It's a printer Jim, but not as we know it

It's a printer Jim, but not as we know it
So far, the digital age has been all about information. This is fine if you like that sort of thing - chatting, blogging and texting, etc - but what if you're someone who likes to actually create things, i.e. solid objects? Until recently, you could design them on a computer using 3D software, but they would remain virtual until you built them in a workshop.

Now there's an alternative: desktop machines that allow you to press 'print' and out comes your object in its full 3D glory. It's early days yet for these 3D printers: you can print a cup or a working hinge, for example, but not a working pen. However, it's clear that we're now witnessing a moment in history as significant as when photography changed from black and white to colour. Well, actually, it will probably be much bigger than that.

This 3D technology is currently used by engineers in the aerospace and automobile industries. Formula 1 car designers, for instance, want to constantly modify and replace parts. This technology allows them to design and test components virtually and then press print when they're happy with their designs. These printers are also used by medics to print implants that are digitally tailor-made for patients. The technology is even being used in the arts. For example, some jewellery is now designed on computers to suit the size and tastes of the customer and is then printed off.

The extraordinary thing about this technology is that it turns all the values of mass production on their head. Would we get used to going round to other people's homes for dinner and finding exactly the same knives and forks on the table as we have? But what would happen if you could digitally craft your own cutlery and print it off? Time will tell.

There are now many different types of 3D printing technology and a huge range of materials that can be machine sintered, laser cut, welded, UV cured or just glued. Very importantly, these machines are affordable, so designers and craft cooperatives can now compete in terms of price and precision with big business. Thus this technology doesn't threaten local craftspeople. On the contrary, it supports them at the expense of factories and mass production.

Printing in 3D is revolutionary in another sense, too, because as soon as we can make a machine that can make itself, the means of production will be available to everyone. There are already several groups working on this replicator idea, such as Adrian Bowyer's RepRap project at the University of Bath (www.reprap.org). His vision is to transform the manufacturing capacity of developing countries by making a 3D printer that can not only print useful objects, such as pumps, but also has the ability to print itself.

Some people say that such revolutionary technology will cause a complete upheaval in the economic and manufacturing landscape of the world. What ever happens, I hope that, for once, we engineers and scientists, who are so often the architects of change, engage not just in the economic impact of 3D printing, but also in the massive social, cultural and political changes it will undoubtedly bring to life on this planet.

Dr. Mark Miodownik, Materials Scientist, Kings College London

E-Mail Newsletters Seek to Replace Magazines

Advertisers are finding receptive audiences with the increasingly popular services.
By Alana Semuels
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-list5feb05,1,7359535.story?ctrack=2&cset=true
Evan Friedman isn't lazy, just efficient. Why should he slog through newspapers, entertainment guides, restaurant fliers and concert promotions if someone will do it for him?

Friedman, a 24-year-old from Los Angeles, subscribes to Thrilllist.com, which bills itself as a lifestyle guide for men. It keeps him in the know with daily e-mails that advise him, basically, on how to be cool. He has dined at restaurants it suggested, attended events it plugged and purchased gadgets it recommended, including a cover for his iPhone.

"It's a trusted break in my barrage of e-mail," Friedman said. "It's kind of like an e-mail from a friend."

Thrillist is one of dozens of electronic mailing list services. Some have been around for years but new ones have been popping up recently, godsends not only for Friedman and people like him but also for advertisers.

The services, most supported by ads, reach audiences most magazines only dream of. The median household income of Thrillist subscribers, for instance, is $107,000, dwarfing Sports Illustrated's median of $63,605 and Maxim's of $65,710.

"Magazines like Stuff and Cargo have been going under, and we've been taking their place in the market," said Ben Lerer, a co-founder of Thrillist, which recently launched a Las Vegas edition. Lerer said its L.A. edition was projected to reach 45,000 recipients by next December, which would be an 86% jump from a year earlier.

The idea behind e-mail list services is simple. They bring order to the chaotic mass of information on the Web and elsewhere, seize on relevant information -- or things that the services' employees decide is relevant -- and present it via e-mails to subscribers.

"We appeal to people who like to be on top of things but don't have the time to do it," said Gary Foodim, general manager of Very Short List.

Every service claims a niche. Veryshortlist.com says it "points to excellent new (and sometimes vintage) entertainment and media that haven't been hyped to within an inch of their lives." Dailycandy.com touts itself as "the ultimate insider's guide to what's hot, new and undiscovered." Flavorpill.com says it provides "filtered bits of knowledge that help you better navigate an ever-expanding sea of cultural options."
The field is getting crowded, bursting with lists targeted at specific groups of people. Among them: UrbanDaddy ("an exclusive, daily e-mail magazine devoted to keeping you in the know"), Julib.com ("what's new and hot in the world of restaurants, boutiques and beauty") and Pocketchange.com ("detailing the most expensive goods and services found in New York and Los Angeles").

Most e-mails carry with them at least one ad. Recipients don't seem to mind the marketing, said Kris Hallerman, a senior analyst at eMarketer. "It's not seen as intrusive because people have control." They can always unsubscribe.

Advertisers like to hop onto e-mails that people invite into their mailboxes, especially now that spam filters have gotten better at blocking ad-only messages.

"People that are fans of the list have quite a personal relationship with it; that makes it a good vehicle for the right advertising," said Michael Jackson, president of programming at IAC/InterActiveCorp., which funds Very Short List.
After a Thrillist e-mail mentioned Astor & Black, a tailor that makes inexpensive custom suits, $100,000 worth of suits were purchased in a matter of weeks, the company said. DailyCandy said an e-mail about a movie screening prompted 8,000 RSVPs.

The competition for subscribers is heated. Flavorpill, a weekly list founded in 2000, recently made its content accessible on mobile phones and updates its website frequently, notifying subscribers when there's something new. "We've been looking over our shoulders for seven years, wondering why no one else was doing this," co-founder Mark Mangan said.

DailyCandy is making its archive, which contains eight years of content, more accessible on its website and is trying to bring its subscribers together in the physical world for philanthropic and other events. It recently started sending out daily texts to the mobile phones of people who prefer to receive information that way, and created a mobile website for people to access on their hand-held devices.

"We're always thinking about how to provide new and undiscovered things in different ways going forward," said Pete Sheinbaum, chief executive of DailyCandy Inc. "The fortunate thing for us is that we are requested by users to enter their in-boxes, which is a private space these days."

Magazine Observers See Challenging Year

Memo Pad: Ouch, It Hurts . . . ... Holy Smokes . . .
OUCH, IT HURTS: Magazine publishers are already feeling the pinch from fears of a recession - and many observers expect things to get worse before they get better.
George Janson, managing partner, director of print for Mediaedge:cia, predicts it will be a challenging year, with perhaps minor growth in packaged goods. "If there is any overall growth, it will run between 0 and 2 percent," he said.

Deutsche Bank also maintains a cautious view on the prospects of consumer magazines this year. It expects revenue performance to continue to be constrained since structural pressures remain in key sectors, including automotive and men's lifestyle. According to a report from the bank last month, online revenues are growing quickly but aren't enough to offset erosion elsewhere in the business. "We believe the recent Emap consumer magazines sale for 9.5x EBITDA, compared with an average 11.3x EBITDA M&A multiple for the industry, is a clear indicator of the pressure on consumer magazine asset values at present," the report said.

Retail advertising is turning into a sore spot for many magazines - so what do fashion titles do when one of their key ad categories is down? Focus even more on luxury, it appears.

Valerie Salembier, senior vice president/publisher at Harper's Bazaar, said she just returned from Paris and the only concern she heard was how retail was going in the U.S. She added that, so far, the magazine has experienced no losses from luxury advertisers. Donna Lagani, senior vice president and publishing director at Cosmopolitan, agreed retail continues to be a tough category for the magazine, but added her ad base is diverse enough to offset a downturn in spending.

"If you read the papers, you see that retail is awfully vulnerable because of the comparable-store sales," said Lagani. Still, Kohl's, J.C. Penney, Sears and Wal-Mart are all advertising in Cosmo. "We don't have the reliance on the retail sector as other magazines with whom we compete. We've expanded in technology and packaged goods. There's a lot of money in that stuff." And the Hearst title is also picking up business that would normally go to TV, at least temporarily, thanks to the writers' strike: "One is a beauty client, two are packaged goods," Lagani said.
Talk of a possible recession isn't keeping Carlos Lamadrid, vice president and publisher of Woman's Day, up at night. He argued the magazine's core business is relatively resistant to economic woes. "Our big categories are pharmaceutical, beauty and packaged goods and food. Those are all recession-proof. With pharmaceuticals, you're sick, you need your meds, you take them. People will still eat no matter what. We're not talking gourmet, we're talking Kraft and Quaker. And beauty is a luxury that every woman will continue to indulge in. You may not buy a $600 pair of Gucci shoes, but a new lipstick still perks you up." Ad Age last week cited a Deutsche Bank report that found that cosmetics sales decreased 2.2 percent to $790.4 million during the fourth quarter of 2007, with lip treatments dropping 10.9 percent.

Lamadrid did concede that retail is a trickier prospect. "We carry some apparel, but it's been difficult to build that business, because their business is so soft. At the same time, if the consumer who was going more upmarket starts to come back to masstige, that presents an opportunity. Our reader is a Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, Kohl's, Target shopper, and shop up toward Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom."

