The (British) Guardian newspaper has added yet another innovative way to show how a newspaper can read, feel, and look like a magazine on a daily basis. The G24 daily magazine on the Guardian Unlimited newly revamped web site offers readers the opportunity to download and print, yes PRINT the pdf of five different sections that are updated every 15 minutes, yes UPDATED every 15 minutes. The sections offered are Top Stories, World, Media, (check it here media.pdf), Business and Sports. The family of The Guardian newspaper continues to grow and to provide readers/viewers a good, very good interactive paper that provides a link between the pixels on the screen and the ink on paper. Check it out here and note the content, the ads and the design of the G24 paper that publishes 96 times a day in five different sections. There are a lot of lessons to be learned here. Just keep in mind that all the planning for the future will not help if you can’t survive the present. When will our newspapers wake up and stop killing themselves…I keep on wondering which paper will be the first to take the lead and make us survive the present and help us look for a great future… Our industry needs a leader who is willing to look across the Atlantic and see what has been done with newspapers all across the world (including the one above). Our future is NOW… either CHANGE or DIE, there is no third option.
Archive for the ‘Across the Pond’ Category
From one to 96 issues a DAY: Check out the G24 paper
May 11, 2007There is no nudity in NUDE
May 10, 2007
Washing on our shores in the United Stated is the first international issue of NUDE magazine, the British magazine with “100 pages of countercultural goodness.” The folks at NUDE tell the readers that the magazine was born in 2003 “as a 36-page magazine that was distributed primarily in London. However, as the magazine has grown, it’s scope has broadened in recognition of the fact that great artists, musicians, filmmakers and writers etc, come from all over the globe. As such, NUDE will continue to cover an eclectic mix of international mainstream culture, but from a very British perspective.” Well, NUDE will be a welcomed, but different, addition to the United States market. The square-sized magazine ushers an easy to follow design combined with lots and lots of “Music & Graphics & Hip Lit.” The handy sized magazine is worth every penny of its $6.99 cover price. One important final note about NUDE, you can expect a lot of things in this magazine, NUDITY is not one of them. Even with its name, the magazine goes “beyond the counter culture.”
Meet the world’s Chief Magazineologist
May 3, 2007
I met Ravi Pathare for the first time at the Amsterdam Airport last March. We were on our way together to the We Love Magazines Colophon 2007 meeting in Luxembourg. His card read “Chief Magazineologist” at Mag Nation Pty Ltd. in New Zealand. Mag Nation is a chain of magazine stores in New Zealand and Australia. Having never met a Magazineologist I was delighted to meet him and learn more about this Magazineologist background. Well, enough suspense…here is the story of the world’s first Chief Magazineologist in his own words.
“I graduated in 1979 as a doctor, completed my post graduation in Pathology four years later (nothing as gruesome as BONES and other whodunnit thrillers) and practiced as a Consulting Pathologist in busy Bombay to develop a very flourishing private practice in a few years time. Got tired of the rat race and chucked it all up to enjoy the green pastures of down under NZ where I moved to in 1994. Got sucked into the world of magazines in 2000 (and delighted for it), chucked up my profession and been doing it for the last 7 years. It was originally called Mega Mags but rebranded to Mag Nation in March 2006.Currently have 4 stores, 3 in Auckland and 1 in Melbourne. Our flagship Melbourne store stocks close to 4000 titles. Our 4th store (3rd in Auckland) opened in March 2007 and the fifth one opens in Melbourne in Sept. 2007. Plan to have 6 stores by the end of 2007 and 14 by end of 2008. We do trendy, quirky, innovative stuff like having theme weeks in the stores – T-World week, Sneaker Freaker Week, Knit in Week, Stencil art week in conjunction with POL Oxygen magazine etc. There. The story of my life.”
Ravi Pathare
Ravi recently send me the above three first issues of new magazines to add to my growing collection of first editions. Thanks Ravi and it was great to have met the world’s first ever magazineologist. I can’t wait to visit Mag Nation and have a cup of Java while spending a few hours, make that days from the look in the pictures of the stores, in yet another “heaven on earth” magazine location Down Under.
