according to Jeanniey Mullen, global executive vice
president and chief marketing officer for Zinio.

“People were discovering magazines based on specific content they’re
looking for,” Mullen said. “People were starting to shop by categories
[on the Zinio storefront]. They’d see 10 or 20 magazines in that
category and spend a ton of time checking out all the magazines.”

Zinio wanted to find a way to capitalize on readers’ interests in
specific topics, rather than relying on magazines’ existing “brand
cachet,” as Mullen calls it, to draw readers.

A look inside the Academy Awards Content Collection from Zinio.

“We started to look at whether we could help push magazines a little if
we could talk about content in them that was behind the cover,” Mullen
said. “We wanted to help people find content by grouping it into
categories that people can respond to.”

Zinio is now creating and promoting two Content Collections each month
based on timely trends and themes, like the Academy Awards or Mother’s
Day. Zinio staff highlight a selection of articles from Zinio’s digital
magazine offerings, mixing and matching stories from a wide variety of
magazines within each collection. Even little-known and foreign
magazines are included in the mixes. Readers can then preview individual
articles in the collection and choose to buy the single digital magazine
issue where an article appeared, or even buy a digital subscription to
that magazine.

One
recent collection focused on the Titanic anniversary and included
articles from six different magazines. Ideally, readers of the
collection would find new magazines of interest to them because, as
Mullen explained, “While you’d expect the articles would come from
Smithsonian or National Geographic, you’d never guess that Town &
Country would have a great piece on the Titanic.”

Magazines whose articles are featured in collections may also be
discounted to appeal to readers even more.

MOVING BEYOND EDITORS’ CHOICES

Zinio’s collections are still limited in some significant ways. While
readers might find interesting new magazines to buy through this
approach, they can’t simply purchase the collection of articles itself
in one neat package and read it through Zinio’s apps. Readers can
preview articles, but must buy the full digital magazine issues if they
want to see the rest of a story or read the magazine issue beyond the
preview’s limitations.

Magazine publishers will have to agree to the sale of individual
articles in order for Zinio to offer collections as a freestanding
product. Those discussions are underway, Mullen said.

Zinio’s Spring Cleaning Content Collection offers a glimpse inside a
variety of magazines.

The Content Collections are also not yet available directly through the
Zinio iOS or Android apps, mainly due to Apple’s requirements regarding
in-app purchases.

Despite these current limitations, this model presents some
thought-provoking possibilities. Mullen said in the future, Zinio would
like for readers to create their own collections of articles and share
them with others. Individual articles in Zinio publications can
currently be shared through social media using sharing buttons on each
article. However, a Zinio user creating a shared Content Collection
would be more like an iTunes
user publishing a playlist through the iTunes Store. An individual
reader would select and share a collection of articles from different
publications, making that group easily accessible and purchasable for
other interested readers.

“We’ve been working on the concept of choosing what you love and being
able to share it,” Mullen said. “We want to make it possible for
consumers to do what editors do. We can let consumers build
[collections] for us.”

The Content Collections concept raises a lot of questions about not only
the changing function of magazine editors, but also the power of
magazine brands today. Readers do certainly seem interested in gathering
their own selections of content. Curation services like Longreads, apps like Flipboard, and reading utilities like
Instapaper already let readers
identify, gather and redistribute their favorite content via social
media. Generally, though, they don’t pay for that privilege, and their
trust in various curators and friends probably at least equals
magazines’ “brand cachet” in influencing their reading choices.

If we all become editors for each other, what does that do to the role
of professional magazine editors, and the significance of their
publications’ brands? With every innovation, it seems more difficult to
demonstrate the value added to magazine content for readers through the
traditional magazine format, whether print or digital.

Susan Currie Sivek, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the Department
of Mass Communication at Linfield College. Her research focuses on
magazines and media communities. She also blogs at sivekmedia.com, and is the magazine
correspondent for MediaShift.

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Is
Facebook 2012 The Same As AOL 2001?

By Dave Copeland

News
that the use of Facebook’s reader
apps was in a steady freefall got me thinking about AOL.

Or, more specifically, America Online, as the company was known back in
the dot-com bubble, before it took on the AOL moniker as part of one of
many image overhauls.