GQ publisher Pete Hunsinger said retail sales are an issue and he sees some advertisers shifting their allocations a little in response. "People are holding off - if they did an eight-page insert last year, maybe they do a four-pager this year," he said. "If they did a spread, maybe they're doing a page."

He added GQ has actually added luxury auto accounts so far this year. The men's title was up a little in January, up 10 percent in February and slightly down in March.
Of course, some publishers expressed reason for optimism. Details publisher Chris Mitchell said after a slow start, his magazine's endemic businesses of fashion and retail "are so far holding or growing." He added the magazine had its best March and April ever this year. And Elle publisher Carol Smith said she's closed four record issues so far, calling upon the old saying that "things are never as good or as bad as they look." She added, "Despite the bleak headlines, luxury marketers - for the most part - haven't given up on consumers."

It remains to be seen how long that will be the case. One media buyer who works with luxury clients, particularly in Europe, emphasized global economic shifts over a U.S.-centric view. European brands, he said, were spooked by the devastating losses of the fraud at Société Général, and consumer confidence both domestically and internationally has been rattled.

The media buyer said advertisers' decision-making would likely be on the short term, with fewer long-term commitments. "We have people coming back from meetings and saying, 'We need a contingency plan. We need to hold back resources.'" - Amy Wicks, Irin Carmon and S.D.S.

HOLY SMOKES: Ellen von Unwerth has rankled her share of Catholic Bostonians by photographing what looks like a handful of nuns sketching a naked man for Equinox Fitness clubs' new campaign. After the ad appeared in Boston magazine earlier this week, angry callers and e-mailers started barraging the Back Bay club with complaints. Then the local media jumped on the story, further stoking the fires about the Fallon-made ads.

Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, has called for an apology and wants the ads yanked. He told one news agency, "It's offensive to religious women who dedicate their lives for the good works of the church." But Equinox isn't headed for the confessional, and still plans to run the ad in Esquire and Vanity Fair. The company's spokeswoman, Judy Taylor, said, "The ads capture the energy and artistry of the well-conditioned body in a thought-provoking fashion, blending fantasy and impact." - Rosemary Feitelberg

Magazine Observers See Challenging Year

Memo Pad: Ouch, It Hurts . . . ... Holy Smokes . . .
OUCH, IT HURTS: Magazine publishers are already feeling the pinch from fears of a recession - and many observers expect things to get worse before they get better.
George Janson, managing partner, director of print for Mediaedge:cia, predicts it will be a challenging year, with perhaps minor growth in packaged goods. "If there is any overall growth, it will run between 0 and 2 percent," he said.

Deutsche Bank also maintains a cautious view on the prospects of consumer magazines this year. It expects revenue performance to continue to be constrained since structural pressures remain in key sectors, including automotive and men's lifestyle. According to a report from the bank last month, online revenues are growing quickly but aren't enough to offset erosion elsewhere in the business. "We believe the recent Emap consumer magazines sale for 9.5x EBITDA, compared with an average 11.3x EBITDA M&A multiple for the industry, is a clear indicator of the pressure on consumer magazine asset values at present," the report said.

Retail advertising is turning into a sore spot for many magazines - so what do fashion titles do when one of their key ad categories is down? Focus even more on luxury, it appears.

Valerie Salembier, senior vice president/publisher at Harper's Bazaar, said she just returned from Paris and the only concern she heard was how retail was going in the U.S. She added that, so far, the magazine has experienced no losses from luxury advertisers. Donna Lagani, senior vice president and publishing director at Cosmopolitan, agreed retail continues to be a tough category for the magazine, but added her ad base is diverse enough to offset a downturn in spending.

"If you read the papers, you see that retail is awfully vulnerable because of the comparable-store sales," said Lagani. Still, Kohl's, J.C. Penney, Sears and Wal-Mart are all advertising in Cosmo. "We don't have the reliance on the retail sector as other magazines with whom we compete. We've expanded in technology and packaged goods. There's a lot of money in that stuff." And the Hearst title is also picking up business that would normally go to TV, at least temporarily, thanks to the writers' strike: "One is a beauty client, two are packaged goods," Lagani said.
Talk of a possible recession isn't keeping Carlos Lamadrid, vice president and publisher of Woman's Day, up at night. He argued the magazine's core business is relatively resistant to economic woes. "Our big categories are pharmaceutical, beauty and packaged goods and food. Those are all recession-proof. With pharmaceuticals, you're sick, you need your meds, you take them. People will still eat no matter what. We're not talking gourmet, we're talking Kraft and Quaker. And beauty is a luxury that every woman will continue to indulge in. You may not buy a $600 pair of Gucci shoes, but a new lipstick still perks you up." Ad Age last week cited a Deutsche Bank report that found that cosmetics sales decreased 2.2 percent to $790.4 million during the fourth quarter of 2007, with lip treatments dropping 10.9 percent.

Lamadrid did concede that retail is a trickier prospect. "We carry some apparel, but it's been difficult to build that business, because their business is so soft. At the same time, if the consumer who was going more upmarket starts to come back to masstige, that presents an opportunity. Our reader is a Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, Kohl's, Target shopper, and shop up toward Macy's, Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom."

GQ publisher Pete Hunsinger said retail sales are an issue and he sees some advertisers shifting their allocations a little in response. "People are holding off - if they did an eight-page insert last year, maybe they do a four-pager this year," he said. "If they did a spread, maybe they're doing a page."

He added GQ has actually added luxury auto accounts so far this year. The men's title was up a little in January, up 10 percent in February and slightly down in March.
Of course, some publishers expressed reason for optimism. Details publisher Chris Mitchell said after a slow start, his magazine's endemic businesses of fashion and retail "are so far holding or growing." He added the magazine had its best March and April ever this year. And Elle publisher Carol Smith said she's closed four record issues so far, calling upon the old saying that "things are never as good or as bad as they look." She added, "Despite the bleak headlines, luxury marketers - for the most part - haven't given up on consumers."

It remains to be seen how long that will be the case. One media buyer who works with luxury clients, particularly in Europe, emphasized global economic shifts over a U.S.-centric view. European brands, he said, were spooked by the devastating losses of the fraud at Société Général, and consumer confidence both domestically and internationally has been rattled.

The media buyer said advertisers' decision-making would likely be on the short term, with fewer long-term commitments. "We have people coming back from meetings and saying, 'We need a contingency plan. We need to hold back resources.'" - Amy Wicks, Irin Carmon and S.D.S.

HOLY SMOKES: Ellen von Unwerth has rankled her share of Catholic Bostonians by photographing what looks like a handful of nuns sketching a naked man for Equinox Fitness clubs' new campaign. After the ad appeared in Boston magazine earlier this week, angry callers and e-mailers started barraging the Back Bay club with complaints. Then the local media jumped on the story, further stoking the fires about the Fallon-made ads.

Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the Boston Archdiocese, has called for an apology and wants the ads yanked. He told one news agency, "It's offensive to religious women who dedicate their lives for the good works of the church." But Equinox isn't headed for the confessional, and still plans to run the ad in Esquire and Vanity Fair. The company's spokeswoman, Judy Taylor, said, "The ads capture the energy and artistry of the well-conditioned body in a thought-provoking fashion, blending fantasy and impact." - Rosemary Feitelberg

Magazine" Inkjet Technology to Dominate Drupa

BoSacks Speaks Out" The following paragraph caught my eye and I thought it was worth passing on:

"It's the first time we have seen continuous inkjet in the category of glossy media and catalogues," Kodak chief technical officer Bill Lloyd told reporters.

This seems to me to the logical next step in printing magazines. It is an enormous opportunity to personalize edit to individual readers. It gives any publisher the ability to have multiple niches within a single long press run.

"Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth."
- Jules Verne

"Magazine" Inkjet Technology to Dominate Drupa
BY Barney Cox, PrintWeek,
http://www.printweek.com/drupa/news/778768/Inkjet-technology-dominate-Drupa-Kodak-Xerox-launches/

Drupa 2008 is set to live up to its billing as 'the inkjet Drupa' after both Kodak and Xerox revealed plans to show new inkjet technologies. Both firms have pledged to reveal new high-speed inkjet technology at the Düsseldorf event, although the two have widely diverging views on the potential applications for the technology. Kodak has revealed plans to commercialise its Stream technology, un­­veiled at last week's pre-Drupa media week, within two years and claims it offers "offset class" performance that will transform the industry.
"It's the first time we have seen continuous inkjet in the category of glossy media and catalogues," Kodak chief technical officer Bill Lloyd told reporters.

Kodak predicts that a trillion pages per year, which is the equivalent of 1% of the world's printed pages, will be produced using Stream technology by 2015.

At Drupa, Stream will be shown as a one-up, 150m per minute concept press and the firm plans to begin selling products based on the technology by 2010.

Xerox's approach to inkjet development is more cautious. The firm has suggested inkjet will be a niche technology, despite having registered more than 1,200 patents for inkjet technology developments.
"We believe inkjet has its place and is suitable for very high volumes," said Xerox production systems group vice president of marketing Valerie Blauvelt. "People have high-quality applications inkjet is not suitable for. These include direct mail and transactional."

Blauvelt described Xerox as "not a single technology company" and added the firm was going to continue to develop products based on xerography and solid ink.