The Good, the bad and the ugly…
April 30, 2007
Just came back from Helsinki. My first stop was (of course a newsstand) at the Detroit Airport. Two things stopped me, both National Geographic and Time magazine share the same cover story. I guess great editors think alike. Walked a little bit more towards my gate and received my first welcome back surprise. A different cover of National Geographic at another newsstand stopped me. Same story but different cover within a few feet. (It seems that more than one distributor serves the Detroit Airport). My second surprise was that the covers of the magazines were not the same as their European edition covers that I bought in Amsterdam. I perfectly understand that the technology makes it easier for us to deliver relevant content to relevant audiences in relevant locations. So the decision of Time to have a story on European Soccer was perfectly understandable. But when I look at the cover story of the National Geographic European edition on India, I have to ask myself the question, how is a cover story on India more relevant to Europe than the story of America’s birth. All three insides of National Geographic are the same. There were no major changes inside National Geographic like those inside Time magazine. One thing I give credit to the National Geographic folks: they managed to confuse me here and abroad with this cover strategy. Please explain the relevance of having two different covers here, and of using India as the European cover story instead of either of the American covers. On the other hand, I continue to be pleasantly surprised by the direction Time magazine has taken since its revamp, and I can completely understand and expect the different covers of their overseas editions with their different content. The story of split covers will continue…
You are not the READER… and 5 other commandments of journalism
April 25, 2007I just gave a keynote speech at the Finnish Periodical Publishers Association in Helsinki. The title of my speech was “Are magazines relevant in tomorrow’s marketplace?” The simple answer for the question was YES. The more detailed presentation followed this outline: 1. Journalists and reporters are not the readers. 2. Journalist should remain in charge in order to create Good Relevant Content to a Relevant Audience via the Relevant Medium. 3. Each and every member of your society may become your freelance informer, but he or she is NOT the trained expert or journalist. 4. The Smart One Shop Stop media company will be involved in all media, yet they have to provide different content in different departments (you do not want to buy your dress from the cafeteria in the store, although both items are in the store). 5. Good Content will remain King and Queen, based on four basic elements: good reporting, good writing, good editing and a good sense of news judgment, regardless of the medium. 6. Good design will help Good content, but Good design will NEVER help BAD content. In short, focus on the readers’ needs, wants and desires and not on your colleagues’ view of you or on the awards you may win for your work.
Loft Bookazine… Living, Travel and Architecture
April 25, 2007
From Sweden comes this new quarterly “Bookazine” part book, part magazine. Yet, the whole is much larger than the sum of the two parts. The magazine is bilingual, Swedish and English, and is aimed at the cream of the crop of audiences worldwide. The price tag is a hefty one: 22 Euros in Europe and $28 in the USA. I picked up the first issue on the stands in Helsinki where I am keynoting today the Finnish Periodical Publishers Association conference. Loft’s founder Mikael Becker is a mutli-tasker. He writes in the first issue, “I created the Loft concept, which currently consists of Loft Bookazine, loftcard, the Loft television series and the Loft website. Right now I feel proud, happy and exhausted.” And can you blame him? It took him a year to get the whole concept of Loft refined “like polishing a diamond.” This boutique magazine continues in the latest trend of other boutique magazines from the Nordic countries using their own language and English as a second language in the magazine to create that instant international flavor and flair to the magazine. Loft has been able to do so ever so graciously. The picture above is from the loftcard web site. A very good example of what some like to call “publishing 360.”
Brits “cover up” for the U.S.A.
April 24, 2007
The cover of the UK’s April issue of GQ carried a three page fold out “world exclusive” picture of model Naomi Campbell revealing a little too much… however, when the magazine traveled across the Atlantic the cover had undergone some significant changes and additions in very strategic areas as you can see from the two covers above. The one on the left is the UK original, the one on the right is the British import to our shores…Who said we did not learn any lessons from Ms. Jackson’s mishap at the Super Bowl!
Magazine Lovers Unite and Enjoy…
April 22, 2007The blogs are uniting magazine lovers from all over the world. Last week when I wrote about Rosie, the new Swedish magazine, the folks at vassaeggen filled in the blanks for me… The same happens all the time with the German Slanted blog and the British blogs that are listed on my blogroll. The latest magazine blog comes from The Netherlands (via my friend Jeremy’s Mag Culture blog in England) and it is called Bladblog. It joins another blog I am very familiar with in Holland aimed at Customer Media. It is a shame that, I for one, can’t speak or read most of these languages, however, the illustrations and pictures that are posted on the blogs will give you quite a good idea about how vibrant our magazine world is. Unite, look, and you don’t have to read to enjoy.
A Swedish Rosie magazine is born…
April 17, 2007
I do not know what is the reason for this flurry of European new magazine titles trying to either revive titles that have come and gone in the States such as George, or the use of proper names for their new magazines following the footsteps of O, the Oprah magazine. I know it is not a new trend to name the magazine after a proper name, but the recent increase in this trend is what caught my attention. The Dutch have their Linda and Catherine, The Finns have their Sara and Olivia, and the Swedes have Laura, M and now Rosie… However as much as I can tell, the Swedish Rosie is a new magazine for outdoor living, and if you can speak Swedish you can read all about it here, or for more info about Rosie and other Sewdish magazines click here to read the comments in English from vassaeggen.se (thanks for the info folks)…I hope they have a better luck dealing with the outdoors rather than the indoors and the courts….
Wow…what a Volt!
April 5, 2007
This magazine is definitely going into my vault. Volt is the new British magazine that wants to “breathe new fire and direction to the genre of ‘The Fashion Magazine’.” An oversized publication (13 x 17) the first Volt delivers “an electrifying celebration of great British fashion, beauty and talent…” The magazine invites the readers “on a journey of tantalizing imagery” and what a journey it is. Stunning photography and an unusual mix of color and black and white makes Volt a must for any creative person with a passion to fashion and beauty. “With a pinch of imagination and a dash of innovation,” the editors “have brought forth something brave, fresh and addictive– a treasure to be hung on walls, collected, or merely admired.” And you can do any or all of the aforementioned without damaging the magazine. It comes folded but not bound, so it is all ready to frame. Published only twice yearly will make the wait for the second journey tough, but worth it. Volt is edited by Rui Faria and designed by Michael Harrison.
