Event: Future of Business Media

Future of Business Media, an executive conference focused on the future of business and trade media industry concluded in New York yesterday.
Detailed coverage is available here at the paidContent.org website and makes a very interesting read.

PS: The Industry Standard will be resurrected as a blog-cum-community site in December, IDG president Bob Carrigan revealed at the conference.

Trend: Pay-as-you-Please Annual Subscription

Proving themselves to be in touch with the latest in the music industry, PASTE (an entertainment publication for progressive thinkers) has launched a “pay as you please” initiative for subscription.

For a limited time, new subscribers and old readers (US only) can pay what they think right for an 11-issue, annual subscription, starting from $1 to beyond the standard price ($19.95) of a normal subscription.

Anyone paying more than the standard price will be thanked in print, their names published in a future issue of PASTE.

PASTE hopes to attract new readers and make them regular subscribers, the theory being that they will stay for the content after coming in for a cheap price. They also note that this unconventional offer will give them insight into just how much their regular readers think the magazine is worth.

Future: Moving Pictures in Print

MediaWeek's article 'Time Inc. Eyes New Ad Apps' sites the example of lenticular ad for the Fox TV network (in Rolling Stone magazine oct 4 issue) and NBC’s Bionic Woman ad in Entertainment Weekly where the heroine’s mechanically enhanced winker lights up as the start of a creative and technological revolution in print ads.
(See also the Draft 004 lenticular cover in the accompanying picture)
As marketers look for more ways to capture the attention of media-saturated consumers, publishers are exploring much more intricate ad units, up to and including ads that feature video. A media buyer and another industry source confirmed that Time Inc., a sponsor of the MIT Media Lab, is working on technology and has looked at prototypes that would put moving pictures on a page.

Mike Maguire, CEO of Structural Graphics, a maker of high-impact ads, sees such ads as well-suited for demonstrating a new product or change in logo, believes the concept is one to two years away from execution. Ads showing full-color video may not be far behind, he added. .

Read the entire article here

Article: The Economist Archive

In a joint project between Gale - part of Cengage Learning - and the Economist, more than 160 years of articles from the Economist are set to become available online with the launch of The Economist Historical Archive 1843-2003. The archive will contain more than 600,000 pages of the weekly magazine's reporting and analysis.
"The Economist Historical Archive is more than a database - it is a remarkable record of the most significant world events over the past 160 years through the unbiased, probing eyes of the Economist," said John Micklethwait, the magazine's editor-in-chief.
The magazine, which has a worldwide print circulation of more than 1.2m, hopes to target educational institutions, public libraries, government organisations, corporations and financial institutions.
Preview trials of the archive are available and the full archive will be available via subscription in December.
Its website, Economist.com offers readers free access to content under one year old.

Original Source link: mediaguardian

Redesign: Newsweek and BusinessWeek

Business Week and Newsweek are sporting new looks this week. Quotes from the people behind the redesign:
Jon Meacham, Editor, Newsweek:
“Some people in our business believe print should emulate the Internet, filling pages with short, Weblike bites of information. We disagree. There is a simple idea behind the changes in the issue of Newsweek you are holding: we are betting that you want to read more, not less.”

Business Week's Bruce Nussbaum:
“We’re introducing this type of open source aggregation into the new magazine, with blog items, quotes, and content from unusual, global sources surrounding stories, sometimes enhancing them, sometimes disagreeing with them. It’s a conversation, not a lecture."

In an interesting twist, Minoline invites magazine professionals to test "How ‘Redesigned’ Are These Recent Major Magazine Redesigns?

Editorial: Covers that Sell and Covers that don't

The just-published 'Min’s Most Intriguing & Top Selling Magazine Covers' highlights the past few years' most interesting, intriguing, best selling and worst selling covers.
Also has editors' and publishers' picks and musings on their favorite feature stories.
You can order your copy here .

Event: Indian Magazine Congress, 2007

The Indian Magazine Congress 2007 was held in Mumbai on October 8-9.

Here are some highlights:

Postal delivery: Industry veteran and publisher of Delhi Press Paresh Nath pointed out that the postal distribution system for magazines was pathetic, with some 30-40 per cent of magazines getting stolen midway.

Distribution System: Magazines were still following a distribution method that was probably right for newspapers, and this was a major concern for the industry. M.Rajagopalan Nair of ‘Malaya Manorama’ raised the problem of the dependence of magazines on newspapers vendors for distribution and the vendors’ reluctance to pick up magazines. This led to a situation where the consumer had to pick up his own copy, which he did at his own convenience.

Cover Prices: R Rajmohan, president and publisher, Images Multimedia says that rising cover prices have been an most important change as people were willing to pay for quality content.

Imbalance in ad revenue: 20 per cent of the total magazine readership lands up with 60 per cent of the total magazine ad revenue.

Read more on agencyfaqs.com
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/perl/news/index.html?sid=19331
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/perl/news/index.html?sid=19330
http://www.agencyfaqs.com/perl/news/index.html?sid=19332

Trend: Asia Pacific media spend on magazines increases

Asia Pacific magazines pulled 26 per cent more ad dollars in 2006
Nielsen Asia Pacific Media & Marketing Trends 2007 reviews three years of media ad spend trends and consumption insights across 12 markets, and consumer and marketing insights and statistical information across 16 markets. The markets included are Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Australia, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, New Zealand, Taiwan and South Korea.
In terms of Asia Pacific figures overall, main media ad spend, which includes terrestrial TV, newspapers and magazines, across the 12 Asia Pacific markets increased by 15 per cent from US$68.3 billion in 2005 to US$78.7 billion in 2006.
"The last 15 years have seen dramatic changes across the Asia Pacific region, driven by significant economic and demographic development,” said Lisa Lee, SVP of international communications for The Nielsen Company said in a statement. “The effect has been equally dramatic on the shopping habits of the region's consumers. Our combined research resources bring together the first regional and market review of changing consumer lifestyles, attitudes and purchasing behaviour, together with insights into advertising, emerging radio audience markets and consumer trends across key markets in the region."

Source: International Federation of the Periodical Press (FIPP)

Design: Book 'Editorial Design'

This book covers the design of magazines and newspapers for a wide variety of markets. Generously illustrated and including case studies, practical tips, examples of best practice and profiles of individual designers, the book explains the fundamentals of editorial design and layout.
Written by Yolanda Zappaterra, a regular contributor to Design Week, Grafik and Time Out, the book shows how and why editorial design is its own discipline, differing from other areas of graphic design.
Subjects covered include branding, how to create layouts, handling copy and images, design and production skills and trends in editorial design.
Read more here