The firm used last week's conference to launch two new machines, the 490/980 colour continuous feed printers and the 650/1300 continuous feed printers.

USPS Performance Indicates Rough Year Ahead

USPS Performance Indicates Rough Year Ahead
Continued volume declines could threaten CPI cap, certain services.
BY Matt Kinsman
First Class Mail volume declined in the first fiscal quarter of 2008, while Standard Mail, which typically makes up for the decline in First Class, also fell, raising a red flag of warning about the stability of the entire USPS rate structure.

First Class Mail, made up of personal letters, most bills, and Standard Mail, which includes catalogs and direct mail, combined accounts for about 94 percent of the total mail processed by the United States Postal Service. If those categories continue to decline, the billions in revenue they produce will decline too, forcing the USPS to raise rates, probably across the board, including for magazines.

Standard mail declined by 2.6 percent to 27.7 billion pieces in the first fiscal quarter of 2008, and First Class declined by 3.9 percent, to 24.4 billion pieces.

Revenue was up 3.5 percent to $20.4 billion in the first quarter and the USPS posted a profit of $672 million. However, the revenue was $500 million less than forecast for the first quarter (October through December), which is typically the best-performing financial period for the USPS because of the holidays.

"As First Class and Standard decline, together which pay for almost all of fixed costs, something will have to pay those fixed costs," says David Straus, postal counsel for American Business Media. "My guess is we'll see tension building with the CPI cap, reduced volumes and USPS cost-cutting efforts met with Congressional opposition. One of most pressing issues will be the Postal Service's efforts at reconfiguring its network, contracting out some of its labor and whether they'll be stymied by Congress or whether they can downsize. We could see a reduction of service, including cutting out some deliveries. There are all sorts of wild theories out there, like charging for home delivery."

When the USPS agreed to the CPI cap last fall, Nina Link, president and CEO of Magazine Publishers of America, said: "Having the next increase, which is likely in the spring, and all future increases under the CPI system will literally save publishers billions of dollars in postage costs in the coming years."

Worldwide, magazines are holding up

Worldwide, magazines are holding up
Forecast of 3.4 percent growth in ad spending to 2010
By Heidi Dawley
Magazine publishing in the U.S. may have become gloomy for certain categories, but worldwide it's in healthy shape, with emerging markets making up for the slowdowns in mature markets like the U.S.
And the picture for magazines worldwide looks brighter still going forward, even if they're not seeing anywhere the growth in ad revenue as the internet.

Worldwide ad spending on magazines grew 2.7 percent in 2007, and that pace is forecast to pick up to 3.4 percent a year through 2010.

Much of that growth is coming in countries like India and China.
"It is still a relatively positive outlook in the west, but much more so in the emerging markets," says Rolf Rohwer, marketing and research manager at the International Federation of the Periodical Press, which just released a new study.

But even with the growth in the developing markets, magazines are seeing their share of total media dollars shrink, and that's expected to continue, falling from 12.5 percent in 2006 to 11.4 percent by 2010, according to figures provided to IFPP by ZenithOptimedia.

But there's some consolation. Spending on magazines has kept ahead of inflation over recent years, always a welcome sign for any media. Notes Jonathan Barnard, head of publications for ZenithOptimedia: "It is rising in real terms."

Also, as Barnard further notes, magazines are doing better than newspapers worldwide, where ad spending is forecast to rise roughly 2.8 percent a year on average over the next three years.

Barnard thinks this is the case in part because the magazine experience isn't so easily replicated online. "The experience of reading a magazine is different from a newspaper. The relaxed experience people have browsing through the magazine isn't the same while you are in front of your computer console clicking away."

But magazines have also held the attention of the younger generation better than newspapers, he notes.

What's driving the growth of magazines in developing economies is the emergence of a middle class of growing affluence. They can afford magazines as they could not before, and they can afford the products advertised in them. That in turn makes magazines a more attractive medium to brand advertisers, more so than newspapers.

In China, ad spending on magazines more than doubled between 2001 and 2006, from $145 million to $375 million, and it's forecast to reach $515 million this year. Magazines have also grown their share of market, from 2.3 percent in 1995 to 3.3 percent in 2006.
In the U.S., magazines ad spending grew from $21.5 billion in 2001 to $25.2 billion in 2006 and is forecast to hit $28.3 billion in 2008, according to FIPP figures.

Custom Publishing Gets a Makeover

BoSacks Speaks Out; Someone please explain to me the difference between general publishing in the new digital world order and custom publishing. This article states that

custom publishers would rather call themselves "custom marketers." That's because what used to be custom publishing now includes word-of-mouth, the internet, e-mail newsletters, mobile alerts, deeper database crunches and complex behavioral modeling. Does that or does that not sound like a ripe formula for our traditional publishers as we head deeper and deeper into nichedom?
So I put forward the proposition that niche publishing and custom publishing - no, make that custom marketing - is the very same thing, and that a profitable rose by any other name is still and yet a profitable rose.

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."
William Shakespeare

Custom Publishing Gets a Makeover
Fueled by Tech Advances, Niche Expands to Include E-Mail, Word-of-Mouth
By Nat Ives
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=123338
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Custom publishing, the arm of the magazine business that turns out titles such as Jeep and Departures, is being transformed as surely and swiftly as any other feature in the media landscape -- to the point that some practitioners even correct you for still calling it custom publishing.

"We would rather call it custom marketing today," said Wendy Riches, exec VP at one of the biggest custom players, Meredith Publishing Group. That's because what used to be custom publishing now includes word-of-mouth, the internet, e-mail newsletters, mobile alerts, deeper database crunches and complex behavioral modeling.

The expansion in related spending can hardly help but transform the field at the same time: Custom revenue ballooned to $37.4 billion in 2006 from $22.1 billion just two years before, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

Connecting with customers
Then there's the media and marketing revolutions going on elsewhere, which have served to elevate the relationship management that is custom's key strength. "In a world of oversupply, where there's very little product differentiation in the marketplace and even some commoditization, it then becomes critical for these organizations to truly create a relationship with their existing customers," said Chris Schraft, president of Time Inc. Content Solutions.

Custom publishing and associated efforts, as a result, are marching across the magazine business. Content Solutions, whose publications include MyFord and Merrill Lynch Rewards, recently opened an interactive-specialist unit called Liquid Dialogue. Next month the Custom Publishing Council, up to 90 members from 25 when it split from the Magazine Publishers of America in 2002, will publish the second issue of Content, its own magazine.

"The core premise of why people do custom publishing hasn't changed," said Val Valente, VP-publishing director at Rodale Custom Publishing, which has produced titles for major advertisers including Bloomingdale's, Kraft Foods and Johnson & Johnson. "The desire to communicate directly with consumers, control the message, wrap the brand in an editorial context, generate loyalty, express a brand identity -- all those reasons still hold true. Custom publishing has become part of the larger concept that's out there in the market called branded content, where companies are saying, 'We need to control our message.' We're just riding that wave."

Targeting
Maybe so, but the surfboards are getting pretty fancy. Meredith, for example, recently bought a database-analytics company called Directive to build out its custom abilities. "As the technology's gotten better, the costs have come down," Ms. Riches said. "We can now build enormously strong predictive models to help us. It would be who's most likely to be interested in this new car, what are the characteristics of a really high-value owner, somebody who changes their car frequently, who is loyal to a particular make of car."

Mark Stanich, chief marketing officer of American Express Publishing, said the sector could still use a higher profile. "Custom does get overlooked sometimes," he said. "But it's really cost-efficient, and it's really targeted. You know exactly who these people are, and you know they buy a lot of stuff from you. Why wouldn't you want to talk with them?"

Print Inserts Pass TV Ads As Important Influence in Purchase Decisions

Print Inserts Pass TV Ads As Important Influence in Purchase Decisions
Based on research findings released by Vertis Communications, twenty-seven percent of adults indicated they look for information in advertising inserts as part of making a purchase decision. That's up from 19% ten years ago. Television advertising is no longer the main influencer in purchasing decisions, according to Vertis. TV ads are now the main influencer for 8% of consumers, compared to 22% in 1998.

Other research findings indicate that women have become more involved in the decision making process for purchasing home electronics products. In 1998 about 69% of women 18 to 24 participated in such decisions, but as of this year 91% report being part of the process, says Vertis.

The report, Vertis' Customer Focus: Decade of Data study revealed that for adult men 18 and older, TV advertising is no longer the main influencer in their purchasing decisions, down 8 percent from 1998 to 22 percent.

Advertising inserts have grown to become the most influential medium for both adult men and all adults in America. Twenty-four percent of men and 27 percent of total adults indicated they turn to this medium when making a purchasing decision, compared to just 16 percent and 19 percent, respectively, 10 years ago.

Scott Marden, director, marketing research for Vertis Communications, says " . . .Americans' use of new media, entertainment and information vehicles have become increasingly more fragmented... "

Looking deeper into the study, young adults have drifted away from personal interaction when choosing leisure activities. Since 1998, the number of young adults participating in team sports has decreased from 19 percent to 13 percent, while the amount of time spent with computers has drastically increased, from 8 percent to 21 percent in the same 10 years.

Additionally, the number of young adults going out to the movies has decreased from 13 percent in 1998 to just 3 percent in 2008, while the number of adolescents staying home to watch television or rent videos has increased from 24 in percent in 1998 to 32 percent in 2008.