There was a time when AOL had more than 30 million users for its
Internet services. That seems like a small number by today’s nine-digit
success markers, but consider that at the time, there were only about
250 million people on the Internet. AOL
shares peaked with a market capitalization of $228 billion in 2001.
Today, it is a fundamentally different company focused more on content
creation and distribution and was worth $2.35 billion at Monday’s close.

One of AOL’s downfalls was that it created a walled garden, trying to
keep members within its content areas and making it harder for them to
reach our to the broader Web. Facebook has a reverse strategy, seemingly
trying to pull the entire Web within its walls, and applications like
social readers are part of that strategy. They are designed solely to
keep users on Facebook. If early reports are true some
are suggesting the decline is a result of changes Facebook made to its
newsfeed, investors may give pause and consider the long-term
prospects of the company, even as founder Mark
Zuckerberg hits New York City for a highly-orchestrated road show.
History Repeating Itself?

Beyond the social reader problems, however, there are bigger-picture
similarities between Facebook and AOL. Some may pan out to be real
indicators of Facebook’s future, while others may just be coinicdence.

AOL’s 30 million number becomes even more impressive when you consider
that as of June 2010, there were only 4.4 million still using the
service that made AOL synonymous with junk mail and the mini dopamine
rush first-time Internet users get when they’re told “You’ve got mail!”
What was once ranked as the fourth most important invention of the
Internet’s first 25 years has also been called the “service for people
who don’t know any better.”

While AOL had (and has) a fundamentally different business model from
Facebook, there are certain parallels that are hard to ignore as the
biggest Web company to date prepares to go public.

Complaints about shifting privacy policies leveled at Facebook have the
same ring of consumer outrage as questions back when about AOL’s billing
practices and the busy signals that were frustrating enough to prompt
millions of users to quit. Griping about difficulties in getting
clear-cut answers about closing your Facebook account sounds a lot like
the complaints I heard in 2000 from friends who spent hours trying to
get their AOL accounts canceled after their free trials had expired.

Facebook’s acknowledgement that as many as 6% of user accounts may be
phony or duplicate accounts sounds a lot like AOL’s boast that its
membership peaked at 34 million, not acknowledging that many of those
members were using free hours the company relentlessly handed out in the
form of CD-ROMs.

The Bigger They Are…

We should not, of course, be surprised. In the social networking space
alone, Facebook is just the third in what may be a long line of
disputable heavyweight champions, having knocked off MySpace, which knocked off Friendster.

We should be more surpised by the exceptions to the rules of the tech
business – companies like Amazon.com that came of age in the
dot-com bubble, survived the crash and continue to grow. But history
loves a loser, and AOL is the classic case of “the bigger they are, the
harder they fall.”

Writing
in Forbes last month, Eric Jackson went as far to suggest that in
another five or six years, Facebook
(and, for good measure, he threw in Google) may be gone.

“Not bankrupt gone, but MySpace gone,” he wrote, going on to explain an
economic theory known as population ecology that suggests
“organizational outcomes have much more to do with industry effects than
who the CEO is and the choices he or she makes.” Put another way,
Zuckerberg et al were in the right place at the right time, and their
successor will also be at the right place at the right time.

Big companies struggle to stay big, and that seems to be the theme of
the business press as Facebook’s IPO approaches (even as the tech press,
by and large, buys into the hype). The profile of business teacher and
writer Clayton
Christensen in this week’s issue of the New Yorker never mentions
Facebook, but it’s hard not to think of the company when he uses
integrated steel makers as a model for how big, established players fail
to see and acknowledge new threats to their business model.

Christensen concludes that in any industry, success is difficult to
sustain, if not impossible, and his book, “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” is
a mainstay for CEOs in a wide range of industries (Steve Jobs was a fan,
Michael Bloomberg gave copies to friends and Andy Grove, the C.E.O. of
Intel, was one of the first to understand the significance of
Christensen’s theories).

Zuckerberg revolutionized the way we interact with friends and
“friends,” as well as the way we interact with the online world. The
question for investors is, can his company revolutionize economic history?

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