Marden continued, "...tracking trends in leisure preferences and media activities arms marketers with an acute awareness of where and when this important consumer group can be reached."

The Customer Focus: Decade of Data study, which surveyed 3,000 consumers via telephone, further revealed the following:

· In 2008, 91 percent of women ages 18-24 report they are a part of the process, with cell phones, desktop computers and digital cameras being some of the most popular purchases for this age group

· 68 percent of women age 50 and older now have access to the Internet, up from 30 percent in 1998

· In the past 10 years, the percentage of women ages 25-34 who are single or living with their significant others has increased from 30 percent in 1998 to 38 percent in 2008

· In 2004, 31 percent of adults indicated they entered a store without any prior research; this number is down to 17 percent in 2008. Prior to entering a store in 2008, the study indicates approximately 57 percent of adults will look through advertising circulars, 50 percent will conduct research on the Internet, and 38 percent will utilize catalogs to retrieve additional information

· In today's current crises in the housing and gas markets, 40 percent of Americans indicated they're less likely to make purchases over $100 in the coming year, 24 percent more than after 9/11

· Adults are shifting their vacation agendas in 2008 to include fewer trips via automobile, decreasing 5 percent since 1998, while fewer adults are planning to take a vacation in 2008, down from 70 percent 10 years ago to 67 percent today.

· 40 percent in 1998 to 43 percent in the new year

In men's magazines, a question of size

BoSacks Speaks Out;

I'm not the first nor the last to say it, but as we all know, it's not the size, but the magic it performs that counts. This is as true for magazines as anything else. The discussion below of alternate, smaller-sized magazines is neither new nor all that adventurous. The magazines will work very well for some readers and not so well for others. At best they are a stop-gap performance. The sizes that are now being discussed for these travel-sized magazines are pretty much the same size as the Sony e-reader and the Amazon Kindle. So, is the magazine industry laying the ground work for size acceptance with this new introduction or is it just my imagination? OK, I guess it's just my imagination.

"An optimist will tell you the glass is half-full; the pessimist, half-empty; and the engineer will tell you the glass is twice the size it needs to be"
- Unknown

In men's magazines, a question of size
Britain's FHM will introduce a travel-size edition
By Heidi Dawley
http://www.medialifemagazine.com/

In men's magazines, the eternal question is whether size does in fact matter, and in Britain, where competition among men's titles has been especially fierce, it's a question that's being asked more and more.

FHM thinks it may have the answer.

This spring, the monthly title is set to launch a smaller version that it hopes will help attract readers on the go.

This idea of what's called a travel-size edition is not new. It's been a popular tactic in the women's market for some years now. FHM will be one of the few major men's titles to give it a go.

Media buyers think it might well attract new readers. "The travel format has certainly seemed to work in the women's sector. A number of magazines have brought it out," says Steve Goodman, managing director, print trading at GroupM. "So for FHM to try it is a very sensible move."

For FHM, as well as its brethren, the last few years have not been stellar. The magazine sold an average of 311,590 copies a month in the first six months of 2007, according to ABC figures. That was down 25.9 percent on the same six months in 2006 and way down from the 750,000 copies it sold monthly not so many years ago.
Among the problems facing FHM and the other monthlies was the flush of men's weeklies launched in recent years, mostly downmarket publications. That led the monthlies to chase downmarket in an effort to hold onto their readers, and not with success. "They were tarnished with that," says Mark Gallagher, press director at Manning Gottlieb OMD.

But the monthlies have also been hurt by the internet, which comes as no surprise.
So in 2007, FHM brought in a new editor Anthony Noguera, who had been head of Emap's men's magazine portfolio, to help bolster FHM's fortunes. Noguera oversaw a redesign that came out in August.

"FHM is very different from how it was a few months ago. It is less in that downmarket sphere that it was pulled into to compete with the others," says Gallagher.

The decision to bring out a travel edition, which will be published in select markets alongside the larger edition, is likely to be another part of that effort to help create distance from the others in the market, believes Gallagher.

FHM has not yet said how big the travel edition will be. The regular edition is 12 inches by about 8 ¾ inches.

The travel edition is likely to be similar in size to other travel editions in the glossy monthly market. For instance, Glamour, the magazine credited with bringing this size to the market, is 8 ¾" tall and just over 6 ½" wide.

FHM has said that the travel edition will be a scaled-down version of the regular edition, having the same content and page layouts. It will retail for the same price as the full-size edition -- $7.60 an issue.

The travel size first really took off in Britain in 2000 when Glamour launched into the market. The magazine chose what it called the "handbag size" when it launched.

Glamour flew off the newsstands, overtaking Cosmopolitan to become the No. 1 women's glossy just about 18 months after launch.
Not surprisingly, others followed suit, launching travel editions alongside their regular-sized editions in commuter markets.

A number of publications continue to publish at least part of their circulation in this format, including Marie Claire and Elle, which implies that the publishers believe it to be successful, although it hasn't resulted in huge upward spikes in circulation.

How it does for men's titles is an open question. One title that tried it was James Brown's Jack magazine. It launched in that size, but later abandoned it and has since folded.

http://www.medialifemagazine.com/artman2/publish/Magazines_22/In_men_s_magazines_a_question_of_size.asp

A Venerable Magazine Energizes Its Web Site

A Venerable Magazine Energizes Its Web Site
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
A year ago, The Atlantic's Web site was, to put it gently, weak - in content, staff, traffic and advertising.
Today, with big-name bloggers and video, it barely resembles the same site, having evolved into one of the livelier places on the Web for public policy debate and news analysis. And the number of readers going to the site has quadrupled.
Readership will get another boost starting Tuesday, when TheAtlantic.com will abolish the fire wall that has allowed only subscribers to the print magazine to see most of its articles online. It will make its archive accessible, too.

Executives hope that a rise in traffic brings to The Atlantic, one of the nation's oldest publications, something it hasn't had in many years: a profit.

The Web site "functioned for too long as just a marketing arm for the print magazine, rather than publication in its own right," said James Bennet, the editor in chief. For years, he said, "it was a very small number of people, working very hard, who kept it alive."

Other magazines that report on public affairs and culture, like The Economist, Harper's and The New Republic, also have fire walls; The New Yorker does not, although some articles cannot be read online.

By comparison, a year ago The Atlantic made fewer articles available to nonsubscribers and offered less Internet-only material. It had no blogs. But in February, it hired Andrew Sullivan, the iconoclastic, sometimes conservative commentator, who is one of the nation's most prominent journalists. Justin Smith, the president of Atlantic Media, estimated that the addition of Mr. Sullivan's blog accounts for 30 percent of the increased traffic.

In April, James Fallows, a national correspondent for the magazine who has a big following, moved his own blog to TheAtlantic.com. Several other bloggers, on both the political left and right, were added over the course of the year. The result has been a sort of digital conversation, with writers testing themes that later turn into long-form articles, and responding - sometimes negatively - to each other's postings and to articles in the magazine.

"A highly turbulent Web site where people are engaging in argument with each other turns out to work very well with the idea of a polished monthly magazine about the same kind of political and cultural debate," Mr. Bennet said.

The site has added video and put more articles outside the fire wall, including archival pieces by the likes of Mark Twain.

The number of visitors jumped to 308,000 last month from 72,000 in December 2006, according to comScore Media Metrix. (Like most publications, The Atlantic says the true numbers are much higher.) The print magazine sells about 400,000 copies, a figure that has more or less held steady.

Mr. Smith said The Atlantic had long done a poor job of selling ads online but is hiring more ad sellers, and Goldman Sachs will sponsor the elimination of the fire wall, buying all the ad space this week.

"The magazine is still in the red, in the $3-to-$5-million range," he said, but he hopes to be in the black in five years.

The Atlantic seems to have stabilized after a period of turmoil. The previous editor in chief, Michael Kelly, stepped down in 2002, and the owner, David G. Bradley, left the post vacant for more than three years. (Mr. Kelly was killed in Iraq in 2003 while reporting for the magazine.)

While the managing editor, Cullen Murphy, ran the magazine, it won numerous awards for excellence but circulation dropped sharply. In 2005, Mr. Bradley moved The Atlantic from Boston, where it was founded in 1857, to Washington, leading Mr. Murphy and many other staff members to leave.

For a few months, it seemed that no one was in charge, until Mr. Bennet was hired less than two years ago.

Because of Niches, Magazines Still Strong

Because of Niches, Magazines Still Strong
By Steve Tarter, Journal Star
Jan. 20--PEORIA -- While the Internet casts a giant shadow over much of the print world, magazines remain in the sun.
Newspaper publishers fret that younger readers go online for their news, but magazines continue to command loyal audiences, many of them young.

"There are more magazines than ever before," said Samir Husni, a journalism professor at the University of Mississippi known as "Mr. Magazine" with a Web site dedicated to the subject. "There are more specialized magazines today than there were in the mid-1960s." Husni said magazines have changed, most notably with the demise of "the 800-pound gorilla," he said, referring to general-interest magazine.

Richard Stolley, formerly of Pekin, was an editor at Life when the fabled weekly folded in December, 1972.

"Everybody was devastated. Subscribers were upset. It was a grim experience," said Stolley, who started his media career as a 15-year-old sports editor for the Pekin Times in 1944.

At the time Life went under, its circulation was 8 million, Stolley said. "We picked up the Look subscriber list (after that magazine closed) but that only hastened its demise. Production costs were astronomical. We were losing money on every magazine," he said.

Other magazines have replaced old titles, but with a different approach.

"We've seen the demise of Life, Look and other general-interest magazines but since the mid-1990s, there's been a big explosion of titles on the marketplace," said Husni.

"Publishers no longer launch magazines looking for a million readers. The new face of magazines are niche titles that may never exceed 10,000 in circulation," he said.

Husni estimated only 10 percent of the magazines published today fall into the general-interest category, down from 30 percent just 20 years ago.

While niche titles proliferate the magazine industry is seeing other changes. "The big three newsweeklies -- Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report -- have lost 1 million readers in combined circulation over the past 16 years," said Mark Glaser, who writes an online media column for the University of Southern California's school of journalism.

"But the magazine business as a whole remains relatively healthy because of the rise of so many niche publications and the staying power of glossy entertainment news," he said.

Magazines have met the challenge of the Internet, note observers like Ed Moran, director of product innovation at the New York-based consulting firm Deloitte & Touche USA.

"There's something very seamless and easy about reading a magazine. They're high-quality, have high-resolution images. They're easy to scroll through and they don't need an Internet connection," he said in an interview with Media Life magazine. "Online can be a pale representation and I think that's something we tend to forget." Said a report from Washington, D.C.-based Bivings Group, a firm that creates Web sites for national companies: "We can expect that the pressure on magazines to 'change their ways' is less forceful than the pressure facing newspapers.

"Many experts in the newspaper industry fear the evolution of the Internet and theorize that newspapers must either 'change or die' -- either leverage the Internet or face being replaced by it," the report said. "In contrast, it is unlikely that magazines, complete with their glossy photos, eye-catching headlines and tangible qualities could actually be replaced by the Internet." That's not to discount the impact the Internet has had on the magazine industry. Many magazines now maintain Web sites for additional communication with readers -- through forums, blogs, games and contests.

"Digital editions of magazines are more like a TV channel than a magazine. The good ones are not competition to print, just a different medium," said Husni. "The problem with many of the (magazine) Web sites I've seen is that they are one-way streets. We send readers to the Web from the print side and we never ask them to come back.

"Rather than looking at technology as a competitor, we need to look at it as an add-on." There's room for all media when the focus is on a subject people want to know about, Husni said. "Look at celebrity magazines. It's not just People. We have six different celebrity titles that are all successful because we have the Internet and TV feeding the addictiveness of the public," he said.

Being able to adapt to change is key, Husni added. "I tell people that newspapers are not dying but committing suicide because they refuse to change content," he said.

An example of how specific some magazines get is Garden and Gun, one of the hottest new magazines in 2007, Husni said on his Web site, mrmagazine.com. "What started as a celebration of the sporting life and the Southern land has evolved into a magazine full of experiences and sights and sounds that engages not only those living or intrigued by that lifestyle but also by those who appreciate the art and culture of the South," he noted.

While most young people have gravitated to the Web, some magazines still count on a youthful audience. "When reading for pleasure, boys prefer magazines over books and newspapers," said Kristen Harrison, a professor of speech communication at the University of Illinois.

Harrison, who is doing a research project with another U of I professor, Bradley Bond, said video game magazines are among the most influential with preadolescent boys. "If you look at these magazines, video game characters (displayed in magazine ads) are depicted as superheroes having bodies with oversized muscles," she said.

The U of I team concluded exposure to gaming magazines promotes a drive for muscularity in young males, a drive that might lead to steroid use.

Conversely, a thin body appears to be the model for many girls' magazines, said Harrison.

Young people remain interested in working on magazines, said Jim Burwitz, who teaches a class on magazine production at Bradley University.

"I'm pleasantly surprised how strong the interest is in four-color publications. People say it's a dying medium but it's far from its way out," said Burwitz, editor of Pathways, the alumni publication for the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria.

Trade magazines like Pathways often provide jobs for those interested in the magazine field, he said.

Genevieve Diesing, a 2007 Northern Illinois University graduate who interned at the Journal Star last summer, recently was hired by a magazine in Chicago. As associate editor at the Chicago division of Schofield Media, an international publisher of trade magazines, she writes and edits copy on several different industries.

"I like what I'm doing now. It doesn't require the same passion as newspaper writing but it pays the bills and gives me experience while I try to get my foot in the door at more commercial magazines," she said.

Meanwhile, magazines continue to evolve. Two popular titles, CosmoGirl and Popular Mechanics, are slated for development as webisode projects. The online series will feature two- or three-minute episodes that will launch on the magazines' Web sites.

If successful, the Fox TV-Hearst Magazine collaboration might even be expanded to the network TV level, noted Advertising Age.

BoSacks Readers Speak Out: On MPA: Mags Must Adapt Or Die

BoSacks Readers Speak Out: On MPA: Mags Must Adapt Or Die

Re: MPA: Mags Must Adapt Or Die
Bo- I agree this is infuriating. I have been associated with the magazine business since 1985 when PIB reports came in binders. The MPA and PIB seem to have conspired to present information that has as much believability of cold war soviet era crop reports. I remember listening to soviet reports of ever increased production of crops, shoes, autos all of which were to point to vitality while the nation crumbled from the inside. How is this different?
Submitted by a Publisher)

Re: Wrong Again: The MPA and Readers
Bo: Perhaps the MPA misunderstands their mission? Bob, you use the word entrepreneurial a lot when you speak and sometimes when you write, I was wondering if there are any people at a management level of the MPA that understands what you are talking about. Is there a single entrepreneur in their ranks? If not, WHY not?

Re: Wrong Again: The MPA and Readers
Bob, The MPA is so clueless. users? 24/7? No wonder they are losing circulation. They don't know what they are doing!
(Submitted by an Industry Supplier)

Re: BoSacks Speaks Out: I Love Printing
I think I watched it like 6 times already. That is the best!!
Submitted by a Senior paper Buyer)
This video can still be found at www.bosacks.com - look for Bo's Videos on the right side of the web page

Re: BoSacks Speaks Out: I Love Printing
Bo, that was terrific. This guy is my new hero. All our CSR's are still laughing/crying.
Another cool moment in time. The BoSacks brilliance, where you never know what Bo will find and send out to the troups. Bravo.
(Submitted by a Senior Plant Manager)
This video can still be found at www.bosacks.com - look for Bo's Videos on the right side of the web page

Re: NewPage Announces Integration Restructuring Plans
and the beat goes on. Hope the paper buyers are reading this news. No more two year guarantees will be available, let alone one year protection. More customers who have purchased their own paper will now ask the printers to get the deals because the large printers will have more purchasing power. All the rules are going to change because the candy store for paper is finally closed. Amen.
(Submitted by a Senior paper Person)

Re: NewPage Announces Integration Restructuring Plans
God I hope people read this all the way through. For those who didn't please note: "we are merging the operations in a manner that will actually increase our 2008 North American production by 3-8% compared to the combined production in 2007."
(Submitted by a Senior Paper Manager)

Re: Shelter Magazine Publishers Adjust to Changing Housing Market
I didn't read U.S. House and Garden, but it was my wife's favorite magazine, by far. Dominique Browning's editorial put H&G far ahead of the competitors. Even Conde Nasty makes mistakes, and this one was huge. Their PR hype says that while circulation and customer loyalty were strong, somehow the media types didn't think the advertisers were interested. Hmmmmm...loyal, affluent subscribers...will pay anything that circulation will charge for their subscriptions...but some idiot in the CN marketing department thinks the title is old. Well, it's gone, and nothing to be done about that. Just make sure somebody shoots the idiot. My wife called and demanded a refund of her unfulfilled subscription, and was told that she was "not the first one" to do so. If she wanted Architectural Digest, offered as a substitute, she would have ordered it. Instead, she's resigned to enjoying the UK version of House and Gardens, for which she happily pays US$130 per year...for a monthly!
(Submitted by a Senior Director of MFG and Dst)

Re: The Passion of Steve Jobs
We are Mac people, because publishing is overwhelmingly a Mac environment, and I still think Macs are less irritating than other computers. But I am very tired of hearing about Steve Jobs. I first signed a contract with a publisher over 20 years ago, and compiled an 1800-page reference book on a little Kaypro pc because it cost a fraction of what Jobs was demanding for an Apple machine. He was trying to sell hardware instead of capturing the industry with his unique operating system and its features, and he might as well have been selling washing machines. If he was as smart as he thinks he is, we never would have heard of Bill Gates.
(Submitted by a Semi-retired writer)

Re: The Passion of Steve Jobs
Steve will not make a reader but watch the iPhone to become the mobile reader and the air to become the reader for college kids. Kids love Apple and they are the future consumers who want to but all Apple products. Kids today buy a new iPod each year.
(Submitted by a Vice President of Manufacturing Operations)

Re: The Passion of Steve Jobs
But are the 40% who don't read the one's advertisers and marketers want to reach? I highly doubt it.
(Submitted by a Publisher)

Re: The Passion of Steve Jobs
I suppose I'm getting old, but I find myself wondering how bad a Depression we would have to have to put all the #$*% video games and 'reality' TV out of business. How do we know that an electronic reading platform wouldn't make some inroads? I think book design is in a bad way; I work in a big-box bookstore and I don't see that many books that make me want to pick them up and look at them . . . but I'm probably just full of hot air . . .
(Submitted by an Unknown)

Re: Reaction Intense to Magazine Cover
Dave Seanor made this error in judgment because he is from the publishing side of the industry. He thought he was supposed to provide his customers with all the noose that was fit to print. No printer would have made a similar error because we know that, when dealing with customers, no noose is good noose.
(Submitted by a Senior Printer)

Golfweek Fires Editor Over 'Noose' Cover

Reaction Intense to Magazine Cover
By DOUG FERGUSON http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8bZqdcoe9gLMIhLuRLdt3Bq6nOQD8U7URH00 The editor of Golfweek magazine said he was overwhelmed by negative reaction to the photo of a noose on the cover of this week's issue, illustrating a story about the suspension of a Golf Channel anchor for using the word "lynch" in an on-air discussion about how to beat Tiger Woods.
"We knew that image would grab attention, but I didn't anticipate the enormity of it," Dave Seanor, vice president and editor of the weekly magazine, said from the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando, Fla.

"There's been a huge, negative reaction," he said. "I've gotten so many e-mails. It's a little overwhelming."

Among the critics was PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem, who said he found the imagery to be "outrageous and irresponsible."

"It smacks of tabloid journalism," Finchem said in a statement. "It was a naked attempt to inflame and keep alive an incident that was heading to an appropriate conclusion."

Kelly Tilghman was suspended for two weeks because of comments she made during the second round of the Mercedes-Benz Championship, when she and analyst Nick Faldo were discussing young challengers to Woods.

Faldo suggested that "to take Tiger on, maybe they should just gang up (on him) for a while."

"Lynch him in a back alley," Tilghman replied.

Tilghman said she apologized directly to the world's No. 1 player, and Woods' agent issued a statement that said it was a non-issue.

Seanor said editors at the magazine debated several choices for a cover, and he took responsibility for the noose. The title of the cover is "Caught in a Noose," with a sub-title, "Tilghman slips up, and Golf Channel can't wriggle free."

Golf Channel didn't deal with Tilghman's comments until Newsday in New York first wrote about the "lynch" reference three days after the broadcast. The suspension was announced shortly after the Rev. Al Sharpton demanded on CNN that Tilghman be fired.

"We're a weekly news magazine. The big story of the previous week was Kelly Tilghman, and that's what we chose," Seanor said. "How to illustrate that? It was tough. Do you put Kelly Tilghman out there? But was it so much about her or the uproar?

"This is emblematic of why people were so offended."

The Golfweek staff previously had scheduled a meeting with PGA Tour officials Thursday morning, and Seanor said the noose quickly became "item 1-A" on their agenda.

He said dozens of customers at the merchandise show stopped by the Golfweek stand and put an issue in their bag, with some stopping to discuss and complain.

"Most people who are objecting to it - within the golf industry - are saying this episode was just above over," Seanor said. "I think it's indicative of how, when you bring race and golf into the same sentence, everyone recoils."

Seanor said he was struck by the paucity of black customers among the thousands of people at golf's largest merchandise exposition.

"Look at the executive suites at the PGA Tour, or the USGA, or the PGA of America. There are very, very few people of color there," he said. "This is a situation in golf where there needs to be more dialogue. And when you get more dialogue, people don't want to hear it, and they brush it under the rug. This is a source of a lot of pushback."

Seanor said he expected canceled subscriptions over the issue. He was not sure how it would affect advertising. Golfweek is published by Orlando-based Turnstile Publishing Co.

Asked if he regretted the cover, Seanor paused before answering.

"I wish we could have come up with something that made the same statement but didn't create as much negative reaction," he said. "But as this has unfolded, I'm glad there's dialogue. Let's talk about this, and the lack of diversity in golf."

He denied the cover was an attempt to sell more magazines, noting that Golfweek is 99 percent subscriptions.

"I was a little shocked by the commissioner's reaction," he said. "It was rather strong, particularly from someone who rarely comments on things on his own tour."

The day after Tilghman was suspended, Finchem said it was clear the Golf Channel was "was taking this unfortunate incident very seriously."

"Over the years, many PGA Tour players and staff have had the chance to get to know Kelly," he said. "Knowing her, her comment seems to us to be very uncharacteristic and we believe it was completely inadvertent. We have no reason to believe that she was intentionally malicious in her remark."

Golfweek is one of two weekly magazines devoted entirely to golf.

Golf World, coincidentally put on its cover this week a photo of Bill Spiller, one of the black pioneers in the sport, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his push to integrate the PGA Tour.

----------------------------

Golfweek Fires Editor Over 'Noose' Cover
A cover about a controversy becomes a controversy of its own.
Dylan Stableford
http://www.foliomag.com/2008/golfweek-fires-editor-over-noose-cover

Golfweek has fired its editor less than a week after publishing a noose on its cover.

Dave Seanor, the editor responsible for the controversial cover, has been replaced with senior writer Jeff Babineau, the magazine confirmed Friday.

The cover was an attempt to illustrate a story on the racially-insensitive remarks made by a Golf Channel announcer about Tiger Woods. The anchor, Kelly Tilghman, suggested on-air that Woods' rivals "lynch him in a back alley."

"We apologize for creating this graphic cover that received extreme negative reaction from consumers, subscribers and advertisers across the country," William P. Kupper Jr., president of Turnstile Publishing Co., the parent company of Golfweek, said in a statement [1]. "We were trying to convey the controversial issue with a strong and provocative graphic image. It is now obvious that the overall reaction to our cover deeply offended many people. For that, we are deeply apologetic."

Seanor's firing came a day after the PGA Tour threatened to pull all of its advertising out of the magazine.

"Clearly, what Kelly said was inappropriate and unfortunate, and she obviously regrets her choice of words," PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said in a statement. "But we consider Golfweek's imagery of a swinging noose on its cover to be outrageous and irresponsible. It smacks of tabloid journalism. It was a naked attempt to inflame and keep alive an incident that was heading to an appropriate conclusion."

"We know we have a job ahead of us to re-earn the trust and confidence of many loyal readers," Babineau said in a note [2] posted on the Golfweek Web site. "Our staff is very passionate about the game. Our wish is that one regretful error does not erase more than 30 years of service we've dedicated to this industry."

BoSacks Speaks Out: I Love Printing

BoSacks Speaks Out: I Love Printing
I don't care who you are or what you do for a living; if you read my column you must see this video. It is the best, the funniest, the most poignant video of the printing business that I have ever seen or thought I might see. I intend to add it to all my lectures, I will cajole all my friends to come over for cocktails and a movie, I will implore all my readers . . . yes that means you to click on the link and see this video. And I also will send to Warren, the President & CEO of Pazazz Printing, and the star of this undertaking a huge thank you note.

2008 Print Budget Realities

2008 Print Budget Realities
Everyone wants to know the future, particularly when it relates to love and money. While we can't help in the love department, we can do something about the money part . . . at least as it relates to the cost of printing in 2008.

We spoke with industry expert Dick Gorelick, president of Gorelick & Associates, Inc. and the Graphic Arts Sales Foundation, and asked him what he predicts for the coming year.


PS: Is it inevitable that costs will rise for printing in 2008?DG: Yes. We believe that unit costs of manufacturing and distributing print will increase at a rate exceeding that of inflation. The key to offsetting the increases will be to address both sides of the cost-benefit equation. More effective, productive use of print is the only way to offset the full effect of these increases, which really began in December 2007.

PS: How will paper prices affect print costs this year?
DG: They'll be a major contributor to increased print costs in 2008. The increases seen in 2007 will continue this year, particularly for coated publication papers.

PS: What kind of paper price increases are we talking about?
DG: It's difficult to generalize because of differences in individual stocks, grades and mills, but I expect the increase to be in the neighborhood of 25 percent for coated and 20 percent for uncoated during the course of the year. Our original projections did not include the tariffs proposed on imported coated paper from China, South Korea and Indonesia.

PS: What accounts for these increases?
DG: Paper manufacturers have closed many large mills, some permanently, in order to bring supply into balance with demand. Transportation costs are also increasing as paper production has shifted offshore due to environmental rules that have discouraged the building and upgrading of mills in the United States.

PS: What about energy costs and their impact on transportation costs? Those have to be increasing as well.
DG: Absolutely. The price of oil just hit a $100 a barrel on January 3 before backing off. Paper mills are major users of natural gas and are subject to strict environmental regulations.

But it's not just energy costs affecting increases in transportation. There's actually a major shortage of drivers in the United States. In addition, drivers are now required by new government rules to present credentials proving they're in the U.S. legally when they enter seaports and airports. Drivers are also restricted in the number of hours per day that they can drive on the road.

To make matters worse, importers are anticipating a possible labor strike at all West Coast ports and are incurring additional costs (to be passed on to you) to shift their ports of destination to the East Coast.

PS: What other costs are expected to go up?
DG: Ink will likely track with paper costs in double-digit increases. Not a major cost in printing, but no increase is welcome.
Postal rates will also increase in the last half of 2008.

While the legislation passed last year capped rate increases to the rate of inflation in the Consumer Price Index, the Postal Service signed contracts with unions that exceed the predicted rate of inflation - and labor costs are almost 80 percent of all U.S. Postal Service costs.

Given these contracts, the decline in First Class mail and an expected several billion-dollar loss for fiscal 2007, it will be tough for them to find enough worksharing incentives and efficiencies to avoid another increase.

PS: How else will mailers be affected in 2008?DG: The deliverability of mail will become increasingly important as a means of reducing costs for the Postal Service. This affects mailers not only in terms of postage costs, but bottom-line results.

Good, clean databases and mailing lists are key elements. The cost of file preparation to take full advantage of data in a marketer's house list must be calculated by each print buying organization.

The use of psychographic, or "lifestyle," mailing lists is increasing. These lists are more expensive than traditional demographic lists but, correctly selected and used, can more than pay for themselves.

Generally, the cost of mailing lists hasn't fluctuated much in the last year or two and that will continue into 2008. Many mailers can lower the bottom-line cost of list acquisition through testing, improved list hygiene and mailing and negotiation with list providers.

PS: We heard some things last year with Do-Not-Mail lists. Do you think that will come to pass in 2008?
DG: Bills were introduced in fifteen state legislatures in 2007 banning for-profit companies from sending unsolicited promotions to addressees with whom they had not had a prior business relationship. None of them passed.

Some state legislators are already preparing bills for 2008 sessions. Environmentalists and other supporters say that Do-Not-Mail legislation would force marketers to be more efficient and thereby reduce their mailing costs.

It is anticipated that some form of Do-Not-Mail legislation will be introduced in about 25 state legislatures this year.

Opponents cite First Amendment rights violations. The marketing and printing communities vigorously oppose it saying it would add to their costs and damage business development. As you might imagine, the Postal Service also opposes such legislation.

PS: This sounds pretty gloomy. Are there any positive thoughts for printing budgets in 2008?
DG: Print buying is sure to be a challenge in 2008. Increased costs for paper, ink, postage, mailing lists, etc. are difficult to fight. And unlike before, you'll not be able to offset the increases by simply changing a format or using economies of scale.

As a practical matter, I'd recommend testing before doing a mailing. You can test physical format, method of postage, the offer, kind of paper, copy on the envelope, design, etc. and it's relatively inexpensive and simple.

Testing will uncover issues that can offset additional postage and material costs.

Bottom line - both sides of the cost-benefit equation need to be looked at. It will be necessary to address the effectiveness and productivity of print, wherever possible.

'Esquire's' Not-So-Secret Shame

'Esquire's' Not-So-Secret Shame
by Jeff Bercovici
There's something unseemly about the lingerie spread in the February issue of Esquire, and it has nothing to do with all the skin on display.

Four Victoria's Secret models adorn the cover in an homage to a classic Esquire photo of Angie Dickinson. Inside is a nine-page photo feature in which the models pose in various undergarments and offer "expert buying advice" for the discriminating male lingerie shopper. Their advice, of course, is to buy Victoria's Secret underwear; it's the only brand shown.

I don't know for certain that the magazine made an explicit deal to showcase only Victoria's Secret products in exchange for access to the models -- I haven't heard back yet from editor in chief David Granger -- but it seems fairly obvious that it did.

If so, so what? Lifestyle magazine cover stories are promotional almost by definition. Every time an actor or actress appears on a cover, it's because he or she has a movie, album or other project to hawk. And if that movie, album or other project didn't get mentioned in the profile, that magazine could count on an earful from the star's publicist.

And yet...this feels different, in a bad way. Partly it's because Esquire has a prouder journalistic pedigree than most other lifestyle rags (as it will be constantly reminding us in this, its 75th anniversary year). While Esquire grubs in the celebrity-access marketplace like everybody else, it frequently seems to hold its nose while doing so; its efforts to avoid being just another studio publicity tool have produced some truly tortured journalism. In lowering itself, then, Esquire has farther to fall than most.

But even more than that, it's the nakedness of this particular quid pro quo. These women were invited here to sell magazines, and they came to sell underwear. For the space of nine pages, Esquire stops being Esquire and becomes a piece of Victoria's Secret's marketing strategy, indistinguishable from the catalogs and commercials these same models appear in, wearing the very same lace demi push-up bras and come-hither expressions.

The whole thing is reminiscent of what happened in 2003, when Harper's Bazaar put Madonna, who was at that time modeling for the Gap, on the cover. Not only was she wearing Gap clothes, but the image used was an outtake from a Gap advertising shoot. Bazaar, like Esquire, is owned by Hearst Magazines; read into that what you will (and, yes, bear in mind that I work for Conde Nast, Hearst's main competitor).

I don't want to inflate the importance of the principles at stake here, or give the impression that I'm opposed to depicting hot women in their skivvies (especially in light of this). No doubt the average men's magazine reader would rather have racy pictures of Adriana Lima than honest product coverage. But why shouldn't they get both?

--------------------------------

The Ethics of the 'SI' Swimsuit Issue
http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/01/14/esquires-not-so-secret-shame

Did Sports Illustrated cut costs on its annual swimsuit issue with a journalistically shady deal? That's the implication of an item in yesterday's Cindy Adams column -- but the magazine says it's not true.

Adams claims SI got a sweetheart deal from the Israeli tourism bureau, which paid half the airfare to fly a crew of 17 to the Holy Land for a photo shoot with hot sabra Bar Rafaeli. It wouldn't be the first time the Israeli government reached out to an American magazine to promote travel; Maxim featured a "Women of the Israeli Defense Forces" spread in its July issue.

From a purist standpoint, letting a third party pick up part of the tab for a photo shoot is definitely a no-no. In its ethics guidelines, the Society of Professional Journalist warns members to "refuse gifts, favors, fees, free travel and special treatment...if they compromise journalistic integrity."

Of course, whether a photographer shooting swimsuit models is involved in a journalistic enterprise in any sense is an open question. "The whole swimsuit issue is such a shameless departure from the type of journalism SI does each week, it defies explanation and I wouldn't treat anything in the issue seriously," says Andy Schotz, chairman of SPJ's ethics committee.

"My own feeling is that it's primarily entertainment and doesn't even attempt to display integrity," says Fred Brown, vice chairman of the committee. "Other stuff, perhaps, but not integrity."

But Bob Steele, ethics group leader at the Poynter Institute, says letting a tourism bureau underwrite a swimsuit issue shoot could be the start of a "slippery slope."

"What if, instead, it had to do with the Olympic venues in China?" he asks. "What if it was a photo shoot on a college campus having to do with a new athletic arena? You can imagine the 'what ifs' that take it from something seemingly as innocuous as a swimsuit issue into a controversial sports venue where the stakes are much greater and the journalism element much clearer."

The whole issue is moot, however, according to an SI spokesman, who says Adams mischaracterized the arrangement behind the shoot. "Because it was a large group, our travel party used a corporate media rate that's standard practice for all media companies," he says. Neither the Israeli tourism office nor anyone else chipped in, he adds.

WSJ.com free? Should we?

WSJ.com free? Should we?
By Marie Griffin
Is there a future for paid-subscription business news Web sites? This familiar question is being raised again as The Wall Street Journal Online, lauded as the most successful paid business media site, may be shifting soon to a completely ad-supported model.

On Dec. 13, the day News Corp. finalized its acquisition of WSJ.com parent Dow Jones & Co., Rupert Murdoch, News Corp. chairman-CEO, told Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto: "At the moment, we sell [subscriptions to WSJ.com] to about 1 million people at a theoretical $50 a year. . . . Of that $50 million, $15 million [goes into] just getting subscribers and looking after them." By removing the subscription firewall, he said, worldwide viewership would rocket to 20 million, providing "more than enough advertising to make up the difference."

The online paid-subscription model is as uncommon in b-to-b media as it is among general business media, but Media Business reached out to three executives who oversee paid sites for their views on the paid-versus-free debate.

Prescott Shibles, VP of Penton Media's New Media Group, called WSJ.com's likely elimination of paid subscriptions "a completely horrible strategy. It's foolish to throw away subscription money, which is more or less an annuity, in favor of 100% advertising, which has huge up and down swings."

Although most of Penton's sites are advertising-based, the company has a few successful paid-subscription models. Trusts & Estates, for example, charges one subscription fee that covers 12 print issues and online access, with no free online content.

WardsAuto.com offers articles from related print publications for free and a paid subscriber-only section with extensive industry data and advanced vertical search capabilities. Supermarket News subscribers must pay for the print publication. Online, they can opt to view only free content, pay to access premium online content without the print edition or subscribe to a bundle including premium online content and the magazine.

"The hybrid model allows you to take advantage of search engine optimization and drive as much traffic as possible to the site, but you also can hold some content back for premium people," Shibles said. To give up subscription revenue, he said, is "a short-term grab as opposed to a long-term growth strategy. We want to grow our business on all fronts."

ALM publishes more than a dozen law newspapers, including The National Law Journal and regional dailies and weeklies. Print editions and their corresponding Web sites require paid subscriptions.

Alex Kamm, ALM's VP-digital strategy and business development, said, "We definitely believe strongly in subscription-based sites. We can get payment for our subscriptions online for the same reason we can in print, because we provide must-have content for a specific audience."

Although WSJ.com has an opportunity to grow its audience 10-to-20-fold by going free, "we don't have huge CPMs," Kamm said. "We reach small, targeted audiences that are important to advertisers. We want to increase our advertising revenue but not because we're trying to replace subscription revenue."

Like Kamm, Bill Scott, VP-group publisher of Jobson's Retail Optical Group, said that must-have information is crucial to the paid-subscription model.

Retail optical industry news is rarely covered by the general media, so the news provided in twice-weekly VMail Extra e-newsletters is essential. "Because VMail is viewed as need-to-have by our industry, they are willing to pay for it," Scott said.

VMail subscribers, who pay about $80 a year, also get full, unlimited access to visionmonday.com. Although there's no separate subscription for the Web site, nonsubscribers have their access limited to content from the current print issue, the multimedia section and the OptiStock financial section.

So far, price resistance hasn't been an issue, Scott said. "Two years ago we doubled the subscription price and we ended the year with about 10% more subscribers than we started with," he said. Based on that, Scott doesn't expect much change in the subscription base with the 10% price hike he's implementing this year.

The State of b-to-b media

The State of b-to-b media
By Matthew Schwartz
Business media companies continue to recalibrate their brands for the Internet, where advertisers can get immediate and measurable returns on their investments. But while digital media and trade shows remain the primary growth areas for publishers, print is still the core for most b-to-b media brands.

Here are 10 key trends to watch heading into 2008, a year expected to be marked by a slowing economy and increasing pressure on companies to justify their marketing spending.

Repurposing print
Through August (the most recent month for which figures were available), b-to-b ad pages fell 3.3% compared with the same period in 2006, according to Business Information Network data released by American Business Media. Ad revenue declined 2% during the same period. Magazine revenue is expected to drop 2% to 7% in 2008, according to ABM.

To wring more value from print, publishers are shrinking the size of their magazines and reducing their frequency. But in some cases, they're also pumping up their investment. For example, Questex Media's Travel Agent in September switched to a biweekly frequency from a weekly, while upgrading its paper quality, design and editorial content. Since the revamp, the magazine has seen a spike in advertising, both in print and online, said Questex President-CEO Kerry Gumas. "The changes could be a bellwether for b-to-b publishers in nontech markets on how to satisfy the needs of customers in a traditional print format," he said.


Coping with rising production expenses
While there has been some moderate relief in postal rates under the recently enacted Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, the same cannot be said for paper costs. ABM President-CEO Gordon Hughes II said business publishers face a 14% annual increase in paper prices this year.

Millions of tons of capacity have been taken out of the market, said Mike Bennett, a sales executive at paper producer Bulkley Dunton Publishing Group, pointing to recent shutdowns of paper mills by UPM, Fraser and Tembec. "We're still scratching our heads," he said, referring to the closings.

With chemical and energy prices continuing to rise, paper prices may rise even higher than predicted this year.


Integrated marketing marches on
Integrated marketing is fast becoming the industry standard, as publishers strive to offer buyers what they hope is the right mix of media vehicles to help them get their messages out.

But with a squeeze on b-to-b marketing budgets expected this year, publishers will have to go the extra mile when crafting integrated marketing plans, said John French, president-CEO of Penton Media.

Penton's Registered Rep, a monthly publication aimed at independent financial brokers, offers integrated buys that include print, online and events. For its biggest customers, it can add customized research.

"It's not just selling someone pages and online space but information that can become part of the customer's overall strategy," French said, adding that in a tight economy, business publishers also have to be careful not to "unbundle" integrated packages and have the buyer pit the price of one medium against the others.

Building events
Face-to-face revenue has been growing in recent years, and ABM predicts a gain of 7% to 10% this year. Business publishers have been capitalizing on this growth in events, both in physical space and online.

One of those publishers is Canon Communications, which has 55 events targeting the advanced manufacturing sector. In particular, Canon has been out front with a co-location strategy. Last year it co-located three major shows: National Manufacturing Week, Assembly Technology Expo and Quality Expo.

Buyers "are under more pressure to justify their time and money and, by offering co-located events, you give them an itinerary of primary objectives for attending a show but also a set of secondary objectives by visiting related events under the same roof," said Charles McCurdy, CEO of Canon and Apprise Media.

Reed Exhibitions, Americas, which has more than 100 trade shows and events, launched ISC365.com last March to leverage Reed's ISC West and ISC East shows, which target security markets. The Web site includes news feeds from five publications covering security, a product database, a search engine and archives from previous ISC shows. It will soon add Web 2.0 elements. "It's not about a trade show, or online or anything else, per se," said Chet Burchett, president of the division. "It's about contacts, content and community."

Expanded Web distribution
As the Web drives business conversation and pulls in more sales prospects, publishers are changing the way their assets are distributed online.

For example, with IDG Connect, a database of 5.5 million IT professionals, IDG Communications is "able to market to individuals directly," said Bob Carrigan, president-CEO of IDG Communications. He said that through IDG Connect, the company can approach prospects "by the stuff they buy or the industry they work in."

Another trend that plays right into business publishes' strengths: content syndication. IDG recently cut a deal with widget provider Clearsping to syndicate IDG's content across a number of online networks. "We have a tremendous opportunity to get our brands in front of new users and cast a wide net, because you have to assume that not everyone is going to find your Web site," Carrigan said.

Digital revenue for b-to-b media companies is expected to grow 18% to 22% this year, according to ABM.

Online video emerges
Online video is becoming an integral part of publishers' Web sites. According to research company eMarketer, online video advertising spending in the U.S. will grow to $1.3 billion this year, up from $225 million in 2006.

There are two ends of the online video spectrum: broadcast quality and what Fritz Nelson, senior VP at CMP, calls "grainy, YouTube-ish video." Considering that the cost for broadcast-quality video can be prohibitively expensive, b-to-b media companies are going for something in between, he said.

"It's a middle ground," Nelson said, adding he anticipates that this year business publishers will lose preroll ads that are packaged with online video in favor of deploying "lower-third," text-based ads recently popularized by YouTube.

CMP's online programs range from "The Friday ITch," a humorous look at IT trends, to magazine-based shows "CRN TV" and "CIOs Uncensored."

CMP is also selectively repurposing some stories that originate in print. "Just because you run a big story doesn't mean it can lend itself to video," Nelson said. "You have to ask, `Will viewers be interested in seeing something about it?' You have to think about visuals."

Putting the brakes on M&As?
The ongoing credit crunch and mortgage mess "have filtered down into parts of the banking industry that lend directly to media companies or finance media transactions," said Richard Mead, a managing director at media investment bank Jordan, Edmiston Group. Despite the challenges, "b-to-b media deals will continue to get done" in 2008, Mead said. "It's not going to be a fallow period."

The media and information M&A market last year saw 838 transactions with a combined value of nearly $110.0 billion, up 32% and 79%, respectively, from 2006, according to a report by Jordan, Edmiston. The online media and marketing services sectors led the charge in 2007 with a combined 555 transactions valued at $43.0 billion.

Private equity companies have fueled many of the major b-to-b media transactions, such as Veronis Suhler Stevenson's acquisition last March of Advanstar Communications for $1.2 billion. However, the biggest media deal of 2007 was executed by a strategic player-News Corp.'s $5.6 billion acquisition of Dow Jones & Co.

Challenges for strategic companies
With private equity companies struggling with their exposure to the current banking woes, strategic b-to-b media companies may loom large on the M&A front this year.

Reed Business Information made a big splash in the industry in December 2006 when it acquired lead generation company BuyerZone, which links prospective buyers to qualified suppliers in more than 134 business product and service categories. The deal could be a harbinger for business publishers that want to move aggressively online.

"It brings buyers and sellers together to another level," said Tad Smith, CEO of Reed Business. "But let me tell you, there are not a lot of BuyerZones out there." He added that Reed Business continues to be an acquisitive mode. "For strategic companies, the acquisition situation has been improving the past few months, but that's offset by a more worrying economic environment, and there's still some resistance to sensible pricing," he said.

'Wonderful' time to be a small publisher
Smaller publishers face the same rising costs as large publishers but have fewer financial resources to deal with them. Gary Redmond, partner and director of publishing operations at Construction Business Media, is unbowed, though.

"It's a wonderful time to be a small publisher, with a lot of advantages if you can niche smartly," he said. Smaller publishers-those with less than $50 million in annual revenue-comprise about 55% of b-to-b media companies.

After spending 13 years at Hanley Wood and McGraw-Hill Cos., Redmond launched Construction Business Media in 2003 with one title: Architectural Products. In 2006 he added a quarterly supplement called Illuminate, and in May 2007 introduced the stand-alone Architectural SSL. The company's revenue rose 49% last year.

Redmond said smaller publishers' ability to stay nimble is particularly valuable in the current climate. "The velocity of clients' needs is accelerating, and it's incumbent upon business publishers to respond in kind," he said. "We have the ability to foster an atmosphere of creative thinking, which is more easily done in a small workplace than a big one."

Going global
Despite the ongoing weakness in the U.S. dollar, there are ample opportunities for business publishers to try and penetrate overseas markets, said Bill Baumann, group publisher at Penton Media's Electronic Design Group, which in 2006 launched Electronic Design-China and Microwaves & RF China in concert with Global Sources and CMP. IDG Corp., Hearst Business Media and Reed Business also have major stakes in China.

The emerging business class in the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) hungers for b-to-b information and the attendant tools that business publishers can provide.

"You have to be in it for the long-haul," Baumann said, referring to investing overseas. Of course, having a legitimate Web site makes "you an international publisher by default so you know how important overseas markets can be," he said.